 |
| Paul Gillespie, former president of Former SF Taxi Commission |
It’s a crisp spring morning in San Francisco, and Mayor Gavin Newsom is standing in front of a row of taxi cabs lined up at City Hall. He points to the TV camera and says, “To Mayor Bloomberg, I say we beat you on this.” He gestures to the taxis, each either a fuel-efficient hybrid or natural gas vehicle. “The Big Apple is not the green apple yet."
Indeed, San Francisco succeeded in greening its taxi fleet—which is now 55 percent hybrid or powered by clean-burning natural gas—where New York City failed even to approach San Francisco’s level.
Before you imagine this game of environmental one-upmanship is strictly between big city mayors, consider this: the man who arguably deserves the most credit for reducing the San Francisco taxi fleet’s carbon footprint—by a whopping 35,000 tons per year—is a 53-year-old rank-and-file taxi driver named Paul Gillespie. Gillespie’s efforts serve as an object lesson in how real environmental change gets done—not by politicians politicking but by grassroots hard work, consensus building, and levelheaded thinking.
The story begins 13 years ago, when former Mayor Willie Brown established a taxi task force to look at all issues facing San Francisco’s cabbies. The task force recommended the creation of an official Taxi Commission, with one of the seven seats allocated to a working driver. Gillespie raised his hand and was chosen. “I was just a regular guy who got himself appointed to this position where I had a chance to get things done,” Gillespie recalled. Read entire article>>
A person who called himself as driver and sided for companies, approved proposals by the companies, drivers' concerns are being ignored. This is John Gillispe! Nothing to envy but anger!
ReplyDeleteWhy would anyone in their right mind use an Uber ridesharing vehicle? You could lose everything just to save a couple bucks and be trendy.
ReplyDeleteRidesharing passengers give up crucial insurance protections they would otherwise receive from a taxi. Ridesharing drivers place themselves at the risk of a lawsuit that could haunt them financially for the rest of their lives.
San Francisco attorney Christopher Dolan best sums up how passengers and drivers can get screwed by ridesharing apps. If you use or drive for any ridesharing app, take a minute to read the column linked to at the bottom of this comment. Dolan has other columns, too. They might save you a world of pain.
Jake at www.4-insure.com
Thank you because you have been willing to share information with us. we will always appreciate all you have done here because I know you are very concerned with our. taxi dispatch system
ReplyDeleteWow, this is really interesting reading. I am glad I found this and got to read it. Great job on this content. I like it. gatwick taxi transfer
ReplyDelete