The numbers are based on three assumptions:
1. That there are not enough taxis to meet the demand now.
2. That the city will grow over the next eight or ten years, increasing the demand for cabs.
3. That many people who don't take cabs now will begin taking them if the service improves.
The figures naturally will be subjects for extreme debate. I personally don't think any more cabs should be put out until Lyft and Sidecar are crushed while Yellow Cab's Nate Dwiri is probably thinking, "Why didn't I ask for a thousand?"
Mark Gruberg, among others, complained that people will not have enough time to study the Hara document before the MTA votes on it. I made a similar point in a conversation with Hayashi after the meeting and she said ...
But just as I'm about to post, the Staff comes down with a bout of common sense and sends along this message:
NOTICE
March 13, 2013
The SFMTA Board hearing on whether to issue new medallions will NOT be held
on March 19, but instead will be conducted on April 16, 2013. This decision to
reschedule the hearing is to allow time for public review of the final report from
Hara and Associates prior to action being taken by the Board. The SFMTA
expects the Hara Report to be ready for distribution during the week of March
18. Copies will be distributed to the SFTaxi newsletter and will be posted on our website www.sfmta.com/taxis.
There will be a Town Hall meeting to discuss the Hara Report on April 9,
2013. See www.sfmta.com/cms/ctaxitownhall/taxitownhallindx.htm.
The following item related to taxis will still be heard on the March 19, 2013 Board
Amending Transportation Code Sections 1102, 1105, 1108, 1109, 1113 and 1114 to require all motor vehicle for hire permit holders to cooperate with implementation of the Electronic Taxi Access (ETA) System to support the development of taxi hailing smart phone applications, forcolor scheme permit holders to provide financial data to support the SFMTA’s review of gatefees, and extending the deadlines for implementation of electronic trip data and blind-accessible passenger information monitors, and providing that a driver may not smoke inside ataxi at any time.
I'll deal with the report in more detail after reading it. I'll review Electronic Taxi Access (ETA) etc manana.
Correction - as of this date the Hara report has not been published. The Hara report's recommendations are not known. The 120 cabs for 2013 and the 200 for 2014 are proposed by SFMTA taxi staff based on a projection of 800 that the Hara Report is supposedly estimating as the ultimate increase for the number of taxi permits in SF. Nothing more is known.
ReplyDeleteWhat is disturbing is that there is no sociometric research support for any of these recommendations. Somebody just put their finger in the air and decided we need more cabs. Why 120?
DeleteStaff knows what the report says and will put it out Friday. Of course they would have said to put more cabs out without the report anyway cuz that is more money they can spend on benefits for them selves.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Ed as usual in that until all these unregulated honyocks are dealt with they should not put out any except for the dead guys medallions.
There are not enough drivers now and it is going to get worse. Count on MTA to do something stupid.
I sure would not buy a medallion for any more than about $100 k at this point. I predict defaults on the medallions coming fairly soon.
For MTA to put out more medallions without doing anything about the ridculous system of having 6-7 choices to call is utterly insane.
ReplyDeleteIf I said it once I said it a hundred times: Yellow, Luxor etc. want more cabs for more profit. They don't give a sh!t if a customer can't get a cab.
As Hara will no doubt say there is a vast untapped market that just wants a cab but knows calling isa waste of time if it is a little busy. They don't care what kind it is.