A Message From The San Francisco Cab Drivers' Association (SFCDA)... Impact of the Medallion Sales Pilot Program on Drivers.

By Barry Korengold, President of the SFCDA

At this Monday's Taxi Advisory Council meeting (January 24th), we'll be continuing discussion on the effects the Pilot Program has had on drivers on and off the list.  It will be a continuation of last weeks discussion, where I presented a report enumerating some of the negative effects the pilot program has had on those at the top of the list.  I'm aware that for many, the pilot program has given them the opportunity to buy a medallion, which they otherwise would have had to wait several years for, but it's also meant that many who have already waited 10 or 15 years, will either not get one at all, or have to wait several additional years.

Most qualified drivers at the top of the list have already put in at least 15 to 20 years behind the wheel of a cab, and have at some time or another been robbed, assaulted, crashed into by negligent drivers, driven to their wits end, worn their backs out and more, yet many proponents of total transferability still like to say these drivers are receiving a "free" medallion if they don't purchase it and give close to half the money to the city and the banks.

This new system is devaluating the medallions.  Even if the new owners will be able to eventually sell them and have equity, they will have less than if they were to have put that same money into a savings account!

If you're high on the list, and feel you're now having to wait longer for your medallion, or being unduly pressured to purchase one, it's important for you to show up at this Monday's TAC meeting and share your feelings.  The TAC will be making recommendations soon for a more permanent solution and we need to hear from those who would be affected negatively by a total transferability system.

There will likely be drivers who'll say how happy they are to have been able to jump the line by paying the fee.  I'm sure if they allowed drivers in the third lot at the airport to pay $10 to go to the head of the line, they'd be happy too.  The drivers in the first lot might not be so happy however.

The following is a report presented by SFCDA at the last Taxi Advisory Council meeting held January 10, 2011.

Presented by Barry Korengold 

Pilot Program Effects on Drivers 

From SFMTA

Last chance to renew your A-Card without penalty!!!! 

WHEN? 

Drivers must renew their A-Cards by January 31 to avoid penalty fees. 

PENALTIES FOR NON-PAYMENT 

• Payments made beginning November 30- Jan 31: No penalty fee 

• Payments made beginning February 1 - 28: 10% penalty fee 

• Payments made beginning March 1 - 30: 15% penalty fee 

• Payments made beginning April 1 – April 30: Drivers must complete an application for a Public Passenger Vehicle Driver Permit (A-Card), pay applicable filing fee, license fee and 25% penalty fee 

• May 1, 2011 the permit shall expire by operation of law. Drivers must obtain a new permit pursuant to MPC Section 1089 and pay all applicable fees. 

Office Hours for A-Card Renewal: 

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday only between 9:00-11:30am and 2:00-4:00pm 

WE WILL BE CLOSED MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2011 

WHERE to Pay? 

Payments can be made at the SFMTA Taxi Services, One South Van Ness Ave, 1^st Floor – Drivers must check in with the security desk first and will be given instruction upon arrival. 

HOW MUCH? 

The current renewal fee is $88.50 + any outstanding fees from previous years

San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency San Francisco Municipal Railway | Department of Parking & Traffic | Division of Taxis & Accessible Services One S. Van Ness Avenue, Seventh Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103 | Tel: 415.701.4400 | Fax: 415.701.5437 | www.sfmta.com 

Taxi Stands At Temporary Transbay Terminal. From SFMTA

Please (click here to see) attached for information about two taxi stands in the temporary Transbay Terminal:

·      Greyhound circular driveway off Folsom St.

·       Howard St. adjacent to the paratransit area (Note: curb color and signage is not completed)

The Transbay Terminal planners will be making a presentation about the project at an upcoming (as yet unscheduled) Taxi Advisory Council meeting.  Taxi Advisory Council meeting agendas can be checked at the following website:

http://www.sfmta.com/cms/ctac/tacindx.htm

Peak Time Trials. By Jane Bolig.

Photo by John Han.

Jane Bolig is president of De Soto Cab.  

It’s obvious why peak time franchise permits might be attractive to SFMTA: The cab industry makes the investment and takes the risk, while MTA enjoys the rewards. In theory. In practice, risk is not so easily shed.

Good alternatives that work for customers, the industry and SFMTA—while bringing in revenue—do exist.

John Han early last year proposed single operator medallions: cabs driven by just one person, presumably at the busiest times.

Chris Hayashi’s proposal for peak time company medallions—minus the franchise element—is also worth exploring.

Carl Macmurdo and I independently made proposals at the November 22 TAC Meeting. I expect that Carl and others will expand on their ideas very shortly. But I’d also like to share my own, meant not as a final solution, but a test of reasonable ideas to find out which work best.

The Phantom Cab Driver Phites Back. Ed Healy.

Fleet Taxis and Employees

The dawn of the New Year seems a good time for exercises in nostalgia and theory.

President of Desoto Cab, Jane Bolig, wants a return to the good old days when cab companies owned corporate permits. In a TaxiTownSF post,  Remembrance of Peak Times Past, she writes that San Francisco didn't need Peak Time permits back in the good old 60's because Old Yellow Cab owned its medallions and didn't have to pay the medallion holder the fees that cripple companies today.

"To pay them (the fees),"  Jane says, "they (the cab companies)  have to put out all their cabs every shift, every day of the week, every week of the year. That is why drivers fight for rides most Sunday mornings and passengers can’t find cabs any Friday night."

Old Yellow was apparently so profitable that they could "hold back unneeded cabs (sometimes equaling 40% of its fleet)" on slow days and put cabs out when it was busy. "It’s why we discuss peak time medallions in 2010," Jane says, "and why we didn’t in 1968."

The thrust of Jane's essay is that allowing cab companies to have fleet medallions would cure all our peak time problems.

