Gas Prices Force Bellows Falls, Vt., Taxi Service to Raise Rates Again
Aug. 29–BELLOWS FALLS — Even Bellows Falls residents without cars will feel the pinch of rising gas prices soon as the area’s taxi service prepares for the second rate increase this year.
Bellows Falls Taxi fares for transportation within the village will go up 50 cents on Sept. 1 to $4. BF Taxi owner Ronald McGivern said the rate hike is to offset rising gas prices.
“It’s back to the same old thing — gas,” McGivern said.
Prices around the village hovered around $2.52 per gallon for regular grade gasoline on Friday. Village gas prices may have been lower than last week’s national average of $2.62, according to the latest Energy Department survey, but that’s little consolation to McGivern or his customers.
McGivern’s regular customers understood his predicament but said they would likely use his service less often.
“He has to do what he has to do, so I have to do what I have to do,” village resident Melissa Nelson said.
Nelson said she uses BF Taxi several times a week when her husband needs the car. She said she tried to walk when she could, but for things like going to the laundromat, she had few alternatives to the taxi.
If that means doing laundry less or lower tips, so be it, she said.
“It would depend on how I’m fixed financially,” Nelson said.
Customers with contracts for regular taxi service will not be affected by the rate hike, McGivern said. One of those contracted customers, Vicki Turner, said she was nonetheless concerned for other riders.
“I feel really bad for the elderly people,” she said. “A lot of the elderly people are on fixed incomes. It’s going to be too much for them.” Rate increases do not happen often, McGivern said. Prices for travel within Bellows Falls have risen just $1.50 in 17 years, McGivern said. But this year is different.
This is the second time since March, when his village fee was $3, that McGivern has raised prices. He is already anticipating two more increases for November and December.
Other taxi services in the region complained they are also hurting from higher gas prices. Brattleboro Taxi manager Jennifer Penfield said she is not considering a price hike just yet, but may have to make a change soon.
“Hopefully not, but if it goes up a lot higher we may need to take another look,” Penfield said.
Penfield said they are trying to keep costs low by driving around less looking for fares and not keeping cars idling.
McGivern said he has cut corners in other areas, performing more of the maintenance on his 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra himself.
He drives between 300 and 400 miles per week and spends about $30 each time he has to fill his tank. It is only going to get worse, he said. McGivern expects area gas prices will be upwards of $3 per gallon by December, forcing some difficult decisions.
Keep the car running to warm up or tolerate the cold and save money?
“It’s going to be a rough winter,” he said.
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