 This is St. Tech, Hawaii. Community matters here. I'm Marcia Joyner, and we are navigating the journey. And today, today, we are navigating the journey in the taxi. Charlie's taxis and limousines. We have the honor of having Dale Evans, who is the CEO of Charlie's Taxis and Limousines. Aloha, Dale. Thank you so much for coming. Oh, thank you for having me. It is a real pleasure to have you. And so we're going on this journey in the taxi cab, of course. Where else? So the taxi cab company, your company, has been in service for how long? For 80 years. 1938. Before the World War II. When in 1938? Oh, I'm not sure. My parents just always said it was 1938. I was born in 1938. That's why I'm asking. Okay. So your mother and father were the owners of the cab? Yes. How did that happen? How did they start? Well, my father came from Maui. He was born in Hana, and he moved to Paella. And he was always interested in motorcycles and cars. So when he came to Honolulu, he worked for universal motors and some of those other big companies. And then in repairing cars, he decided he wanted to go into the taxi business. Well, I imagine in 1938, that must have been the only other than street cars for taxi. Oh, no. There were others. There was Irish taxi, Harrison's taxi, you know. Okay. So then how is it that you became the CEO of the company? Well, in 1967, my mother asked me to come home and help her. And that's how I come. I used to work in the business in helping her when I was in high school, answering phones. There's your mother. How pretty. So tell us about when you were in high school. You said you came home to watch, to help? No. When I was in high school, I was helping her. And then I did drive. So I have my chauffeur's license. I must be the oldest person having a hundred little chauffeur's license. Can we see this? Okay. But nowadays they don't have this kind of license. Is that a medallion? No, no, that's just a chauffeur's badge. If we look at camera three, can you see the button, Dale's button? When did you get this? In 1957. You can see my picture in the back. Oh. So this is what identified taxi drivers? Yes. So you were a taxi driver in the fifties? Yes. Yeah, I just did it for when I came home from college one summer. So then, so you have grown into this huge conglomerate of vehicles? Well, the company used to be much bigger before we had about 575 taxis. But in 1980, after I came home, I gave up my car for three years. I wanted to find out the moment of truth. And the drivers didn't like me at all because I found out that we had to improve in order to make our service good. So we needed to have clean cars, we needed to have courteous and helpful drivers. And so that's when I started training drivers on helping the disabled because in 1980, we already knew that there would be a burgeoning of the seniors. Yeah. And so I started MediCab in 1980. The MediCab. For those of you that don't know what a MediCab is, it is part of the fleet of handy vans. So that you use the MediCab or MediCab when, because the cab is door to door where the handy van is curved to curve. So that's, and it is outfitted for disabled people, wheelchairs and things like that. Well, this, okay, the MediCab is a door to door, it's an escort service. In other words, we go to the house. Right. And receive the patient or the party. And then we walk them to the car. Then we take them to the hospital or to the doctor's office. And then we walk them into the nurses station. Then the nurse is told by the driver to call 20 minutes before the patient is going to be released. So that the driver is actually waiting for the passenger. And then after that, then they walk them back to the car. Typically they have to go to a pharmacy and then they're taken home and taken back to the door. So there's a lot of time involved. So in addition to the point to point taxi meter, then we do charge a $5 MediCab fee, which is very, very reasonable. That is. Because of the time it takes at least 20 minutes extra time in order to help these people. But we know that we have, I wanted all the drivers to realize that this was our market. So that's why this MediCab door-to-door is not something that HandiVan does. No. That's what I was trying to tell the difference. The HandiVan is curb-to-curb. And if you have a dialysis appointment, the HandiVan is not going to guarantee that you will get there on time where the MediCab, is that what you call it, the MediCab, will get you there on time. And for anybody that knows dialysis, you must be on time, you know. So the thing about the MediCab differential, because even if you call a taxi, we'll pick you up on time, but the difference is that it's the door-to-door. Door-to-door. Yes, it is. So, yeah, this conglomerate of limousines, what are the limousines for? Oh, well, I've been doing Hilton Hawaiian Village for the past 25 years, and so I'm the transportation contractor, except for they have five or six SUVs. We do all of their transportation, whether or not it's buses, limousines, sprinter, shuttles or whatever, we do all the transportation. So that's why we have all types of cars. All kinds of cars. So now that you've got limousines and cabs and all kinds of vehicles, what are the biggest obstacles that you face with A, with the city, with the streets, with the transportation as a whole as the CEO of the company? What are the biggest obstacles? Well, we have a transportation crisis, in my opinion, because, number one, we have the worst traffic congestion. We're number two in the world, in the United States. We also have severe shortage of lanes. Per capita, we have the least number of roads per capita in the United States and the territories. Puerto Rico has more streets, roads than we do. And so another thing is that for the seniors and for the disabled people, the city is in violation and has been for the past decade or 15 years, they are in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, because there's not enough supply. But the way that they're dispatching it is, to me, questionable. So I don't think that they're paying as much attention that they need to to the seniors and the people that are on no income and fixed income. So, those, the city, what about these other transportation vehicles or whatever they're called? You're talking about Uber and Lyft? Uber and Lyft. Now, what effect does that have on metered taxes? Well, I think going back to your last