Here’s to Classy Cabs for D.C.

I was just grumbling about D.C.’s taxi hodgepodge. It turns out this is a bigger issue in the city than I had realized. The Washington Post reports on a bill unveiled today:

The mayor, not the Taxicab Commission, would be charged with deciding whether cabs should be a single color and which color that should be. All cabs will also have “an emblem symbolizing the flag of the District of Columbia”; taxi companies would be allowed to have an unique insignia on their cabs. The deadline would be one year from enactment.

We’re not just talking about credit-card readers and GPS here. The law would digitize record keeping within a year, mandating devices that send trip data to the commission in real time and “can record and report all fares and earnings for tax purposes.” Expect big time pushback from the cab industry on this; it means real financial accountability for the first time.