(PDF Link)

I’m returning from my blogging hiatus at an amazingly unique time in the history of San Francisco taxi regulation. In the past I’ve written extensively about the San Francisco medallion system and other regulations, including:

• What would be a fair medallion price if they were transferable? (Answer: between $200,000 and $350,000)
• Pricing analysis of proposed (and now enacted) gate fee increases in late 2007
• The lack of supply to meet demand for taxicabs during peak periods and possible solutions. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Thanks to a combination of forces the SFMTA has acted extremely quickly to create a pilot program with a view toward migrating the City to a transferable medallion scheme. A full writeup will have to wait, but for now here’s a scan of the form that the SFMTA is sending out to drivers to gauge interest in taxi medallion buyers and sellers.

Link:

• SFMTA Taxi Medallion Sales Pilot Program (pdf)

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 coverage on the old fashioned TV tubes:

Link – more info on Cabulous including a live demo of the app in use.

San Francisco Taxi with Photoshopped Blue Angels in Sky

It’s been a long time since I’ve taxi blogged.

I drove last Saturday for the first time in a few weeks. I’ve been working dispatch phones and doing VidSF work instead of driving over the past few weeks.

Novel-length post after the break.

• I love the feeling of getting back on the road after such a long time off driving. The routine of adjusting my mirrors, seat, radio (yes, NPR), dispatch radio, logging into the VeriFone, all while driving down Selby Street on my way to the Mission to start hunting for early weekend fares (or the super late-night drunks). Paradise.
• This past weekend was so incredibly packed with events that it was tough to get a car. The cashier had vancab available. Not my favorite vehicle (that’d be the indisputable champion Toyota Camry Hybrid followed closely by the Ford Escape Hybrid), but I’ve logged so many hours with Chrysler’s Dodge Caravan that I’ve come to embrace its shortcomings, such as the notoriously frustrating sliding door handle. Businessmen and grandmothers alike scorn this poorly designed lever. Daimler surely had no say on this one.
• I drove around for at least a half-hour before finding my first fare — a radio call from a lower Pac Heights hotel. I was surprised to find a very young Asian woman waiting for me. She quickly jumped in the cab and handed me a Google Maps itinerary. She was heading out to Visitacion Valley to take her SATs.

  As we flew down Gough to the 101 I thought back to my trip to take my SATs. How did I get there? What was I thinking? What was I listening to? 1989 Honda Accord, how much I hadn’t prepared, NPR’s Weekend Edition. I had an odd satisfaction knowing my fare would also have echoes of Scott Simon while filling in bubbles.

  I was surprised at the minivan traffic congestion as we neared Phillip Burton High School. I guess parents want to drive their kids to life-changing events, not wanting to risk Muni. I wanted to tell her she’ll do great and get a 1600, but I realized that they don’t score like that anymore and I felt old.

• Many dozens of minutes later I found a gaggle of male yuppies at Union and Larkin heading to the President’s Cup at Harding Park. I started to appreciate the vancab — room for 6 with luggage.

  I over’ed the dispatcher, Larry, to see if he knew the approved drop point. Working the dispatch phones earlier in the week I remembered the SFMTA’s DPT had planned out approved drop points. Larry gave me his best guess for cross streets and I plotted a course in my head. I love the fog in the Sunset on a weekend morning.

  As we approached the park I saw an armada of tiny, blue, three-wheeled vehicles. Gosh, I thought, my DPT friends from the SFMTA will surely be glad to see me and my passengers, especially now that San Francisco taxis are regulated under the same agency. I’m diligently performing my duties as an essential part of our City’s diverse transportation infrastructure.

  To my surprise, or maybe not, my DPT friends were not friendly, nor did they successfully direct me to a designated zone for dropping off my passengers. The first DPT officer waved me forward out of annoyance as I slowed to ask where I should drop, as did the second. Unfortunately, this process continued until I was about to clear any reasonable walking distance for my passengers. I was unable to do a u-turn because of the concrete median on Lake Merced Blvd, and the street had no shoulder. As traffic flows very quickly around tight curves, I did not feel it prudent to stop in a thru-lane.

