Chicago Council Committee Backs 20% Cab Fare Hike

Chicago cab fares are heading toward their first increase in a decade after a City Council committee backed a 20% rate hike Monday, a move supporters say is the only way to keep the taxi industry from collapsing under the weight of competition from Uber and Lyft.

The Committee on License and Consumer Protection approved the measure with just one dissenting vote. Full Council consideration is scheduled for Wednesday.

The plan, introduced by Mayor Brandon Johnson last fall, would keep the base “flag pull” rate at $3.25 for the first one-ninth of a mile while delivering meaningful relief to drivers in other fare categories. Business Affairs and Consumer Protection Commissioner Ivan Capifali told the committee the hike was desperately needed to account for the “high cost of everything,” from insurance and vehicle maintenance to fuel prices that have hammered drivers across the city.

Capifali’s case wasn’t hard to make on its face. Chicago cabbies haven’t seen a rate adjustment in ten years, a stretch that saw rideshare apps gut the medallion taxi model that once dominated downtown streets and O’Hare pickup lanes alike.

Still, the vote wasn’t clean.

Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) cast the lone no vote, and his objections cut to something real. Reilly said he tried to support the cab industry, that he regularly chose medallioned vehicles over rideshare apps. But what he described getting in return wasn’t great. Drivers, he said, routinely refused to start the meter until he identified himself as an alderman.

“It is after I identify myself and what I do that driver, sometimes they’ll agree to pull the flag,” Reilly told the committee. “So, I wonder for the average citizen of Chicago what their experience might be.”

That’s a fair question. And Capifali didn’t dispute it. He told Reilly the same thing had happened to him personally, and said the ordinance was designed to address the problem with a steep penalty increase, raising the fine for failing to start the meter from $100 to $1,000.

Tenfold. On paper, that’s a serious deterrent.

Reilly wasn’t convinced. He pressed Capifali on enforcement and got an answer that explained his skepticism pretty well: the Business Affairs and Consumer Protection department has just five investigators assigned to watch over roughly 3,000 taxicabs operating in Chicago. Capifali couldn’t tell Reilly how many citations those investigators had actually written for meter violations.

Five investigators. Three thousand cabs. No citation data.

“When we see rampant abuse and flouting of the law, it makes it harder for me to extend that sympathy towards voting for a substantial fare increase,” Reilly said, even while acknowledging that the city’s failure to raise fares has made it “increasingly difficult for drivers to maintain their livelihood and meet regulatory standards.”

His position was conflicted, and he said so directly. The taxi industry, he noted, has been “eviscerated” by Uber and Lyft, and he didn’t want to pile on. But rewarding an industry for widespread meter violations, without evidence of enforcement, was a step he couldn’t take.

The broader context matters here. Chicago’s taxi fleet has been in steady decline since rideshare platforms arrived and the city largely looked the other way. Medallion values, once a reliable financial asset for immigrant families and working-class drivers across neighborhoods like Bridgeport, Pilsen, and Albany Park, cratered. Drivers who took out loans to buy medallions were left holding debt on assets worth a fraction of what they paid. The human cost was severe and largely unaddressed.

Johnson’s ordinance, introduced while City Hall’s attention was consumed by the contentious 2026 budget fight, sat in committee for months before Monday’s hearing. Its timing wasn’t ideal. Neither was the enforcement picture Capifali painted.

The Chicago Sun-Times first reported the committee vote and the sharp exchange between Reilly and Capifali.

What happens Wednesday will tell a lot. If the full Council passes the fare hike without attaching stronger enforcement requirements, the city will be doing what it has repeatedly done with the taxi industry: offering a partial fix while the structural problems fester. Drivers who follow the rules get higher fares. Drivers who don’t, keep rolling the dice on a $100 ticket that almost never comes.

Reilly’s question about the average Chicago resident trying to hail a cab deserves an answer before the vote, not after.