While sitting in the queue to pay the toll for the Bay Bridge Monday, I heard two great counterintuitive pieces on KQED.
The first was a thoughtful comparison between our quality of life now compared to the distant past. It is a true and important comparison and a nice reminder of how great our lives really [...]

San Francisco cab drivers face two recent cost pressures: a recent gate fee increase combined with the recent climb in gas prices.
Fortunately, these cost pressures come at a time when aggregate demand for taxis in the City is increasing. More tourists, outdoor City festivals, and frequent conventions bring in more and more cab passengers as [...]

I point your temporary attention to a Flash website produced by UC Berkeley j-school grad students Eric Zassenhaus and Amy Jeffries.
The video clips thumbnailed along the bottom are accurate and colorful paintings of a typical taxi shift. Well worth a view.
But wait, there’s more. The site also features insightful interviews with Heidi Machen, the SF [...]

Mayor Newsom signed a bill last week that increases gate fees for most cab drivers by $5 (effectively a $.50/hr paycut) and increases the gate fee for Compressed Natural Gas and hybrid cab drivers by $13.50 (effectively a $1.35/hr paycut).
I first learned of the gate fee increase when I showed up for work this weekend. [...]

When I drive an 11 hour shift and make only fifty or sixty bucks I feel pretty sour. This doesn’t happen often. But, it does happen a few times a month during this time of year when demand for cabs in the City is seasonally low.
My angry mind jumps first to the cab company. How [...]

The Examiner has an update on the saga of supervisor Alioto-Pier’s original proposal to considerably increase gate fees. (A gate fee is the rental price of a taxicab charged to cab drivers.)
A much more reasonable $5 increase (compared to nearly $20) was put forward by supervisor Aaron Peskin. Supervisor Chris Daly opposed any increase, notably [...]

In some ways, blogs are great. They present frequently updated writing with a nice user interface that emphasizes recent postings first. But, most blog interfaces (including this one) bury old postings even if new, interesting and worthy comments are posted. I did my best to address this by adding some of the widgets you now [...]

The Examiner reports Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier recently proposed a significant increase in taxi gate fees charged to cab drivers.
(Quick background: A ‘gate fee’ is the rental fee charged to a taxi driver for a shift. Taxi drivers pay the gate fee, plus gas and dispatcher/cashier tips. The current average gate fee for large companies — [...]