Flat Rate for Downtown Taxi Fares OKd : Transit: A fee of $3.50 will go into effect on a trial basis in December to lure holiday shoppers. If successful, the system could be expanded.

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved an ordinance fixing a flat fee of $3.50 for all taxicab trips within downtown Los Angeles, regardless of the number of passengers.

The law will go into effect sometime in December on a 180-day trial basis, in part to lure holiday shoppers out of their cars and into the city’s 1,350 registered taxicabs, said Kenneth Cude, engineer for the city’s Department of Transportation.

The low-cost fares will be restricted to an area of downtown bounded by the Hollywood Freeway on the north, Main Street on the east, Pico Boulevard on the south and the Harbor Freeway, 8th and 3rd streets on the west.

Under the ordinance, trips will be paid for through use of a voucher system that is still under development, Cude said.

If successful, the fare system will be made permanent and expanded to link downtown office workers with activity centers such as Little Tokyo, Chinatown, Central City West and Union Station.

The new fare is not expected to affect shuttle services provided by the city’s 30 DASH buses, which move about 1.5 million people a year for 25 cents a ride, said Councilman Nate Holden, a member of the council’s Transportation Committee.

“The new taxicab fares won’t impact DASH,” Holden said, “because these taxis will be going after in-a-hurry people and those heading from one hotel to another.”

The plan was also supported by City Councilwoman Rita Walters, whose district encompasses much of the downtown core, and taxicab companies, which handle 15,000 downtown trips a day. “The idea here is to get folks who car pool or take a bus or a train into Los Angeles to then grab a downtown taxi,” said Dennis Ross, senior vice president of LA Taxi. “We’re after people who don’t want to sit around on a street corner and wait for a DASH bus, even if it is only 25 cents a ride.”

But some cab drivers worried that the fare will cut into their profits.

“Most downtown taxicab trips cost about $5,” said Philip Howitt, who leases a cab from LA Taxi. “A dollar-fifty less than that is a lot of revenue being lost.”

Ross agreed, to a point. “If people don’t take advantage of this program, we’ve got a problem.”