By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – It might be more expensive to take a taxi cab, but it’s a lot easier to figure out the cost, according to Lori Boyce.

It cost her about $4 Wednesday to take a cab from her Shawmut Street apartment to the Sav-A-Lot on East Avenue – 75 cents more than it would have a day earlier.

Taxi rates went up across the board in Lewiston, but Boyce barely noticed.

“It’s a lot better than it was last fall,” she said. The city had tied taxi rates to gas prices, which meant prices for a taxi ride fluctuated with prices at the pump.

“First it was up, then it was down,” Boyce said. “You didn’t know how much it was going to be.”

They’ll just stay up now. The City Council approved a rate structure in February that boosts fares the most on the outer edges of the city. For example, fares will increase 75 cents per ride for trips beginning and ending in the downtown area.

Fares that begin or end in the zone that rings the outskirts of the city saw the biggest increase, from $5.75 to $8.

The new structure debuted Wednesday, the first day of the month. The first of the month is also traditionally one of the busiest times for cab drivers, said Matthew Boyington, who owns Tri-Town Taxi service. That’s the day the government checks arrive

“The poor folks are sort of wealthy for a couple of days,” he said.

People cash their checks and shop for the month. Many rely on taxis to get around.

That’s the way it was for Margaret Saucier of Pine Street on Wednesday. She gets a ride from Boyington from her apartment to the Salvation Army and back, and then another to Shaw’s Supermarket on East Avenue.

She spends about $18 on taxi rides one day each month under the new structure, about $3 more. She walks the rest of the time.

“It’s a really good deal for me, because I can’t drive,” she said. “I couldn’t get my groceries home if I had to walk. Once a month, it’s worth it.”

Boyington said most riders wouldn’t notice the difference until they’d paid the fares a few times.

“Then we’ll see what they say,” he said.

Next, he’s hoping the two cities will do something to make their fares match. There’s about a dollar difference for most riders traveling from Lewiston to Auburn’s Wal-Mart and back.

“They pay $5.25 one way and $6 the other,” he said.

Both cities divide their territory into zones – five for Lewiston and seven for Auburn. The zones begin downtown and radiate out. The farther a zone is from the downtown, the more the taxi can charge for a ride.

A committee from the Lewiston-Auburn Transit Committee is trying to draw up a new fare policy for both cities.