Posts Tagged ‘california’

I’ve been advising the team working on Cabulous, a new mobile location-enabled app that makes it easier for cabbies to advertise their locations — and for passengers to find them. I drove last Saturday and helped with an early beta test. John taped the first successful Cabulous hail: A few weeks back, Cabulous had nice [...]


When the Chronicle ran a story about Mayor Gavin Newsom’s idea for “Sunday Streets” I was a bit skeptical. I wasn’t so sure that we needed another street closure, especially on a Sunday when so many tourists rely on the Embarcadero to come downtown or to the piers to spend money in our City. So [...]


Here’s a summary of my cab shifts from last weekend. I picked up an older guy from the Kaiser. I’d guess he was 60+. I have a hard time judging ages, especially those +/-5 years from mine. He was heading back to his home in the Castro near the Seward Street slides. He’s gay. We [...]


Sunday was a busy and good day, buoyed by City events and nice weather. Monday and Tuesday were a bit slow. As usual, I picked up a few lawyers going to or from work. (Work seems to always be the destination or origin for lawyers in my cab.) One lawyer was late for work but [...]


Time for an earnings update. My earnings floor — the lowest take-home pay I can expect — is increasing from the record lows of the winter. In other words, it’s rare this time of year to see a shift that doesn’t net me at least $100. In the winter I had sub $100 shifts much [...]


DPT officers get a bad rap. Everyone seems to despise them, yet they are a crucial element necessary to help all of us to effectively share our City streets. Here are a few of the ways they make our lives better: Parking meter enforcement: You think it’s hard enough to find parking now? Without meter [...]


It was another slow weekend in San Francisco. During my shifts I witnessed a non-trivial collision. A Toyota pickup truck was traveling behind me south on South Van Ness. As we approached the 16th Street intersection he passed me on the left and returned to my lane immediately before entering the intersection. The light had [...]


I am so fond of ragging on San Francisco’s poorly managed Municipal Railway that I often overlook Muni’s remarkable, world-class achievements. (Yes, they really do have some remarkable, world-class achievements.) This post is a first attempt at fixing my glaring oversight. Muni’s extensive trolleybus system is a modern treasure. Muni claims to hold the largest [...]


I drove 3 shifts in the past 3 days. One of them starts early at 5 am, the other two are graveyard shifts starting at 1 am. Each lasts 11 hours. During my shifts I picked up two young, professional nice guys downtown on Market Street. They wanted to go out to the Golden Gate [...]


I am a recently single guy and just realized how hard it seems to be to meet new people (men or women) in the City. One craigslist post summed it up well, “Ever notice how people (downtown anyway) just walk right past each other, no eye contact? Creepy.” I heard a great Perspective on KQED [...]