Simple as that!

Unfortunately, Jane is leaving out parts of the equation.

... Read Entire Article...

Bad Time Peak Time Permits. By Jane Bolig.

Photo by John Han.

Jane Bolig is president of De Soto Cab.

San Francisco is unique. Even our taxi laws are unique. In other cities companies can own medallions. Here, even the suggestion of company medallions is heresy. You might as well ask a Baptist preacher to kiss the pope’s ring. You don’t do it.  

You just DON’T.

Yet, because of our unique, driver-medallion-only law, all the cabs are out all the time; sometimes there are too many, sometimes too few. With no ability to respond to wildly up-and-down customer demand, we have both a peak time problem AND a down time problem. To address, if not fix it, we are discussing just one part of the problem: peak times.

So, let’s forget the obvious solution for both peak and down times: company medallions. It will upset too many people, so just forget it. Let’s think realistically.

Driver Shakes A Fist At MTA's Style of A-Card Renewal.

By Tariq Mehmood, Taxi Driver.  Published On Taxi TownSF With Permission From Tariq Mehmood.

The drivers used to spent 2-3 minutes to 5 minutes at City Hall for renewal of A-Card.

It was always so quick that they will park their taxis at 400 Mcallister on taxi stand and walk in-and-out of city hall within 5 minutes with their A-Card renewed.
 Now they have to stand at SFMTA for 2 to 3 hours like slaves.   Drivers are losing $ 90-100 of their time waiting to get their A-Card renewed due to the new system arranged by SFMTA and its Deputy Director of Taxis Christiane Hayashi. I urge everyone to send emails to SFMTA Director Mr. Ford, Debra Johnson, SFMTA Board members and even to the Board of Supervisors.

The drivers are screaming and there is no one to help them in this horrible, disaster situation.  Where are fake taxi advisory council representatives of the
drivers who do not know what is going on.  This council was arranged by Christiane of the people who do not have 2-3 drivers behind them.

It is unthinkable what is going on with the drivers.  We need immediate help from someone for the drivers to solve this problem.

Tariq Mehmood
Working for the Drivers

415 756 9476

From the Publisher:  For further commentary and possibly clarity, read Ed Healy's blog "A-Card Renewal".

Taxi Driver Vs the DPT, Round 2. DPT Captured On Camera! By John Han. (Photostream)

DPT at Market and Main St.

Essay and photostream by John Han.

I have already received a notice from the Department of Parking and Traffic (DPT) that my letter to contest the first of the two tickets that I received along the Embarcadero has been denied, and that I owe the $90 penalty.  Insufficient argument, they say.  I now have the option to go to a hearing officer in person and contest that ticket at the DPT office.  I will.  I hope I can get some help from Michael Harris at SFMTA Taxis and Accessible Services Division, and Christiane Hayashi.  I could really use a letter of support from the SFMTA, and bring it to the hearing officer to show when I contest.  

Commentary on Barry Korengold's GPS Short Proposal. By John Han.

SFO Taxi Lot.  Photo by John Han.

Barry Korengold may be onto something.  He’s president of the San Francisco Cab Drivers’ Association (SFCDA).  And he’s proposed to save SFO’s short line with a distance based short instead of the traditional one based by time… one that would be monitored by GPS technology.  Ed Healy’s got his ideas posted on “The Phantom Cab Driver Phites Back”.  

I posted previously about using a short system also based on distance, but one in which the starters hand out tickets to the drivers manually, once it would be determined they’d be going to pre-designated short cities.  Other drivers, like Mark Gruberg, are also promoting a distance-based system using tickets that’s similar to one being used in New York.  But these ticket systems are being proposed, because there was the notion that a GPS plan would be too far away into the future, and that a distance, ticket system would have to serve in the interim years. 

Barry says he’s talked to a CEO at a tech company that says a GPS system could have already been nearly implemented by now.  If that’s true, then the GPS plan is the way to go.  No need for a ticket plan in the interim.  SFCDA is pushing for this plan as a pilot program until the glitches can be worked out, and then have it serve as a “complete and real time GPS system” once it’s perfected. 

If it can happen sooner than later, then I say go for it now.  No need for an interim plan.  

I don’t even play the airport.  I like to pick up street fares in the City and play the radio.  But that’s not to say I'll never play the airport in the future.  And if I do, this GPS idea would be a relatively convenient system to have.  And drivers who want to save the short line would probably do themselves a big favor to get behind and support it... now!  Drivers are going to have to come up with some kind of consensus soon.  If you don't, you might lose the short line altogether. 

Remembrance of Peak Times Past. By Jane Bolig.

Photo by John Han.

Jane Bolig is President of DeSoto Cab.

Does San Francisco need peak time taxi medallions? If so, how would they operate: who would hold them; when would they be on the street; when off?

At the November 22 Taxi Advisory Council meeting I suggested that we survey cities around the country to see how they structure peak time medallions. Our problem might already have a solution.

Rather than wait for the taxi section to take up my suggestion, I decided to do my own research, so I started by asking the Taxi Limousine Paratransit Association (TLPA), headquartered near Washington D.C., for a list of cities with peak time medallions.

The answer surprised me. Apparently, Las Vegas is the only place in the entire U.S. to issue peak time medallions. In fact, they issue all kinds of medallions, some of which can only pick up in certain areas, some of which may operate only at certain times of the day, or on certain days. It’s easy to imagine why a city built on tourism, with predictable peaks and valleys of demand, would issue a variety of special medallions, but hard to imagine how its experience could apply here.

So, what about other American cities with demand cycles more like ours? Do they ignore peak time service needs? Are they waiting for San Francisco to take the lead? Or, is there another reason? If we look into our own history we may find the answer.