The Informationist

A Local Issue

Well, I finally found a local issue about which I feel strongly enough to voice my opinion: the pathetic lack of taxis in San Francisco.

One of the Taxi Commissioners sent me the following e-mail:

The Taxi Commission is currently conducting research for the annual Public Convenience and Necessity Hearing, which will occur February 13, 2007 at 6:30 PM in Room 400 of City Hall.

At this hearing, the Taxi Commission will consider whether or not to add more medallions (permits) for taxicabs to operate in the streets of San Francisco. Research has been ongoing and involves several components. We are very interested in hearing from members of the community. We’re hoping that you can submit responses to the following questions:

What has been your experience with the San Francisco taxicab industry? Do you have problems obtaining taxicabs on particular days and times, or in your neighborhood? What are the best aspects of the San Francisco taxicab industry? What are the worst?

We’d love to hear it all - the good, the bad, and the ugly. At a respondent’s request, we will keep identity confidential.

I could think of nothing good, but I remain undecided as to which aspects of SF taxis are bad and which are ugly.
I replied:

Taxi service in San Francisco is inadequate and overpriced. Taking a taxi in San Francisco is considerably more expensive than it is in other cities, such as New York or Washington, DC.

The real problem though, is the inadequacy of supply, not the price levels. With the exception of small parts of downtown, no one walking anywhere in San Francisco at any time of the day or night can reasonably expect to hail a cab. The local taxi services do not respond to phone calls in a timely manner, and often do not respond at all. They frequently let their phones ring off the hook, and then promise to send cars that never materialize.

Service of this sort works to the detriment of public safety. It encourages San Franciscans to drive more than they might otherwise want to because taxi service is simply not a reliable way to get around town. No reasonable San Franciscan can count on finding a taxi to take them from one meeting to another without allowing two or three times as much time as should be necessary. In the evenings, patrons of restaurants and bars are encouraged to drive because they cannot rely upon finding a taxi to take them home at the end of the evening. This encouragement increases traffic congestion in the early evening--when commuters already generate the day’s worst traffic--and complicates parking in many neighborhoods. It also has the more pernicious effect of increasing the number of inebriated (or arguably inebriated) drivers on the road at the end of the evening. Were residents able to find taxis to take them out for the evening, comfortable in the knowledge that they would quickly find cabs for their returns home, many people even contemplating the consumption of alcohol would choose to do so. The current shortage of taxis increases the amount of unsafe driving on our streets.

The city would best be served by deregulating the provision of taxi services, maintaining only those regulations necessary to ensure public safety; those intended to limit demand and elevate prices should disappear. Since that seems unlikely to happen any time soon, I strongly advocate increasing the supply of medalions to the largest number currently being contemplated.

Posted by Bruce Abramson from on 01/19 at 02:50 PM in American Government, Politics, and Domestic Policies