We don’t get why it’s so hard.

Earlier this week, Lewiston increased the fares that taxi drivers can charge their customers. The hike, which increases fares by as much as $2.25 in some zones, follows a complicated increase enacted in September to offset high gasoline prices. Auburn also increased fares in September. Lewiston’s new fare structure will begin March 1.

In September, when both cities changed the fares for taxi rides, a point was made that the cities should adopt the same structure for cab fares.

Here we are near the end of February, and a new fare increase is being adopted in Lewiston, but the cities remain out of sync.

Lewiston City Administrator Jim Bennett said that it was important to cab companies to adjust fares now, and that the two cities still plan to adopt a single taxi policy and rate schedule.

It shouldn’t be so hard to bring the two in line.

Increasing the rates cabbies can charge will create a financial hardship for some customers, but given the continued high price of gasoline, the fare increases are necessary. Otherwise, the viability of taxi companies could be threatened.

But five months after talking about working together, the two cities are still moving forward independently. That creates confusion for people who take cabs between localities, for visitors and for the operators.

If the two cities, in five months, can’t coordinate on taxis, what chance is there that they could ever combine something as complex and important as the police department?