Photo du Jour 516
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Tiger Woods In "Serious" Condition After Car Crash
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Photos from Black Friday
Builder of Oakland's Fox Theater Once Imprisoned For 'White Slavery'
In an effort to fill the large, gaping hole of necessity for more cabbies in San Francisco, it makes sense that imposter taxicabs try to fill that need. According to today's Examiner, "at least 30 illegitimate cab companies are operating in San Francisco." Which means that there are almost as many illegal cab companies in San Francisco as there are legal ones. (SF has 32 licensed companies.) Last year alone, the article goes on to say, there were "nearly 200 illegal cab pickups in San Francisco last year and officers on taxi detail arrested 33 drivers in December alone." The problem, if there is one, is that illegal cab companies don't perform criminal background checks on their employees, and fake cabbies tend to overcharge their passengers.
San Francisco plans to step up enforcement by aggressively fining designer imposter cabbies or cab companies $5,000 per violation. However, catching them in the act is the hard part. The Municipal Transportation Agency "must prove that allegedly illegal entities are operating without a permit and falsely posing as legitimate cab services" in order to slap them with said fines. This Tuesday, the SFMTA board of directors will vote whether or not to "reduce the amount of evidence needed to seek fines."
While they're at it, maybe they can come up with a way to distribute more medallions for more cabs. We kid. Because that's never ever, ever going to happen.
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I wonder where "Grasshopper Cab" is doing these days. The city revoked the guy's permit.
Just some tips on catching a legal cab:
The rear sides and truck of the cab says "San Francisco Taxicab"
The little license plate on the front of the windshield.
And the permit of the driver in the inside of the vehicle.
YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.
Get the gypsy cab, take it to your destination, then threaten to turn the guy in to the police if he doesn't cut the fare in half. Win-win!
So, I've been thinking the only way to get more medallions is for voters to do it themselves with an initiative. I'm imagining a two-pronged approach:
1) immediate release of new medallions
2) future automatic medallion releases that are tied to various types of development, i.e., x new medallions for every 100 hotel rooms, y new medallions for new middle class housing units, z new medallions for more expensive "concierge" housing units.
The idea being that taxi demand has gone through the roof as San Francisco's housing stock has evolved to include more expensive condos housing bridge & tunnel commuters, weekenders, and second homers who have plenty of cash to pay for taxis, and don't like driving in San Francisco and thus rely on taxis.
Similarly, we can guess that if a new development includes less than one parking space per unit, then there will be more demand than for a new condo in the outer Richmond where almost everyone has a normal car.
Thoughts? Doing it as an initiative would make it feasible, where politicians can't go there for fear of angering the taxi union and thus all unions that ultimately make up the back bone of the local Democratic party machine.
Right, because people who own cars never want to drink.
Step 1, I think, is to (re-?) outlaw medallion leasing. This would be a kind of term-limits for cab drivers, so they can't just sit back and collect their mob checks instead of working for a living.
Step 2 in your scenario would have to involve an assessment of the walkability of the neighborhood. The Outer hoods may have lots of room for cars, but there also ain't shit out there to do. A development in the Lower Haight hardly needs cab-consideration at all, since it's a destination. Naturally, my science is extemporaneous here.
As someone who lives on the other side of Twin Peaks, I'd gladly use legal cabs...if they came out there more often than once in a blue moon. As it stands, trying to get to the Inner Sunset from West Portal or the Richmond is one of the reasons I keep the business card of an underground cab in my wallet: I always know some Chinese guy in a minivan will be there in a few minutes and get me where I want to be on the Avenues for a fair price.
Yeah, I live at the very edge of the outer sunset, and it's usually pretty difficult to get a cab driver to come out there...if I do find one willing to come out to me, they usually seem very angry about it.
I always get in the cab, sit down, and close the door before I tell them, and I'm not even all that far out.
to be sure, i've had drivers get gripey about noe valley!
getting a cab in the downtown-ish part of glen park is next to impossible. it's even near bart and muni, and people need cabs to get up those hills. frustrating.
If it wasn't for gipsy cabs, I'd still be getting home from my New Year's Eve party.
The solution isn't to increase the number of cabs, but to increase the functionality of Muni. Why should we have to resort to cabs when we could actually have usable public transit to fill that role.
People seem to be talking about getting cabs when drinking and based on my own anecdotal observations I certainly see a lot more cabs on Friday and Saturday nights than any other time. Exactly the times that Muni isn't operating effectively, but bars are doing the most business. Rather than coming every 30 minutes on a severely restricted line schedule we ought to have increased buses available to get people to and from areas with a large proportion of late-night businesses on times (i.e. Friday and Saturday nights) when they see the most business. Why should we give more business to cabs rather than improve everyone's public transit?
Precisely. Cabs should be a more point-to-point emergency thing. (Indeed, more than half the times I've used cabs have been medical emergencies -- ambulances are too damn expensive).
Most of the time I can just take Muni. For some reason Muni doesn't run after last call though. I guess they *want* people to drive drunk.
You ever try doing bumps in the back of the 49? Sure, it's more stable than a cab, but then everyone wants a taste.
Just another example of things that our elected officials deem important in public (transit first policy), but they secretly sabotage behind closed doors for political contributions, outright bribes, nepotism, and appointments to high paying make-work boards and committees.
Relevant to this discussion: Mandated taxi equipment for a San Francisco taxi costs between $8,000 -$10,000 at start up. A hybrid Prius, Fusion or Escape is $15,000 - $32000. SF taxis pay Workers Comp insurance and have a $1,000,000 liability policy. Drivers pay hundreds of dollars in order to get their badge to drive a medallioned cab. A bandit or illegal cab spends $150 for a stolen taximeter and $1500 for an ex cab. SF taxis are required to accept and process paratransit coupons and soon all cabs will have gps/credit card terminals. Bandits don't need this cash outlay. A bandit driver can make a living off of a few random fares while a medallioned cab needs to run 24/7 and employs several drivers. SF taxis have to be replaced about every three years and depending on the mileage, are inspected by the SFPD every 12 or 6 months.