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Taxi fees could get even higher
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Taxi riders currently pay $3.10 just to enter the cab, the second-highest “flag drop” rate in the nation, trailing only Las Vegas. Additionally, the price per mile — $2.25 — is the highest in the nation.
San Francisco cabs are already among the most expensive in the nation and it’s been less than two years since the last price hike.
Taxi riders currently pay $3.10 just to enter the cab, the second-highest “flag drop” rate in the nation, trailing only Las Vegas. Additionally, the price per mile — $2.25 — is the highest in the nation. The average cost of a taxi ride in San Francisco is $16.15, according to a January City Controller’s report.
The city agency that oversees San Francisco’s taxicab industry is considering a flat $1 per passenger fuel surcharge, no matter the distance of the trip. The head of the Taxicab Commission, Jordanna Thigpen, called it “an idea we are tossing around.”
Thigpen said she has a received a “deluge” of calls from cab drivers asking the commission to address the financial burden of soaring gas prices. According to the Automobile Association of America, the average cost for a gallon of gas in the Bay Area is $4.48.
Other municipalities have approved taxi fuel charges, including Cleveland, Chicago and Miami-Dade County. On Monday, members of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance asked the agency overseeing its fare rates to authorize a $1 charge to compensate for gas prices.
Mark Gruberg of the United Taxicab Workers, which represents the interests of cab drivers, said the gas costs are making it more difficult for cab drivers to “pay the rent, put food on the table.”
“This is not a high-paying job,” said Gruberg. “It’s the kind of job where you take $25, $30 out of somebody’s pocket and people are hurting, and they are.”
On average, a cab driver takes home $109.47 a shift, according to a January 2008 City Controller’s report.
Jim Gillespie, assistant manager at Yellow Cab, said he thinks the public would accept a fuel surcharge, as opposed to a meter increase.
San Franciscan Janet Clyde said. “A dollar wouldn’t keep me out of a cab,” as she stepped out a taxi Monday that cost her about $10 from North Beach to Civic Center.
The Taxicab Commission could recommend a surcharge, but any change in fares would require approval by the Board of Supervisors.
Any proposal for a surcharge would not be presented until after August, when the City Controller is slated to release a report on the industry, including analysis on cab drivers’ income and the impact of fare increases, said Thigpen.
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Jane Bolig said:
We have lost compassion. I have known Mike Friedman for at least three decades. I have seen him at his worst. I knew him when he hit the bottom he was searching for his whole life--and bounced. His past 2 1/2 years are unlike any previous. He not only practices sobriety, he acknowledges and takes responsibility for his past. It used to be that when a person repented his bad deeds and turned a new leaf he was given an opportunity to redeem himself. We don't seem to believe in that anymore unless it's as safely remote as fiction or a guest appearance by a rehabed celebrity on Oprah. Today, "Who will caste the first stone?" is answered with choruses of "Me!"
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Examiner Reader said:
I wouldn't do this kind of work if they paid me. They're a bunch of creepy looking hail drivers. It's not that a lot of them are from other countries, they just look like creepos. Muni drivers aren't anymore presentable. Know anyone you went to school with who became a cabbie or bus driver? It means they weren't smart enough to get a job in an office building. Know what I mean?
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What's Up with SF Cabbies? said:
Ever notice how most SF cabbies are not native-born, speak extremely fractured English, reek of the cologne they use to disguise the fact that they don't bathe regularly and tear thru SF streets like it's or some third world slum metropolis/war zone? I jumped in a cab the other night. My eyes immediately started to water; you could see the stench emanating from the driver. In addition to the BO he also smoked heavily. I grabbed the front seat as we flew to my destination, the cabbie blithely disregarding other motorists, pedestrians and cyclists (one of whom screamed "Car bomb!", much to my terrified amusement). He sneered at me because I only (!) gave him a three dollar tip (the fare was $8.00). New York established a code of civility and conduct that all cabbies are compelled to observe, including excellent hygiene, courtesy and honesty. If they rack up too many infractions, they lose their licenses. It's high time we did the same thing here.
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Mark Winshel said:
If this Robert Friedman was a lawyer instead of a cabdriver, the CA State Bar, & rather than suspending or disbarring him, would almost certainly put him in its secret program in which it places most lawyers who have problems so extreme w/ alcoholism and/or drug abuse, that it therefore greatly effects their ability to reason, think, & properly do their jobs, & it therefore allows them to keep practicing law AND BILLING CLIENTS while it loosely monitors them for awhile to see if they show signs of learning to deal w/ their addictions. In other words, the CSB has a secret & illegal system of two sets of books. For example, if you look up the name of attorney XYZ on the Bar's website, it will usually state he has "No public reocrd of discipline," since the State Bar likes to play cute word games. Howeever the Bar may have privately disciplined him numerous times, & the State Bar also has a program in which it makes money by selling those pardons, whitewashes, & coverups.
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SFDave4U said:
While NOT speaking for United Taxicab Workers of which I am a co-founder (also having practiced law and been a reporter) there's a little fuller picture and context here even though I am not sure I have all the figures and soon the city controller will do a more exhaustive report. That said, the operative reality is that many gates and gas drivers, the backbone of the industry, are the working poor and were especially hard hit last March with the enactment of ordinance 26-08 allowing the companies to raise our daily taxi rents by $5.00 a shift and a $7.50 surcharge and for a regular driver that's a salary cut of over a grand per year and a hybrid driver will take over a three grand cut. Thank you Michela Alioto-Pier for that special interest legislation on behalf of the companies and the saving grace reference to hybrids was only added in the last draft or two to gussy it up and give it a kosher veneer. This doesn't even include gas increases. Help the working poor now.
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Missy B said:
Not everybody knows that cabbies pay a flat "gate fare" to their respective cab companies at the end of every day. They're really just renting the cab.. All the money they get from riders is theirs minus that giant gate at the end of the day, always well over $100. Then cabbies have to fill their tanks back up at the end of the day. A good day with plenty of fares is gonna' be between one and two full tanks. All out of the pocket of the driver. So if paying a gas surcharge keeps these guys on the road, I personally say "sure".. Rising gas prices are going to change the cost of taking a cab one way or another so if the money goes to the driver and not his exploitive employer, I'm down.
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Inflation economics said:
Do you really think these cabbies report all of the tips they recieve? The government should step in and make it mandatory to use all energy smart cars from the proceeds of this increase. Otherwise it will be another dollar or two dollar raise when bush leaves office and the people raking money turn the screws while they still can.
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Gavin Newsome said:
Maybe if our mayor in sf had any forsight and was as green as he claims they would have more hybird/natural gas cabs in advance. This is another example of lack of foresight too much posing with solar panels.
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Examiner Reader said:
Cab drivers - like the restaurants that now want to add 4% fee to cover health care - comes out of servers tip - no tip for cab drivers if you institute a $1 fee on top of the outrageous prices we pay now.
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Examiner Reader said:
Try getting more taxis on the street. It is impossible to find a cab in certain neighborhoods in this city. In fact they won't even go to the out Richmond or Sunset (I have heard by law someone has to be there in 30 minutes - ha) so why should we give them more money?
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Examiner Reader said:
A $1 flat fee is too much. It should be based on distance/time. Not just per passenger. Maybe the cab drivers could slow down a bit too? Ease on the pedal coming off a light? I bet that would save them a fortune right there.
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Janet Clyde said:
Please clarify this for me, is it one dollar per trip or one dollar per person?
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