  I was thus left with no other alternative than to pull perpendicularly into an exit-only curb-cut. As my passengers paid and exited the vehicle (at a reasonably quick pace given the fast card processing magic of VeriFone Transportation Systems) DPT officers approached me from all sides and started to yell. Oh my, a “SPECIAL” Muni shuttle, with no passengers on board (is that what “SPECIAL” means?) was approaching the exit-only curb-cut at a deadly 2 miles per hour, striking fear in the hearts of parking enforcement professionals in the immediate area.

  Look, SFMTA, let’s make a deal here. If you bank the City $495,533,925 from a transferable medallion scheme, can you use a small portion of that to actually administer the entity from which that revenue is generated? Specifically, please plan for drop-off and pickup points for taxis and inform your salaried employees of these plans. It will make the lives of your residents, taxi drivers and dispatchers much easier. Thanks.

• I picked up a fare from California and Polk heading to Noe Valley. White female, mid-30′s, eccentric in dress and speech. She jumped in the front seat, presumably as a silent protest against Chrysler’s sliding door handle design, and started a conversation about her friend in her late 40′s who decided against better judgment to embark on a career change to become an MD. Her friend will in her late 50′s before practicing. Wow.
• My vancab scored me a number of fares for which I’d otherwise be ineligible had I been driving my favorite sedan hybrid. Yes, the math usually works out such that despite gas savings on the hybrids, I’d make more money with a vancab, especially on the weekends because of the group fares. (And yes, I’m spelling vancab as one word. Deal with it.)
• On the way back from an airport run I scored thanks to the vancab, I picked up an RV park call. For the uninitiated, it’s near Candlestick Park on the way back from SFO. Nirvina in cab-land is scoring a 3rd and Gilman returning. (It’s called as 3rd and Gilman on the radio.)

  I arrived to find an older German couple. They had just picked up the rental RV and were heading to the Wharf to meet up with the kids. Herr Doctor and wife hadn’t realized that everyone else in the Bay Area was also trying to head up to the piers at the exact same time.

  My previous fare had a good chuckle on the way out to SFO. He had asked where all those heading north into the City would park. I joked that they were already parked on the 101. Ha! This didn’t seem nearly as funny heading inbound with my new deutschen frienden.

  I was impressed by my ability to bypass traffic. I headed inbound from Candlestick on Bayshore, jumped on 101 which flowed okay between Army and the underused 7th Street off-ramp. We headed up 7th to Leave, then Hyde. Had it been a race, I would have won.

  Herr Doctor gave me a $10 tip on a $22 fare. Danke schoen.

• Around 1pm we passed a supersaturation threshold where overall demand for taxis significantly outstripped supply.* As I’ve written before on this blog, I have a split personality on this issue. It’s bliss from the perspective of my personal earnings and fare-induced highs, but the palpable frustration from potential taxicab customers tempers my mood.

  It’s grossly irresponsible for the United State’s second most dense city to have such poor peak-time point-to-point transportation solutions. Unfortunately, SFMTA’s transferable medallion scheme will not address this service and security issue. For shame.

• *Caveat: A predictable and frustrating phenomenon occurs with geographically concentrated events such as Fleet Week. Immediately approaching (~30 min pre) and just after the beginning (~15 min post) the majority of fares are heading toward the geographically concentrated event, such as the Marina or Fish Wharf in this case, resulting in hundreds of taxis stuck in traffic as tourists circle for parking that isn’t there.

  If one was to look at raw analytics of demand vs. available taxicabs at times like these, you’d see a very odd result: perhaps 25-50% of the on-road fleet is vacant while there is demand for 125%+ of the fleet size. Taxi fleet efficiency alone is an incredibly convincing argument for a congestion charge, which the SFCTA is diligently pursuing to the best of its abilities.

  I encountered a few empty cabs who refused to take passengers to the Marina. This is, of course, de jure illegal, but very rational behavior on the part of the cab driver. I took 3 fares to the Marina in the course of two hours and spent 15+ minutes each time trying to battle traffic back to find fares. I could have earned double if I implemented this illegal policy. What would you do if you had to pay rent?