question, the thing is that these operators have come in and have lower standards. In other words, they don't have to have fingerprinting, which means that you know the true identity of the person. In their system, you can go in and use alias names. That's why so many crimes are happening, because they're using aliases to avoid their criminal background. But don't they have their driver's license? Doesn't that have their fingerprint on it? Not to work for them. You don't have to have that. But you have to have a city, I mean a state driver's license. You have to have a white driver's license, right? And then they don't have to have a medical certificate. So somebody with, when they were testifying at the city, some of the people said that they were on dialysis, which means that they could have seizures. You mean the driver is on dialysis? The driver was saying that they were driving in between dialysis treatment. And another thing too is that the reason why we require the medical certificate is because if you go and get the federally mandated doctor's examination, you have to have a lab test. As you know, TB is very contagious. And there are many, the lab tests will detect different kind of diseases. So those are the two most important things that the taxi industry has been fighting for, because the city has repealed those qualifications. Our opposition has not been about competition. Our opposition has been on the vetting, the consumer protections. So the city regulates the transportation? Is that it, not the state, the city? Well, the city, the state does have a state transportation law. Hawaii revised statute 271. That's a motor carrier act. But in the motor carrier act, they make an exemption for the counties to regulate taxis. It doesn't say TNCs or Uber and Lyft. It only says taxis. And it does have for other types of vehicles, but as far as the four hire, it's the taxis I exempted. But these people say that they're not taxis. But they are taxis. Well, I would think so. No, they're doing the same thing. But they don't do it as well. And they're not as qualified. So what can you do about that? Well, I think this is a political problem, because in the last two years, we've been inundated with 12 bills. Is this the city? Yes. At the city. And then two of the bills passed, but they lowered or repealed standards. So the public is in danger because the mayor wants to make another bill that will do away with further consumer protections because under the law, taxi law now, you have to take the shortest, most direct route so that the drivers won't cheat you, right? Right. But the mayor says as long as a taxi driver tells you what the fare is going to be, it's okay. So if they want to charge you double or triple or five times the fare, it's okay if you agree. Now that's how over and lift charge. So what they have done is to allow price gouging of passengers. Another thing that the mayor wants to do is to do away with the non-discrimination. In other words, no trip refusal. Under the taxi ordinance, the taxi driver cannot refuse you. So if you walk up to the taxi, they can't refuse you. Right. But over and lift, they can only pick you up if you order. And in order to order, you have to have a subscription where you're going to say that you're going to agree to all of their terms, you give them your credit card and you authorize all the charges. It's not like you go to a grocery store and you have your credit card and you know how much it's going to cost. You don't know until after you get the bill. Right. So we have to go for a break, but I wanted to talk to you about the difference in the taxis at the airport and do lift and Uber go to the airport? Yes. They were allowed to December 1st of last year. But can they sit and wait like the taxis do? No. They have two places so far. So they pick up there. But the difference about that is that the taxi drivers, under the taxi ordinance, are not allowed to pass on the state imposed fees. So the taxi drivers have to pay the state $5. What is the fee for? Pickup on the property. But the Uber and Lyft do not have to pay that amount. That's for what? So when the taxi driver, when to compete against Uber and Lyft, they have to pay $5. So it's impossible for them to lower their rate because they're going to, they're out $5 anyway, you know. Who gets the $5? The state, the airport. Just to sit and wait? Yeah. All right. That's ridiculous. But anyway, we need to take a break and we'll be right back. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. When I was growing up, I was among the one in six American kids who struggle with hunger and hungry mornings make tired days. Grumpy days. Kind of days. But with the power of breakfast, the kids in your neighborhood can think big and be more. When we're not hungry for breakfast, we're hungry for more. More ideas. More dreams. More fun. When kids aren't hungry for breakfast, they can be hungry for more. Go to hungeris.org and lend your time or your voice to make breakfast happen for kids in your neighborhood. Aloha. I want to invite all of you to talk story with John Wahe'e every other Monday here at Think Tech Hawaii. And we have special guests like Professor Colin Moore from the University of Hawaii who joins us from time to time to talk about the political happenings in this state. Please join us every other Monday. Aloha. And we're back. Today, we are taking a ride on Charlie's taxi with the CEO, Dale Evans. And first, let me tell you this. When I told people that Dale Evans is going to be on the show, and everybody says Roy Rogers' wife was like, no. So I imagine you get that all the time, don't you? Yeah. But not lately because a lot of people don't remember who she was. The young people don't know. That's right. Yeah. But I didn't even mention it. So now we know the difference. I think most people know the difference in the taxi because it says taxi on it, where Uber and Lyft just have something in the windshield. I think. I'm not sure. But for the public safety, you would just tell me that some driver named Sexy raped the girl in one of those, either Uber or Lyft, one of those. How do we protect the public? Surely there must be. We do it in every other industry. How do we protect the public? Well, if they had not repealed those protections, then those people. Who repealed it? The city council, in order to satisfy Uber and Lyft, they don't want any