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 enforcement you would never be able find a place to park in the City’s high demand commercial corridors.
• Neighborhood permit enforcement: If you work out of town, where do you park your car after work? In your neighborhood. Without neighborhood permitting you would never find a space. Enforcement is key.
• Transit revenue: Have you ever taken a bus in the City? A great deal of revenue for our public transit system comes from DPT parking fines. This is good.
• Curbed wheels: It’s not just a joke to squeeze money from you, parked cars without curbed wheels can and do injure people.
• Sidewalk blocking: Nobody wants to live in a city where anyone can park their car anywhere they please. Blocking sidewalks is rude to most pedestrians and a major challenge for the mobility impaired.

Frankly, most complaints about DPT tickets include silly disclaimers, such as, “I just double parked for just a second… I didn’t feed the meter, but I was just going in for a coffee… I know there was street cleaning, but…” We receive significantly below market cost parking on our City streets. The least people can do is follow simple rules to share our limited parking resources.

So, dear reader, please shake the hand of the next DPT officer you see and say, “Thank you.”

• It was slow Monday and Tuesday in the City.

  I am learning, albeit slowly, to let go of the natural feelings of elated success or critical failure that come from a high or low earning day. This is important.

  While there are many factors over which I have control — the areas of town where I roll around seeking street fares or radio fares, the speed with which I drive, the choice of van or car, whether or not to sit in hotel or airport taxi queues — the most important factor that determines my earnings is outside of my control: demand for taxicabs during a given shift.

  I think it is a natural human thought process shortcut to overly attribute successes or failures of a given activity to yourself.

• On a rather quiet Tuesday morning I ambled around in the Marina around 9:30 after the morning rush was over. I answered a radio call in the deep Marina near Broderick and Chestnut.

  I searched out the address and was surprised and happy to realize it was the same elderly lady I had picked up a few weeks ago. She regularly heads out to the UC hospital on the other side of town for continuing physical therapy related to a leg injury.

  Her injury makes it difficult for her to descend the many stairs in front of her apartment. I accompany her down the stairs with patience while we start to converse. She is blessed with an endlessly spunky wit.

  Occasionally people make requests to stop and pick something up. Sometimes it’s a quick trip to the ATM, absolutely necessary and in my own interest, of course. Sometimes it’s a quick stop to get something and return back to where we started, that’s good too as it’s a quick double fare.

  But, sometimes it’s a frustrating waste of my time. I earn less while sitting in place than in motion, even as the meter ticks up for idle time. I accept quick shopping requests (“I just want to grab a water, newspaper, cigarettes, etc.”) with apprehension, sometimes denying them depending on a variety of variables (remaining distance to end destination, total fare, politeness of request, their understanding of my time and perceived willingness to tip appropriately, current City demand for taxis).

  So, when this nice lady asked to stop to get a cup of coffee I was torn. I couldn’t say no, she was too nice. And, the City wasn’t busy at all. And, she was actually a lot of fun to hang out with. And, there was a surreal sense of humor in the whole situation. And, she has a really hard time walking right now so the least I can do is help her get a cup of coffee.

  She takes a few minutes to get down the stairs and climb in the cab. We head around the corner to the ‘coffee shop’ which turns out to be a liquor store which also serves coffee and donuts in the morning. Wow, not what I expected, especially considering San Francisco is the coffee shop capital of the world.

  She tells me, “Just ask for Margaret’s coffee and they’ll know how to make it.”

  I head in and ask Robert behind the counter, “Can you help me get Margaret’s special coffee?” For the record, Margaret’s special coffee is 1/3 half and half and 2/3 coffee. I also get her a chocolate donut per request. I am smiling throughout this experience, finding humor in every element from her innocent, yet absolutely clear breakfast demands to Robert’s deep rooted understanding of Margaret’s more than 20-year history of coffee needs.

  Freshly caffeinated, Margaret directs me on our previously worn path toward the UC hospital via the Presidio. As before, it was pleasant and relaxing. I quizzed her throughout the trip about her past — where she was born, what brought her to the City and the evolution of her life in the City.