• During this supersaturation period I picked up a fare that, thank heavens, wasn’t heading toward the Marina.

  A very stressed woman in formal attire was heading back to her downtown hotel from a church in Pac Heights to pickup the ring for a wedding that was to start in 15 minutes.

  We flew inbound on California as we discussed my interest-level to wait for her to fetch the ring from her hotel and return. I was frank in explaining that it is not in my financial interest to wait for her to get her ring, but, of course, I’d be happy to do that for her.

  The City and County of San Francisco’s Department of Weights and Measures calibrates the meter on behalf of the SFMTA to register $.50 per minute = $30 per hour for wait time. However, in a period of supersaturation I can get another flag drop and earn ~$60/hr. (Keep in mind this is revenue, not profit, as it does not include my costs for the vehicle, medallion rental/lease, gasoline, etc.) Sure enough, while waiting for her return at the hotel on Nob Hill I had to fight off a European backpacker knocking on my window for a cab, frustrated at my denial to provide him with transportation solutions.

  We flew back even faster on Pine and scored all greens from Pine/Mason to Pine/Steiner. Passing thru Van Ness, Franklin and Gough on a green is rare enough, and then to jump on the outbound Pine green wave starting at Octavia is a very improbable occurrence. (Ask my transportation planning friends at the SFCTA.) Luck was on her side.

  She gave me $30 for a $14 fare. Generous, yes, and also a prime example of price variance during fixed supply. While not “fair” per se, it’d sure be market efficient if there was an easier way of determining the price premium a potential fare was willing to pay during periods of supersaturation.

  If only there was a way to know one’s desire to pay a premium before engaging in the transaction. Hint, hint.

One of Russ’ academia friends, economist Michael Munger, speaks at length on the program about the public transportation system quality in Santiago, Chile before and after nationalization of their bus network.

Prior to 2007 Santiago’s surface transit was made up of a patchwork of thousands of independent, private bus operators. Operators specialized in niches ranging from neighborhood local busses which stopped at every block in a town to luxury express busses providing direct to city center service.

Since nationalization circa February 2007 the masses have expressed widespread complaints about the poor quality of the system. Wikipedia’s article on Transantiago sums up these complaints well:

The major complaints are the lack of buses and their inconsistent frequencies, missing or poor infrastructure (such as segregated corridors, prepaid areas and bus stops), the network’s coverage, and the number of transfers needed for longer trips.

I agreed in spirit that market based solutions can offer better outcomes than public, centralized planning in some situations. But, we shouldn’t get rid of public transit and city planning.

• I do agree that in controlled situations, a market solution is better. San Francisco’s publicly owned and operated transit system is largely a failure, spurring reactions identical to those of Santiago’s newly nationalized bus system. Here, Munger and Roberts are spot on in their complaints of the stupidity of nationalizing a once private resource. (Remember, SF had a patchwork of completely privately owned transit lines until around the 1910′s. Everything I’ve read says these competing systems provided excellent service, especially given available technologies.)
• But, I do not share Munger and Roberts’ idyllic view that free markets are the holy grail of public transport policy. Two reasons:
  • Just look at our suburban car-based communities. These communities are real life experiments in market based, unplanned transport and city zoning policies. These communities are a dismal failure.
  • While bus systems can arguably run with no government intervention, most other high-capacity transit systems need exclusive, government granted corridor rights-of-way, whether that be below ground subways, above ground rail corridors, or even fantastical elevated monorails. Like utilities, physical constraints necessitate government involvement to some degree.

Like many EconTalk podcasts, even if you don’t agree with everything, the discussion points a great alternative spotlight on conventional public policy views.

My favorite viewpoint: the entire concept of central transportation planning is communist at its core — an odd anomaly in a nation proud of its free-market ideology. Why should transportation “planners” dictate the best transportation routes? Our publicly owned and operated Muni is blind to the most powerful natural “planner” in the world: market feedback.

This viewpoint strikes me especially hard in the context of the impending Transit Effectiveness and the Geary BRT projects in the planning faces. With the TEP, the City is spending millions of dollars and years of research to accomplish what free market forces could do everyday, instantly, for free.