regulations. They say that they want to be self-regulated. But the taxis and a lot of businesses are what they call public accommodation. Yes, it is. And I don't believe that. I think that they're evading that law. But now we just saw President George Herbert Walker Bush pass. And he's the one in 1990 that gave us the Americans for Disability Act. And in it, it's very clear about public accommodations. So how do we get around that? I think that the problem that is happening with the seniors is because I think a lot of them don't know how to express themselves. They don't bother or they don't know how to lobby. But if they were to get, especially the families, if they were to tell the politicians that they are being ignored or they're being discriminated against, the city should pay attention. After all, this rail system is taking $9 billion. They haven't spent no $1 billion on elderly and disabled. I know. And they're really short on supply. So they make people, they still think about the value of people's time and the inconvenience and also to be unreliable. You can't set appointments like you were saying if you're going to be late. And the thing is that you can't be late for some of these appointments. So I'm, okay, now what do we need to do? Because that's what we do. We advocate. What do we need to do with the city, city council? Needless to say, I'm not on the best terms with the city. But anyway, that's a different story. I live in one of those districts that's challenging the results of the election. But what do we need to do as the community to support to get this back on track? Because having drivers that are not complying with this. The vetting is very important. But I think also one of the things about the city in repealing some of these laws, the most important thing that they haven't repealed is excessive regulation of our rates. The taxi ordinance says that we can only charge one rate. So that's why we don't have compact car rates because most of the cars are minivans. And the thing is I've been telling the city for decades, they laugh about it. But the thing is that wheelchair accessible cars, SUV costs at least $40,000 to $60,000. And then it costs $27,000 to install the accessible, either the ramp or the lift. And then you have to move the fuel tank so that they can put those in. So that costs at least $27,000. So you're talking about at least a $75,000 or $80,000 car. You can't run the car on a $35,000 budget. And that's what the taxis are stuck with. So that's why the city itself is hampering and hindering the innovation of services for the public. Okay, now what do we as the public need to do to support you, to support... Well, it's really supporting us. What do we need to do? Frank, how can we support you in undoing the damage they're doing, the city council? How can we support you? Well, I think that they should follow the taxi industry's advocacy for better vetting, for relaxing the rates so that we could charge different... You see, Uber and Lyft are able to charge UberX, UberXL, UberBlack, UberSelect. They have all different... they have Uber taxis. And they're able to charge all kinds of rates, but the taxis can only charge one rate. And supposedly we have to run all of these different types of cars under one rate. Well, that's ridiculous. Well, so do we need to... The city council, is it the city council that we need to lean on and really take a look at where we are? Because the city has violated some other ordinance, or not an ordinance, but the rules of the ADA. It says all bus stops are to be covered with light. They are not. In the ADA rules, the city has not... You can drive down King Street, the next time you're down, just look at how many bus stops have no cover, no lights. And... They're not paying attention to the customer. No. In other words, the ordinance and rules should be customer-oriented. But the thing is that they have misplaced their priorities. As I said, there are many, many ways that Honolulu is behind the curb, because we are... we are worst. You know, can you imagine we are the most congested. We have the least roads. We have so much traffic delays. And we're charging. We don't have enough supply for the elderly and disabled. I think that's unacceptable. It is. Because 30% of the population will be over 65 in 2030. So what is going to happen? You know, we're 2018. That's only 12. It's so near, and yet nobody's paying attention. They don't talk about it, because the only thing they're talking about is rail. So then we have to... You'll come back, of course, but we have to come together and marshal some troops to lean on the city councils to take a look at how they are overlooking us as seniors, how they are not paying attention. We need votes, because take, for example, on the city council, and Kobayashi and Carol Fukunaga know, and they have been advocating, but we don't have the votes. I know, I know. And we need people to support. So we'll have to get together and really take a look at how we can get people interested in what they can do. So whatever that takes. You know, Suzanne Chan Oakland, she retired from the Senate. But you know she's working for the Lanakula Health, the Lanakula Center. And the thing is she's still doing that kind of community service work, you know. So there are people in the political realm, but we just don't have enough votes. Well, we need people. We need people to show up, to take charge. We need real bodies to support you, to... I mean, the tax is a whole transportation thing, because it is out of hand. There was something about taking out crosswalks. What? Why would you take out a crosswalk? You know, it's like there's no attention to people. It's all about stuff. They're not paying attention to people. One of the critical areas also is pedestrian deaths. Right. You know, it's not up 10, 20 percent. It's doubled. And that's unacceptable. It is. It is. So what I'm seeing is that the priorities of the political leaders is misplaced. But we'll have to do something. And trust me, we'll have to do something. Well, thank you. I'm a political junkie. That's the first thing I think about is, what can we do? Yeah. But you know, this has been a real pleasure spending this time with you. And you will come back. Well, thank you. And we will stay on this, I promise you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for spending the day with us. And we'll see you next time. Aloha.