It's time to rethink the mission of the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission, perhaps even to the point of abolishing it altogether. The commission lost a three-year legislative battle in April to extend its regulatory authority to app-based companies Uber and Lyft. The legislature has empowered smartphone ride-hailing services at traditional taxi services' expense.

Now the commission is trying to help local cab companies compete with Uber and Lyft by slashing licensing fees, reducing inspection regulations and cutting insurance requirements. It also halted new taxi licenses and agreed to permit new cab drivers to get fingerprint background checks from lower-cost private vendors instead of at the commission office.

Tom Reeves, commission chairman, told Post-Dispatch reporter Mark Schlinkmann that other changes, such as lifting the cap on taxi charges so companies can raise prices during peak demand times, are under consideration. The effect of these changes would be to put taxis on the same less-regulated footing as app-based ride-hailing services. So what's left for the commission to regulate?

Since Uber and Lyft aren't required to conform to commission rules, taxi companies would be better off setting their own competition standards. Those are business decisions, not regulatory functions.

The legislature's decision to lift ride-hailing regulations effectively stripped the commission of much of its oversight authority. Its purpose seems to have been lost. Critics accused the commission of being a protectionist front for cab companies when it was fighting Uber and Lyft, and Uber contended in a lawsuit that the commission set anti-competitive pricing. With state law requiring four of the nine commissioners to be from the taxicab industry, it is difficult to argue that the panel is not protectionist.

The commission's main purpose should be protecting the safety and welfare of paying customers who use cabs and ride-hailing services. Uber fought the commission on requiring background checks and fingerprinting for drivers, but this newspaper believed the panel was correct in trying to establish a standard that would help ensure passenger safety.

When the state stepped in and exempted Uber and Lyft from local regulations, the companies compromised and agreed to require that drivers have liability insurance and submit to background reviews but not fingerprint checks. Unlike taxi drivers, they do not need chauffeur licenses. The state essentially said: Let the buyer beware.

St. Louis city and county should be able to determine their own regulations and not be forced to give up control on distinctly local issues. But that battle was lost. Uber defied taxi commission rules, hired well-connected lobbyists in the state Capitol and offered free rides in Jefferson City on Inauguration Day.

In a political environment that defies local control, and where mobility is a smartphone click away, a taxicab commission seems about as useful as a Conestoga wagon commission. Time to rethink it.

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