The taxi drivers objected to them being treated differently to other kinds of taxi, which doesn't seem that unreasonable. Since they have lower maintenance and operating costs, they could easily have stumped up the extra money and still have had a competitive advantage.
They _are_ different from other kinds of taxi; they don't pollute the (extremely poor) air in Cambridge and they're not lethally dangerous. That alone would suggest that a more relaxed regime might be appropriate (as indeed the Council's Environment Committee favoured).
Furthermore aspects of the proposed requirements were not merely treating them on an even footing. Restricting a model of trishaw that is widely used in the USA for three passengers to two was not; taxis are not required to leave an empty seat. Proposing not to permit a trishaw to wait at the railway station was not; a massive area of the station forecourt is used for taxis.
Likewise, while ultimately I'd obviously like to see trishaws offer the same service as motor taxis do, Mr Lane's trishaws were clearly a tourist attraction. It was not sensible to expect them to demonstrate the same knowledge of the outer parts of the city as taxi drivers are expected to (and, in Cambridge, didn't IME, albeit that it's some years out of date now).
Your first paragraph falls into an is-ought trap I think. You mean the law should allow the council to give such preferential treatment, but I'm pretty sure it didn't then at least.
Of course most of the other issues are pretty much irrelevant now anyway - the station forecourt is going to be completely remodelled when the misguided bus comes through, so maybe it won't be as much of a bottleneck. And many taxi drivers don't know Cambridge and rely on satnav to find things. With hilarious consequences.
But I really do think the trishaw operator threw a bit of a hissy fit back then.
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Furthermore aspects of the proposed requirements were not merely treating them on an even footing. Restricting a model of trishaw that is widely used in the USA for three passengers to two was not; taxis are not required to leave an empty seat. Proposing not to permit a trishaw to wait at the railway station was not; a massive area of the station forecourt is used for taxis.
Likewise, while ultimately I'd obviously like to see trishaws offer the same service as motor taxis do, Mr Lane's trishaws were clearly a tourist attraction. It was not sensible to expect them to demonstrate the same knowledge of the outer parts of the city as taxi drivers are expected to (and, in Cambridge, didn't IME, albeit that it's some years out of date now).
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Of course most of the other issues are pretty much irrelevant now anyway - the station forecourt is going to be completely remodelled when the misguided bus comes through, so maybe it won't be as much of a bottleneck. And many taxi drivers don't know Cambridge and rely on satnav to find things. With hilarious consequences.
But I really do think the trishaw operator threw a bit of a hissy fit back then.