Link to podcast page (direct mp3 link)

This time the culprit was an articulated standard coach (non-trolleybus) 71-Haight/Noriega heading inbound on Market at 6th. A 77 year old female pedestrian was struck and later died at SF General.

6th and Market is a zoo of an intersection at best, made worse by Tenderloin-style pedestrians who seem to get personal satisfaction by running in front of traffic.

However, at this point in the route, the 71-Haight/Noriega has a purely straight trajectory — a path easy for both the driver and daredevil pedestrians to anticipate. Thanks to the mid-lane bus-stop islands the busses don’t even have to pull into a standard Muni bus stop. Given this simple trajectory, this vehicle should not have been turning, leaving little obvious clues as to how it managed to smush the elderly lady.

More data would be nice to enable the community to put pressure on Muni to prevent further similar incidents. Unfortunately, more data we will not have.

Link

B2B cuts through many varied City neighborhoods, starting with SOMA, briefly touching the edge of the Tenderloin on the way through Hayes Valley, Western Addition, straddling the panhandle around NOPA/Upper Haight and concluding through Golden Gate Park which separates the westernmost Richmond and Sunset districts.

Here’s a map:

B2B is more than a run. It attracts a large party crowd drawn primarily from the City’s ample yuppie supply. Party goers slowly trail the legit runners dressed in costumes and fueled solely by alcohol despite the race’s early start time.

Last year I ran the race (unofficially) to see what all the hoopla was about. It was a blast. I woke up late but caught the race halfway through the City around Hayes Valley. I continued to run westward past and through the crowds of partiers. I was amazed at two things: a) the size of the crowd, and b) the important streets which the City closed completely during this event. Returning this year as a cab driver on the race day, I was hit hard by the impact of point b.

Between 8 and 10am the north and south ends of the City were completely severed save for Park Presidio on the far west side of the City and (eventually) the Embarcadero on the far east side of the City. This caused a great deal of frustration for non-race goers attempting to go about their normal Sunday business.

• Having worked a number of City event days in the past, I knew a van would be a big asset. I was lucky to get a van as I requested from the cashier.
• Before the race began, therefore before street closures, my passengers were a mix of hung-over partiers returning to their places after spending a night with a ‘special friend’ and folks going to work annoyed at the lack of Muni service on some key lines. (A normal Sunday crowd.)

  Soon after 6am I started taking a number of people from their homes to other homes for ‘pre-partying’ and soon after I took many more groups to the start of the race course. Between 6 and 7am the City’s aggregate demand for cabs exceeded available supply. Demand did not return below supply at any point during my shift — an exceedingly rare event for a Sunday day shift.

• After the race began, I was ‘stuck’ on the north side of the City. Given the extremely high demand for cabs, either side would be an okay side to be ‘stuck’ on. But, the north side of the City holds the majority of housing for the yuppie contingency, so this was a good place to be.
• While stuck on the north side of the City, I picked up an older lady with very limited English from the St. Francis Hospital. She asked me to go south of Market a few blocks further south than would be possible given the race street closings.

  I did my best to clearly explain to her that this would simply not be possible. I even used a nice visual aid provided by the cab company — a map of the race route like above. This didn’t phase her. Oh well, I thought, as soon as we get closer she’ll get the picture.

  We crossed Market on 5th and approached Mission at which point the crowds and street closure at Howard was plainly visible, if for no other reason than the haze of red brake lights blocking our path.

  I stated the obvious, “This is as far as we can go. I’ll have to let you out here.”

  She was not happy. “I need to go to Folsom!” I first tried polite reasoning which soon escalated into more blunt statements. “Look, lady, it’s not going to happen. You have to get out here and walk the rest of the way.” (It was just 2 blocks south.) I figured her sole human form would have a significantly higher chance of crossing the path of running humans than a blue hulk of taxi metal crashing through police barriers.

  She protested for about a minute. I’ll let you know that a minute is a very long time in a City where there were hundreds of street hails calling out to me at this very second. (Like Superman’s super-ability to hear dames in distress, I could hear calls of ‘Taxi’ crying out in pain across the City.) She finally accepted her fate and I moved on.