  She didn’t have any paratransit scrips left, so she wasn’t able to tip as much as she would have liked paying in cash. The difficulty with which she parted with an extra dollar after paying the fare was tip enough.

  Thanks, lady. Hope to see you again.

• The Muni Metro broke down around 10 am Tuesday morning. It didn’t last very long, but it was long enough to instantly increase demand for taxicabs.

  At moments like these I (and stranded City residents) realize the amazing service provided by a properly functioning City taxi fleet: it is a last resort safety net, always around 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, providing emergency transportation solutions. Wow.

  Somewhat related, I took a break and went in for coffee and a bagel at It’s a Grind, one of my favorite neighborhood coffee chains. I chatted a bit with one of the employees and they complained a bit about the morning rush.

  Complaints? About the morning rush? Wow, what an opposite (literally opposite) view on the morning rush compared to mine. As I am paid directly on performance, a fare, which could otherwise be called ‘work’, is a desirable item. A fare may be ‘work’, but I view it as money in my pocket. Contrast that to an hourly worker at the coffee shop who gets paid regardless of how many customers come in the door. Each additional customer is more work, no additional pay.

  In the world of hourly compensation additional customers are a pain. Weird.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is a bureaucratic whale, containing, in separate stomachs, the Department of Parking and Traffic (DPT) and the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) public transit system.

Recently, the SFMTA crunched some numbers and said, “Uh oh, we won’t have enough money to cover our costs over the next two years.” Fair enough. Next step, “We need more money.”

Ideas? The Examiner and the Chronicle report the SFMTA has publicly discussed two classes of options: increasing transit fees and increasing parking fees.

Are these ideas justified? Most definitely yes — these fee increases are justified and necessary.

But, I believe the SFMTA needs to increase some fees significantly MORE than has been suggested. If we’re smart and look at the dirty details (below) we can find some fees that we can significantly increase. This has a multiple benefits — controlling traffic congestion, reducing total personal vehicle miles driven and rationing limited road real estate while ALSO generating significant revenue for the cash-strapped SFMTA. Win, win, win?

• Increasing transit fees: Monthly Fast Pass (unlimited bus pass) cards cost $45 per month and are priced below market. $1.50 each way to work plus 2 weekend trips per day makes a frequent Muni rider pay $90 per month if they pay per trip. The SFMTA’s analysis of neighboring communities’ monthly pass prices is wise and on par. An increase to $60 per month is more than reasonable given the value offered by the pass. At $60, the Fast Pass is still a bargain for regular transit users.
• Increasing parking fees:
  • Parking meters are priced at $.25/10 minutes = $1.25/hour = $12.50/day. This is below market value compared to garages. This could be increased.

    Idea: Why is Sunday meter collection or extended metered hours not discussed? Meters are not collected on Sundays. Meters are not collected after 6pm. Not only is this lost revenue but it causes inconvenience for City residents struggling to find spaces in highly trafficked commercial corridors at peak times. (This is the reason we have meters in the first place — to ration limited spaces. These spaces are still in high demand after 6pm and on Sundays in many metered commercial corridors. Just look at the Mission on Sunday afternoons; it’s a zoo.)

    Idea: Why aren’t meters priced based on demand? If meters had variable pricing, the City could collect significantly more revenue on Friday and Saturday nights, in addition to busy Saturday and Sunday shopping times on commercial corridors. This is a significant revenue opportunity lost that also serves City residents and visitors who are more than willing to pay market price for convenient parking.

  • Yearly residential permits are priced at $60/year = $5/month. Residential City parking permits are SEVERELY undervalued and could easily be doubled without approaching the true market cost of parking. Yearly residential permits should be priced $120/year immediately, with a yearly increase after that.

    At $120/year this is still an amazing bargain: I can park in my neighborhood ALL YEAR LONG for only $120? Remember, monthly private spaces cost as much as $250 per MONTH.

