Kudos to Mayor 142

When he's right, he's right.

Now I don't always see eye-to-eye with Mayor Adrian Fenty. In the short nine months since winning all 142 precincts to become the District's youngest mayor, he's done plenty to get my malcontent ire up.

But on Tuesday, Mayor 142 did something no mayor before him even tried.

Fenty fixed the ill-logical, un-manageable, and wholly unfare system for D.C. taxi cabs.

Gone will be the zone system.

Enter the time and distance system the rest of the world has been using for decades.

Welcome to the 21st century, Washington, D.C.

Fenty is to be applauded for answering the call and doing the right thing.

In this case the call came from U.S. Senator Carl Levin who forced Fenty to make a decision, but nevertheless Fenty stepped up.

Now there's one less thing I'll have to explain or apologize for when the in-laws come to town.

While Fenty has done his part, as with everything, the devil will be in the details and in this case the details are being left to the D.C. Taxicab Commission. And that should send shivers down all our spines.

The Taxi Commission is one of those dysfunctional D.C. entities that harkens back to the dark days of the city where nothing got done.

This group can't agree on the time of day much less how much to charge for time and distance.

So now it's time for the Taxi Commissioners to cowboy up and get to work. One can only hope that Councilmember Jim Graham, who oversees the Commission, will keep them honest.