• I found my next street hail in less than 10 seconds. A nun urgently needed to get from 5th and Mission to 30th and Mission, far south of our present location, to be the church representative for some sort of concrete pouring on a construction project.

  Despite her niceness and her lifelong dedication to God, her reasoning skills were questionable which became more and more evident as we attempted to get around the race. “You want me to drive the entire length of the race course until we find an opening?” I said. I thought, this may not be a good idea.

  “I think the only opening right now is Park Presidio on the far, far west side of the City.” I thought, do you have an understanding of the cost of this circuitous cab ride? About 3 minutes into the ride she revealed she only had $10 to pay me. By this time we were at Van Ness.

  What was she thinking? In retrospect I don’t think she was thinking very clearly at all. I had to call this off. We stopped near the race path at Hayes. I suggested she attempt to walk across the race path and hail a cab or find a continuing Muni line at that point.

  She thanked me and paid me for the fare. I was on autopilot — the meter read a fare and I accepted payment for that fare. In retrospect I feel quite shameful that I took her money. Obviously, the best thing for her to do would have been to take BART. Why didn’t I think of that before? She seemed very clear in her intent to have me find a magical break in the race that was obviously not there.

  I should have been more forceful in my initial questioning of her questionable plan. I should not have accepted her payment. She should not have asked to go on a cab ride significantly above her ability to pay. We’ll do it better next time.

• Continued on the next post…

Is this a good idea? Yes, in spirit, but no in practice.

In practice, giving up the entire Embarcadero to pedestrian use at anytime is silly. The Embarcadero already has a beautiful and expansive pedestrian sidewalk on both sides. And, the bay side of the Embarcadero is unencumbered by vehicle cross traffic, making it a fully continuous pedestrian right of way from AT&T ballpark all the way up to Fisherman’s Wharf (and even beyond to the Marina).

Furthermore, the Embarcadero on weekends is a heavily used thoroughfare connecting downtown and the Fisherman’s Wharf to the three major interstates: 101, 280 and 80. Severing this connection on weekends would make it very difficult for visitors to come to our City. I’m all for congestion pricing to control use of personal vehicles, but giving up a prime vehicle thoroughfare for questionable pedestrian need is silly. Visitors bring essential revenue to the backbone of our City’s economy: tourism.

Instead, we should give up other City streets to pedestrian use — permanently.

The City’s ‘default’ practice is to pave with cement over all City territory between private real estate holdings, regardless of actual demand for that cement by personal vehicles. Embarcadero cement has an extremely high demand for vehicle use. But, out in the deep Sunset, Parkside and Richmond districts there is no need for vehicle thoroughfares at every avenue.

These cement roads are, in effect, parking lots. Vast acres of public land in which we live is dedicated to grey car storage. What if we could accommodate vehicle storage, the low demand for vehicle thoroughfares, AND add pedestrian friendly green space? I think we can.

Check out this typical Sunset street:

(24th Avenue between Kirkham and Lawton, San Francisco, CA from Google Street View)

Cement everywhere. Low traffic volume. The cement is mostly used for parking.

Here’s a better idea: we could convert every third avenue into a linear park. Yes, you lose parking for each third avenue’s park conversion, but you can gain it back by increasing parking density along the other two avenues by converting them into one way with perpendicular or slanted parking instead of existing parallel parking.

Here’s an overhead view of a slice of the existing 24th Avenue:

(24th Avenue, San Francisco, CA from Google Maps)

If 24th Avenue was converted to a linear park, 25th and 23rd Avenues would be converted to north and south bound one-way streets respectively. Parking density could be increased to account for lost street parking on 24th Avenue, like this:

Or, instead you could close off the 24th Avenue “linear park” to through traffic, but still allow parking and access to existing vehicle garages. You can cover the entire 24th Avenue with grass and trees, and pave a smaller space with “grassblocks“, concrete with over 50% of surface as holes for dirt to hold real grass, to allow for local access and limited on-street parking while maintaining a real grass surface.

Grassblock example:

Expanding on this, you could make the linear parks have beautiful bike corridors. Integrating dedicated bike corridors would provide much needed safe, sole-priority biking space.

