This Chronicle article misses the mark. It gives a strong impression that development South of Market represents the reason San Francisco has become unaffordable for low income City residents.
I paraphrase the introduction of the article: “Our City is changing. Boo, hoo sob story.”
“Building all these high-rise apartments ‘Manhattanizes’ our city which raises home prices and causes all the poor people of San Francisco to move out. Waa waa.”
NO. NO. NO. This is INCORRECT.
I love the premise of the Green Cab taxi company that started operating in the City this year. Sexy! Green! Buzzwords!
Their cabs DO look good on the street. They stand out and offer clear differentiation from other cabs both during the day with their bright green paint jobs and at night with their bright green toplights.
But, is it really possible to have a “green” taxi?
Another tough day.
Here’s a great interview with Columbia University professor of management William Dugan about why brainstorming doesn’t always serve our needs as well as it could. I echo some of his thoughts from my personal experience below.
Surely you’ve had these thoughts in meetings. I’ve been guilty of it, both in the Vader role (above) and in the audience when I wished I had a light saber to end the pointless meeting abruptly.
Here are the two main problems with brainstorming:
PS. It appears as though I’m becoming an EconTalk fanboy on this blog, so I’ve resolved to stop posting EconTalk related entries for a minimum of 2 weeks.
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.
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.)
Above: an elevated view of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. (Source)
I didn’t want to fart around and write more blog entries yesterday, so I showed up to DeSoto early in the morning to see if they had an extra shift available. They had plenty of cars.
A fellow SF taxi driver and blogger, the same guy or gal that posted a great map of where to find a cab in the City, posted a few pictures of a taxi operating illegally in the City during his evening shift. Then he posted a few more of another illegal cab.
A few weeks ago the Examiner reported on a crack down of illegal limos operating as for hire taxis on the streets. (Limos in the City are only supposed to pick up pre-arranged fares. They are not permitted to pick up on the street.)
Should the City be cracking down on illegal operators? Of course.
But, the real problem is that there aren’t enough cabs on the street during peak hours. When I work, often during non-peak shifts, I RARELY see bandit cabs. Why? I work kinda crappy (off-peak) shifts when extra cabs are obviously not needed.
The prevalence of illegal bandit cabs operating despite these considerable risks is strong evidence that our City needs peak medallions, the ability to operate more LEGAL taxicabs during peak times, immediately.
The City’s inability to implement peak medallions encourages the operation of illegal taxis which pose a real danger to City residents and guests.
First, a surprising statistic about per capita car ownership. The USA doesn’t even rank in the top five!
First, a non-surprising statistic about per capita vehicle ownership. The USA ranks at the top!
(Source)
(Old Source – This data set was silly since it just measured cars and not motor vehicles per Bob’s comment below.)
Second, Americans spent about 52.2 cents per mile on their personal vehicles in 2007 after adding all the costs of ownership such as purchase price, insurance, maintenance, and gas. At an average usage of 15,000 miles per year, that works out to $7,800 per year per car.
Let’s compare that to the cost of public transit. It’s about 15 miles of BART rail from Civic Center to Richmond. At a fare of $3.80 that works out to 25.3 cents per mile, half that of a vehicle.
Third, Americans hold an average of $8,000 in credit card debt per household.
“Stop right now,” you say. “This is nothing but a silly conjecture! That credit card debt isn’t directly related to personal vehicle expenditure. And, your cute little Bay Area public transit system doesn’t exist in most other US cities.”
“True and true,” I’ll respond. “But, chopping transportation spending in HALF would significantly reduce a major household expense for many Americans. And, if we start investing NOW in smart public transit in the United States, we can reduce these significant (and quickly rising) expenses in the near future.”
Hmm. Public transit is good for the environment AND for the economy? And it decreases our reliance on foreign oil?
EXTRA CREDIT: This is a very well written post on calculating your actual per mile vehicle expenditure.
kfarr 