Mr. Taxi says he's set record for city with $1,000 trip.

One thousand dollars is a steep cab fare, no doubt. But it's also a pretty sharp discount for a recent journey by Springfield's Mr. Taxi.
 
The one-man cab service carted a guy and a box of cats to Hyannis, Mass., earlier this month - roughly 1,200 miles one way - and the driver claims to have set a record for the longest Springfield-to-anywhere ride in city history.

"I'm positive it is," said Mr. Taxi driver Robert Schmitt, who gave The State Journal-Register proof of the jaunt: a scanned front page of the Cape Cod (Mass.) Times newspaper, a toll receipt from the Massachusetts Turnpike and a gas station receipt from West Yarmouth, Mass., all dated Dec. 7.

"A cab driver, independent, they could haul somebody to Las Vegas …," said Schmitt, who uses the name H.R. Smith on his business card. "It wouldn't actually be a legal cab. … And I'm sure there's many people that have hauled others in a private car in exchange for gas money."

But when it comes to legitimate cab rides, Schmitt - who said the trip was totally legal - believes Mr. Taxi is the city's new long-distance champion.

So far, no one is challenging the claim.

"That could possibly be the longest trip that I know of," said Robert Smith, a manager for Springfield's A-Diamond Transportation and Mid-State Cab, which have shared ownership.

After checking with an owner, an employee at Lincoln Yellow Cab said the city's oldest taxi service has made at least one trip to Florida in years past, though the exact destination wasn't available.

Schmitt gave the name of the passenger, who might have been from Jacksonville, but the man could not be reached by The State Journal-Register.

Smith confirmed a man called around in early December about buying a ride to Massachusetts.

"That same guy was ready to go with us," Smith said. "I quoted him $1,700, and Mr. Taxi quoted $1,000. That's how he got it."

Schmitt, who's operated Mr. Taxi since 1983, said he received a call from the man on Dec. 4. The caller wanted to travel to the Boston area, but there was a problem.

"The man had a cat with a litter of kittens," Schmitt said. "The man did tell me he tried Amtrak, he tried Greyhound and he tried all the airlines at the airport. None of them would take his pets. They would take one cat, and that would be it."

Schmitt is always game for a long excursion. His business card says, "Special Rates On Fares Out Of Town (Because Our Competitors Want Us Out Of Town Anyway)."

Mr. Taxi and the man agreed on a $1,000 up-front payment. Had Schmitt run the meter at $1.50 per mile, the fare would have approached $1,880.

The eastward journey began Dec. 5. The passenger loaded the cats into a kitty carrier, and away they went. The three-day trip included hotel stays in Urbana, Ohio and Scranton, Pa., before ending late Dec. 7 at the Atlantic Ocean.

"I finally got him to Hyannis," Schmitt said.

Todd Oliver, division manager for the city's business licensing and liquor commission, said the job didn't violate Mr. Taxi's city permit. Springfield requires taxi drivers to charge flat rates for trips outside the city limits - as Mr. Taxi did - rather than run the meter, as cabs are required to do inside town.

It's unclear what Springfield's previous taxi record might be, but Yellow Cab's trip to Florida probably ranks pretty high. But the Sunshine State's north-to-south geography leaves a lot of wiggle room: Springfield to Tallahassee would cover about 870 miles while Springfield to Miami would better the Hyannis trip by less than 100 miles.

Smith said he's hauled a package about 520 miles to St. Paul, Minn., and his boss recalled a 435-mile trip to Lincoln, Neb.

Meanwhile, Schmitt thinks The State Journal-Register wrote in the last decade about a 510-mile cab ride to Little Rock, Ark., although that couldn't be confirmed in the newspaper's archives.

Mr. Taxi's second-longest trip was in October, when he drove a mother, father and daughter to Manhattan, Kan., for a family member's wedding. He charged $450 for that 435-mile job and kept a Manhattan newspaper as a souvenir.

"I got them there in time for the wedding," Schmitt said.

Mr. Taxi has a long way to go to break the world-record cab ride: A trio of men rode from London to Cape Town, South Africa, and back - nearly 22,000 miles. The trip, which lasted from June to October 1994, cost about $62,908, according to Guinness World Records.