Linear Park Overhead Example:

(Vehicles are stationary, through traffic would be prohibited and made annoying by bumpy grass concrete.)

This would be very applicable for other City neighborhoods. The Mission comes to mind first: the large area between Mission and Potrero, 16th and Cesar Chavez (Army) is especially starved for green space.

Imagine the effect this would have on quality of life! For many residents, you could step out your door right into a park. For the rest, you could go at most 1.5 blocks to find a large park.

Example of Three Sunset Avenue Arrangements:

(Click for larger version.)

Creating a usable transit system is just the first step. Next, we need to convert our streets back into the livable spaces they once were. We need to take our streets back from the personal vehicle and put them back into the hands of the people.

I imagine your response now, dear reader, “This guy is full of crap. Sure, we all would love a park right in front of our house, but this would never work.” NO! WRONG!

Too many people think this way. They see our City as a dead, unmovable structure. They see personal vehicle priority on our roadways as an absolute GIVEN, and not a CHOICE. The final product is to recreate paradise in our own City. It can be done, it just requires a bit of imagination and some balls to make it happen. These are our streets, let’s take them back.

PS: Related, here are some cool sites about “Parking Day”, converting parking spaces into parks for a day:

• OpenPlans.org
• City of Chicago

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.”

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 the summer approaches.

However, I paint a bleak picture for this winter. As seasonal demand for taxis wanes in November, this winter could be the toughest yet for City cab drivers and companies. Qualified, skilled cab drivers will seek new income opportunities as average take-home pay dips to new lows this winter. Cab companies will likely have a more difficult time than ever filling shifts, putting pressure on hiring managers to accept drivers with less stringent requirements for clean driving records, English proficiency or general City knowledge.

Given this bleak outlook, I think my cab driving may come to an end (or break) at the end of October.

More to the point, I wanted to experience San Francisco during the historic procession of the Olympic Flame through our streets. What better way to feel the heart of the City than to drive a taxi today? And, I could get paid along the way.

• I felt a general sentiment of frustration among City residents toward the balihoo surrounding the running of the Torch. I’ll be a bit more specific: I felt a general sentiment of frustration among City residents against the protests not against the Torch itself.

  A great deal of my passengers who call San Francisco home felt the demonstrations were out of hand and interfered with the spirit of the Olympic games.

  One lady said, “The summer Olympic Games should just stay in Greece from now on. Nobody ever had anything bad to say about Greece.” She was older and sat in the front as it’s easier to get in the passenger seat of the tall vans. I had picked her up from a hair appointment in the Marina and took her back home to Russian Hill.

  Another lady said, “I understand the reason behind the protests, but I don’t think it is appropriate to combine these protests with the Olympics.” She went on to suggest that the purpose of the event is to bring cultures together and that by bringing cultures together through athleticism without politics, the hosting of the Olympics by China could be a positive step to bring China toward social and political progress. She and her friend had hispanic accents. I picked them up from a hospital near Geary and Divisadero and took them home to the Mission. They had waited a long time for a taxi.

  College aged protesters said, “Free Tibet! Yay!” They were wearing lots of Tibetan flags. I took them from the planned route along the Embarcadero toward the center of the action near Beach and Van Ness.

  A group of post-college young urban professional males said (to each other), “Okay, if we’re around a big pro-China group then we’re pro-China, if we see a big group of Tibet protesters then let’s yell Free Tibet!” (This is a condensed paraphrase, but this truly represents the gist of their conversation.) I also took this group toward the revised route.

  I heard a few stories of people who tried to see the Olympic Flame for the first time in their lives during their lunch break or on their vacation, only to be foiled by the abrupt change in plans by the City’s (perhaps wise) decision to alter the route in favor of the safety of participants and spectators.

  Is it an appropriate level of demonstration if the demonstrations prevent the event from occurring in the first place? Did the protesters cause more ill will than desired political change?

