August 8, 2006
San Francisco Cabs In The News Again
As the nasty cab commission controversy comes to a close, now the San Francisco Controller's Office is recommending an increase in cab fares.
Presently, San Francisco Taxi rates are $2.85 to get in the door, plus 45 cents per 1/5 mile or minute of waiting or delay. The controller's office is recommending an increase of 25 cents per mile, which the high tech calculator function in our iBook tells us will end up increasing the cover charge to $2.90, and the meter rate to 50 cents per 1/5 mile.
Cab rates haven't been increased since January 2003, back when gas was only $1.65 a gallon. Now it's $3.20 a gallon, making the profit margin for cabbies that much narrower.
This KGO article mentioned that "More than one person pointed out the city's car share program as an alternative to cabs" which we don't fully get. Maybe that's because we take cabs in part A) so we don't have to deal with parking or B) because we're too loaded to drive. Will we stop taking cabs (and start driving drunk, yeah!) if this increase is put into effect? Probably not, especially once we started considering that whole 97% increase is gas prices thing. How about you?
You can download the PDF of the entire report from this page (" Taxicab Industry Report -August 2006" under "News and Events"), it's actually kind of interesting and not too dry a read.
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Ridiculous. SF cab rates are the second highest in the nation (second only to Honolulu). I pay more going from North Beach to the Haight then I do from going from the top of Manhattan to the bottom.
And let's do the math here. Let's say your typical cab gets about 25 miles per gallon. At $1.65/gallon, that's 6 cents a mile. At $3.25/gallon, that's 12 cents a mile. A difference of six cents per mile in operating costs, or a little more than a penny per fifth mile. The cabbie and the cab companies gets four pennies out of the five cent raise -- in other words, a small profit well beyond the price is gas.
What ed said, 100 times again. I can cross New York for less than it costs to just get in an SF cab. And there are how many cabs in SF? Seven? You can't take a taxi to 27th and Noriega and expect to get one for the return trip.
Hold the rates steady for ten years and increase the number of medallions by a factor of 20, then maybe we can talk about it.
By the way, your typical cab is a crown victoria and doesn't get anywhere near 25MPG in the city, especially the way Joe Cabbie lurches from stop light to stop light.
Grow a dick
What happened to all those cute cabs from England?
Is there some requirement that cabs be Crown Victorias? Because I can't think of a worse suited car. Despite its size there's little room inside for passengers, and it's way overpowered and inefficient.
Did I hear something about Prius cabs? Or was that in NY?
And those London cabs are great for passenger space (get five people in! Wheelchair accessible! Tight turning circle!)
Is there some requirement that cabs be Crown Victorias? Because I can't think of a worse suited car. Despite its size there's little room inside for passengers, and it's way overpowered and inefficient.
Did I hear something about Prius cabs? Or was that in NY?
And those London cabs are great for passenger space (get five people in! Wheelchair accessible! Tight turning circle!)