CITY TAXI COUPONS GO ON SALE JULY 1

Although his car is in the shop for repairs, Steve Duree gets around well enough. He uses taxicabs.

Duree bought a book of taxi coupons from the city of Cape Girardeau. "It's better than paying full price," he said. "It's great when you don't have a car."

Cape Girardeau's taxi coupon program will begin another year July 1. The new taxi coupons go on sale Friday.

The city typically begins selling the new coupons on July 1. But this year, July 1 falls on a Saturday. The city will sell them a day early so program participants won't have to go a whole weekend without transportation, City Collector Mary Thompson said.

Coupons for the 1994-95 fiscal year won't be valid after Friday.

The program provides transportation primarily to residents older than 60 and the disabled, although a smaller number of coupons are sold to the general public.

The elderly and disabled pay $1 a coupon. They can purchase books of 16 coupons. The general public pays $2 a coupon. The city, aided by federal funds, subsidizes the cost of a taxi ride.

The taxi company, Kelley Transportation, gets $2.50 per one-way trip anywhere in the city limits except to the airport, and $9 per one-way trip to the airport. Those are the same rates as last year.

The city has had a subsidized taxi program with Kelley Transportation since 1981. At first the city subsidized the program on its own. Since 1983, the city annually has received matching federal funds.

The program will cost an estimated $270,500 for fiscal 1996, which begins July 1. Coupon sales are budgeted at $104,760 and the subsidy at $165,740. The city's general fund is paying half of the subsidy or $82,870. Federal funds pay the other half, Finance Director John Richbourg said.

City officials said as many as 84,600 $1 coupons may be sold during the year and more than 10,000 $2 coupons.

But Richbourg said, "Typically, we don't use all the coupons in the grant." Through the first 11 months of the current fiscal year, about 75,000 coupons were used.