SEMO STUDENTS GET TAXI SERVICE TODAY

Beginning today, students at Southeast Missouri State University can hail a taxi and let someone else pick up part of the tab.

A taxi coupon program, patterned after the city's successful venture, will provide students with subsidized transportation around town for the 1993-94 academic year.

Taxi coupons are scheduled to go on sale at 7:30 a.m. at the University Center information desk.

"We are trying to meet the needs of students," said Student Government President Jeff Davis.

A pilot program was tried successfully on campus last spring, said Davis. "We sold, I believe, slightly over 6,000 tickets for the whole semester."

Under the new program, there will be 1,500 coupons available for sale each month. "It's strictly financial. We can't afford to do any more," he said.

Kelley Transportation Co., which operates a local taxi service, will receive $2.25 for each student using a coupon.

Each ticket costs $1 and allows a student a one-way taxi ride anywhere in the city, excluding the airport. The remaining $1.25 of the cost is being borne by Student Government and the Residence Hall Association.

"We've invested about $15,000 in student activities fee (revenue) and the Residence Hall Association has allocated us $900," said Davis. That cost is for the whole academic year, ending June 1.

Only students can buy the coupons and they are non-transferable. But friends of a student can come along for the ride for 50 cents apiece, said Davis.

A student can buy a maximum of 10 tickets or coupons per month.

Davis said the new shuttle system that started this fall doesn't lessen the need for the taxi service.

"We are serving two different needs," he said. "The shuttle system serves the student transportation needs from one point on campus to the other, primarily from the parking lot to the classroom and the classroom to the parking lot."

The taxi program serves students who need transportation around town, such as out to West Park Mall and other locations on the city's west side. "A vast majority of the students go to the mall and Wal-Mart and that area," said Davis.

He said Student Government wants to make the taxi service a permanent program. "We are already looking at funding for next year," he said.

As to the city's taxi coupon program, it's been in operation for more than a decade, having been established in the early 1980s.

Last fiscal year, the city sold 78,344 taxi tickets out of the 94,000 coupons that had been budgeted, said City Collector Mary Thompson.

Kelley Transportation receives $2.50 per coupon rider, with participants paying $1 per coupon. The remainder of the cost is shared evenly between the city and a federal grant program.

Thompson estimated the taxi program serves at least 800 people a month.

The majority of the coupons are sold to elderly and handicapped persons, but some are allocated for and sold to the general public, she said.

Thompson stressed that the university program is separate from the city's, and coupons for university students must be purchased at the school, not at City Hall.

Thompson said the city's program continues to prove popular with Cape Girardeau residents.

The number of coupons sold depends partly on the weather, she said. "If we have a bad winter or a real cold winter, they are going to use them more," said Thompson.