• The City’s vibrant spirit brought with it a large appetite for taxis. After about 1pm, when the Torch began its secretive relay, the demand for taxis skyrocketed past available supply. Demand did not return below supply before the end of my shift at 5pm, but walking home on Polk Street around 9pm this evening I noticed many toplights brightly broadcasting vacancy.
• Driving a taxi can be a vastly different experience depending on shift time of day, passengers, the weather and City happenings. All these (somewhat) independent variables coagulate into the ever-important dependent variable of aggregate demand for taxicabs.

  It is the aggregate demand for taxicabs that sets the pace of your shift. Are you a hunter looking for a few camouflaged animals in the wild during the off-season when game is few and far between? Or, are you Dick Cheney with a shotgun on a ranch where quail are conveniently released prior to your arrival for easy pickin’? Today, I was Dick Cheney.

  I felt bad for customers as they told me how long they waited for a cab. Of course, they were happy to see me and were gracious that I stopped, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty that the artificial limitation of taxicabs by the City results in hardship for residents at my profit during times of extreme demand.

  Putting aside these guilty feelings, driving during these times is great fun. After dropping a fare, chances are I would get a fare on the street within a minute or two of dropping. If in an outer residential community I would turn on the radio for a few minutes and pick a fare out of the sky. It was difficult, no, impossible, for me to take a break. I did not eat save for a bagel and coffee in the morning when it was slower. Constant fares are a dangerous drug.

• I picked up a fare midday at 7th and Market. A father and his son were heading from the BART station to Grubstake for breakfast. The father had lived in San Francisco many years back and was revisiting old haunts. He was very nostalgic about the City.

  Unfortunately, Grubstake is closed for breakfast on weekdays, so we headed for Mama’s instead via the Broadway tunnel. I love the Broadway tunnel when uncongested. It’s like flying underneath the City.

  His son read aloud most of the signs in the cab.

  “Please exit curb… curbside.”
  “Please wear seat-belts. (Dad, we’re not wearing our seat-belts.)”

  They were fun.

• Throngs of Torch spectators packed Columbus Street sidewalks as the mass exodus headed toward beckoning media helicopters revealing the Torch’s rerouted route. I easily found a few fares from those tired of walking, and/or eager to quickly reach the action.

  This was great fun. It was something out of a movie as their sole directional guidance was, “Chase those helicopters.” Yes!

  Growing increasingly tired of pop radio, even independent pop with a beat, I recently started burning CDs with my own beats. This music added to the fun, especially as the young Torch-goers also enjoyed these beats.

  At a certain point a thought strikes me. In retrospect I imagine this thought hitting me like the opening credits of a movie where the main character is frozen for a moment such that the audience can memorize the character’s name clearly spelled out in superimposed San Serif text. The thought is this, here I am, driving as fast as is de facto permitted in San Francisco, leaping over Russian Hill in a late model Chrysler minivan taxicab, listening to techno music, getting paid to chase helicopters. Nice.

• I received a radio call for a van ‘moving job’ on Market Street — the southern fringe of the Tenderloin. A lower income couple was moving from cheap hotel to cheap hotel. Their entire belongings were waiting patiently along with them outside.

  They said a van had come by and promptly left after a weak excuse about needing to head back to the garage. Admittedly, their pile of belongings loomed large. The larger-than-mini mini-fridge and microwave didn’t make it look any smaller.

  I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in a strangely twisted sense of fate. In this case, the part of fate was played by a taxi dispatcher a few miles south of my location. My only valid reason for not picking up a fare is if they appear to have a high likelihood of killing or robbing me. Other than that, I don’t let myself turn down a fare. I decided I would make the best of it and help them move to a new home.

  Sidetracking again, as seems to be the habit today, thank God (thank dispatcher?) that Chrysler (Christler?) designed its rear minivan seats to collapse so easily. On some van models the seats even collapse seamlessly into the floor (albeit at the expense of a user-accessible spare tire). I’ve learned how to collapse Chrysler minivan seats in seconds flat.

  Forcing myself to finish this damn post, I helped the nice folks move their apartment from Cheap Weekly Hotel A to Cheap Weekly Hotel B, four blocks away. While assisting with the unload I got some goo on my hand from the top of their microwave and hastily wiped it away. Ew.

  They tipped me well. They thanked me profusely. I said I was just answering a call from dispatch.