    People may complain, but even at $120/year this would result in no fewer permits purchased. Not until we pass $200/year will quantity demanded of yearly permits even begin to see a dent. Assuming about half of SF has a residential parking permit, just doubling this permit results in about $30 million incremental revenue per year.

• Congestion fees: Why is this not discussed as a revenue source? (Answer: The City can’t implement fast enough to be included as a revenue source for this 2-year projected shortfall.)

  Let’s change this. The City should implement congestion pricing within the next year.

  Variable City congestion pricing serves double duty as a significant revenue generator for the SFMTA AND as a traffic and transit speed increaser. It increases the speed of its public surface street-shared transit system and increases the convenience and utility of currently congested streets for frequent City street ‘power-users’ like delivery vehicles, taxis and persons with an absolute need for personal vehicle use.

So, SFMTA, go along with your plan, but let’s instead double yearly residential parking permits and let’s introduce congestion pricing immediately.

• These few days were slow, slow, slow. I find it funny that I have such a hard time estimating how much I’ll make beforehand. It’s almost like gambling. The only ‘sure-fire’ well-paying weekends are those with big street fairs or festivals, or huge conferences at Moscone Center.

  I get a bit more stressed when my earnings are on track to be significantly below my all-time shift average of $170 (11-hour shifts). I try to separate out those things over which I have no control, most notably that would be demand for taxicabs in the City during my shifts. But, it’s tough to do in practice.

• I was struggling to find fares on Monday morning during the usual ‘morning rush’ to work. I saw a lady urgently hailing my cab on Fillmore as I headed down the hill in Cow Hollow/Pac Heights. It turned out she was hailing for her husband who was heading to a meeting downtown.

  I really enjoy passengers that exhibit a steady and relaxed aura. Not cold, quiet people — confident and wise people comfortable with their person. This guy was one of those people.

  The first thing he said after putting on his seat-belt was, “You don’t do this full-time, do you?” I replied, “Right now, it pays my rent.” We had a good conversation.

• I picked up a radio call in the Financial District after dropping someone off downtown. The guy was in his mid-20s. He hopped in my cab and said he needed to get to Cupertino. I was a bit worried — I had never gone that far outside of the City. I didn’t do a great job with the protocol.

  I knew the general directions, but I had to call the dispatcher to get directions to the address in Cupertino. I looked up the price estimate and couldn’t believe it — a fare from SF to Cupertino is $160.* Wow.

  *(This includes a 50% surcharge for empty return trip. The ‘meter fare’ is about $100 to Cupertino. SF law says taxis charge 150% of meter fare for trips 15 miles or greater outside of the City. The additional 50% pays for the cost of the empty return trip. I know, this seems like a lot to me too. But, I did the math in my head as I was heading there and back. It is a long trip down there, as much as 2 hours round trip. It uses a lot of gas, let’s say $10 worth. So I could make $20-40/hr for 2 hours and not spend as much on gas if I stayed in the City. So that’s as much as $80 that I would make if I stayed in the City, and I would make significantly more if I had an airport run. If cabs charged pure meter for out-of-town fares, there would be no additional motivation for the increased risk of traffic problems, unknown territory, and higher chance of/penalty from a no-pay that out-of-town fares bring. Thus, without the 50% surcharge, most cab drivers would turn down out-of-town trips.)

  I warned him. He didn’t seem to happy about it, but he needed to be in Cupertino so he dealt with it.

• I was surprised how busy late Monday night (early Tuesday morning) was in the City. For some reason a lot of people went out on Monday night. But, Tuesday late morning and day was rather slow and I was getting stressed out.

  I picked up a sedan call in the Marina. A ‘sedan’ call means no vans, no SUVs. Usually elderly persons request sedans because it’s easier to get in and out of the cars.

