PRESIDENT of the newly-formed United Route Taxi Association, Raymond Byrnes wants the Transport Authority to grant members of his association legal status to operate on some Jamaican Urban Transit Company (JUTC) routes in the city.

The suggested routes are Half-Way-Tree to Barbican, White Hall Avenue and “captured” by dozens of illegal taxis, and were creating problems between the police, the JUTC and the illegal taxi drivers.

“The easiest thing for the Transport Authority to do is (to) give all the illegal taxi drivers legal status, grant them taxi licenses and ‘merge’ them with the JUTC on these routes, for once taxis are driving on JUTC route it is considered illegal,” Byrnes said.

A letter, he said, is to be sent to the transport ministry and the bus company requesting early consideration on the matter.

“We are appealing to the JUTC to grant us a franchise to run our taxi side by side with them on some routes which is sometimes littered with passengers,” Byrnes told a meeting at the New Testament Church of God Auditorium, Eastwood Park Road, Kingston yesterday.

The new association is a merger of the Maxfield Taxi Association and splinter taxi groups operating within the Half-Way-Tree area.

At the same time, Byrnes urged his colleagues to abide by the law and take their job seriously, adding that they should not allow their “problems'” to spill over on passengers.

He also told them to be efficient, effective and courteous taxi drivers and not to lack respect for their passengers by smoking ganja while transporting them. “We don’t want to look like a bunch of illiterate people,” he said, and made it clear that wrongdoers would not be part of the organisation.

Deputy superintendent of police, Dalton Wright and Leonard Lawrence of the Half-Way-Tree Police Station also encouraged the taximen to dress in a uniformed manner so that they can be easily identified.

The police officers also said some taximen were running the association into disrepute and cautioned them to observe the road traffic law and study the road code “as their hallmark to road safety”.