Taxi Firm May Face L. A. Suspension Again : Transportation: City lifts sanction against Checker Cab this week, but could take action over alleged violation of operating agreement.

A Burbank-based taxi firm that was temporarily suspended this week for operating without insurance may face another suspension for allegedly failing to provide taxi services that were promised under a city of Los Angeles operating agreement.

Checker Cab Co., one of only two taxi companies permitted by the city of Los Angeles to serve the Valley, was notified Monday that it could not operate its 55 cabs until it obtained new insurance coverage. But city transportation officials lifted the suspension on Friday after company officials submitted proof that they had obtained a new policy.

Alan Willis, a senior transportation engineer, said the original insurance carrier canceled a policy for Checker Cab at midnight March 10 because the firm owed $400,000 in payments.

But Rick Ward, Checker Cab’s general manager, said his firm only owed $150,000 on the policy and insisted that he tried to secure a new policy earlier in the week but was hampered by miscommunications with insurance companies and overly restrictive city guidelines.

“They wanted more,” Ward said of city officials. “No matter what we did, they wanted more.”

Checker is not completely in the clear with the city.

Later this month, the city’s Board of Transportation Commissioners is expected to hear a report from transportation officials who believe Checker Cab violated its operating agreement by failing to provide services that were promised when the city awarded a franchise permit in 1992.

In the agreement, the firm promised, among other things, to install a computerized dispatching system and provide at least seven cabs that could carry passengers using wheelchairs. But Willis said the computerized system is not on-line and that only about half of the wheelchair-accessible cabs are on the road.

In addition, he said his staff believes taxis that are only permitted to operate in Burbank have been dispatched by Checker Cab to pick up passengers within Los Angeles city limits. Such violations could be punishable by suspension, Willis said.

“It’s all sorts of little things that we are having problems with,” he said.

Ward conceded that Checker Cab only has three cabs to carry passengers in wheelchairs, but he said that is because the company has not yet put on the road all 85 cabs allowed by the city franchise.

As for the computerized dispatch system, he said it crashed last summer and has not been repaired.

Ward said he only knows of one incident where a Burbank cab picked up a passenger in the city of Los Angeles area, and that was it was reported to the city by the rival Valley Cab Co.

The suspension and the pending report are only the latest problems that have plagued Checker Cab.

In 1992, the Board of Transportation Commissioners ordered Checker Cab’s parent company, Babaeian Transportation Co., to forfeit a $20,000 performance bond for failing to meet an agreed-upon schedule for putting cabs on the road.

Last year, city transportation officials investigated allegations that the taxi firm operated for a short period without insurance. Although Checker Cab representatives said there was never a lapse in coverage, transportation officials said the investigation has not been completed.

The City Council gave Checker Cab a franchise permit in March, 1992, after a heated business battle with Valley Cab Co., the taxi firm that had an exclusive license to serve the Valley for eight years. Babaeian also operates cabs in Pasadena and Burbank.