  It turned out to be an older lady who had lived in San Francisco all her life. She was great fun. She was heading to the UC hospital from the Marina. She had to move very slowly because of a leg injury, hence the hospital trip. I always love getting older life-long San Francisco residents in my cab. I’ll quiz them all the way to our destination about what life was like in the City back in the day. I’ll also prod them about old school Muni (of course).

  Like the older guy above, she had a comfortable, steady demeanor which really calmed my nerves from the stress of the busy City traffic mixed with low cab demand. Thanks, lady.

• I picked up a dispatcher and driver for another cab company early in the morning. He had missed his Muni bus connection because the first bus driver was flirting with a passenger and didn’t leave on time. Oh, Muni. We talked a bit about the difficulty of needing to judge passengers, especially late at night, before picking them up for our safety. It is a tough and scary thing to do.
• I picked up a Mexican guy in the Tenderloin. He didn’t speak English well and asked to go to “Seventh and Mission.” I started that way and when we arrived, he said, “No, Seventh and Mission.” I realized he had meant “17th”. I didn’t mind, started the meter over, and tried out my very limited Spanish with him. I confirmed that he wanted to go to 17th and Mission. I guess I should keep taking Spanish classes.

Driving so many hours in the City offers a lot of time for thinking, especially thinking about driving.

I put a lot of thought toward the question: How can I reach a destination most quickly?

The answer is rather complicated, much more so than it may appear at first glance. It’s not just about distance. It’s about traffic. It’s about roadway capacities. It’s about speed limits. But, often the most important factor is traffic signal timing.

When I drive between midnight and the morning rush, which starts around 5 am, there is virtually no traffic. Or, to be more specific, traffic congestion is beneath a threshold such that all traffic signals in the City will completely clear within one signal cycle.

It is during this phase between midnight and the morning rush where you can explore the naked signal cycles with the traffic variable removed. It is great fun.

I start to develop intuitive (implicitly memorized) and non-intuitive (explicitly memorized routes) maps of signal timing, especially on frequently used routes. And, soon, I began to develop traffic signal ‘hacks’, ways to slip through long strings of intersections.

The first ‘hack’ I found is when I’m driving south on 8th St to get to the 6th St 280 on-ramp. Heading south on 8th St, most people would turn left at Bryant to get to 6th St for the 280 on-ramp. But, you’ll get stuck on at least one light (7th/Bryant) and maybe another (6th/Bryant). Instead, while you’re on 8th St as soon as Harrison turns green, gun it and pass through Bryant. You’ll just barely make the green to make a left on Brannan, head through a green that turns at just the right time at 7th/Brannan and hit another green to make a right on 6th. (Just watch out for the Highway Patrol station at 8th/Bryant.)

[EDIT 6/10/08: This doesn't seem to work anymore. The light at 8th at Folsom stays red longer now, making it impossible to reach a green light at 8th and Brannan unless you had a Ferrari and floored it.]

My friend Steve showed me a nice ‘hack’ to get on 101 from Gough. If you’re heading South on Gough, most people take Fell to Octavia to the 101 on-ramp. But, during the morning rush you can bypass a signal cycle or two if you continue on Gough past Fell and instead take a right on Haight which is the last street from which you can turn onto Octavia and the 101 onramp, bypassing a few blocks of heavy traffic.

Signal knowledge combined with estimates of traffic congestion make the acquired knowledge of City taxi drivers rather valuable. Which calls into question this story I found about F1 driver Michael Schumacher taking the wheel of a taxi in Deustchland to make a flight on time. It may work between these small villages where speed is the primary factor. But, it would never work in the City where the key to the fastest time between point A and point B is not pure acceleration, but instead requires an intimate knowledge of signal timing and traffic congestion.

Do you have any other City signal hacks?

Today was a tough, tough day to drive a cab.

I left the garage at 5 am. Nobody was out in the morning. I had about one fare per hour until around noon when the fare faucet started to drip drip drop. A few fares turned to a steady stream by the time I had to turn my cab back in at 3:30 pm.

I can’t imagine how days like this will be when they add 119 new cabs on the streets next year. The obvious need for a variable supply of cabs in the City hits me like a ton of bricks when I drive the taxi around empty for whole hours at a time.

• I earned about $70 today spread over less than 15 fares.
• I didn’t wait in any taxi stands, but I considered doing so more than I usually would. I even toyed with the idea of ‘deadheading’ to the airport. (Deadheading is when a cabbie goes to SFO without a fare to wait in the taxi queue.)
• I did have a couple of cool fares, though.
• I took a group of Kiwis from downtown to the Fisherman’s Wharf. They were a fun group to chat with. I talked with them about the one year working visa available from Bunac. I have been thinking about New Zealand as a working holiday destination and always like to quiz Kiwis on which city to live in. They strongly suggested Wellington.
• I took a young City couple and their visiting parents from the Wharf to Haight/Ashbury. It reminded me a lot of the fun I had showing my parents around the City when they visited earlier this year. It’s fun to show friends and family around the hidden treasures of the City, outside of the Wharf and the downtown touristy areas.
• I took a lady from the Haight to her home in the Richmond. She was tired of waiting for the 33-Stanyan which was stuck in the tourist-snarled Haight traffic. When I picked her up I was in a foul, foul mood. It was 2:30 pm and I had only made $40 after nearly 10 hours of work. I angrily turned onto Stanyan from Haight and came to an abrupt stop at the Fell/Oak light. I looked back in the mirror and realized she didn’t have any idea how shitty my day was. She was happy to get a ride to the Richmond in the midst of the Haight chaos. Something clicked in my brain and I smiled and asked, “How are you today?” I spent all of my attention on her (and driving safely, of course) and we had a great, great chat. Turns out she is from Columbia and some family friends at home drive taxi too. Wow, what a change in mood she brought me. It’s amazing how much each person has in common with each other. We’re all human after all. (I know it’s f***ing cheesy but it’s true, so deal.)
• I had to be back to the garage by 3:30. The cab company charges roughly $1/minute in 12 minute increments if you’re late and didn’t get permission in advance. You gotta be back on time. So, I wound my way back to the garage around 2:50. Sometimes I’ll get a fare and I’ll be happy to take it if they’re heading in the same direction as the garage. This time I came across a desperate looking guy hailing at Fell and Divisadero. Of course I was desperate as well since it was a slow day from hell. He was heading out to the Sunset near 40th Avenue. Ouch. But, I needed the money and was willing to risk it. I got him to 40th/Lincoln by 3:05 with 25 minutes to get back to the garage on the other end of the City. I got back to the garage at 3:25. Nice.

After my frustrating day I wondered if December was my worst month so far. Instead of measuring absolute earnings, which is skewed by the irregular number of days I work each month, I chose to compute the average take-home pay from each shift over each time period of a month. It turns out December wasn’t the worst month — November takes home that prize. Here is the chart:

Blue blobs mark mean shift take-home pay during a month period. The pink line is a polynomial trend line. (Don’t put too much faith in the trend line, it’s bound to head up soon.)

While this may be obvious to any San Francisco resident, I would like to release my extreme frustration caused by my travel from Berkeley to my apartment on Nob Hill this evening.

The trip on BART from Berkeley to the Embarcadero is about 10 miles. This trip took less time than my 1 mile trip from the Embarcadero to Sacramento and Hyde on the 1-California MUNI line.

Sacramento is a west-bound street (until Gough) and is absolutely packed with numskulls that work and park downtown then drive home through Chinatown, making an already clogged area come to a standstill. The 1-California has no choice but to sit — through 4 red/green cycles at one intersection!

Meanwhile, cars are parked on the left and right side of Sacramento (the “bus lane” is only vacant for 3 hours in the afternoon). Let’s use our heads for a second — is it more important to provide parking for a few residents, or to provide fast transit for EVERYONE ELSE? Hmm, let me think. TRANSIT! Jesus.

Mayor Newsom, institute a congestion fee immediately and charge market rates for parking on our shared streets. It’s about time.