Taxis

Film festival organizers call for safer San Francisco streets

Editor’s Note: Aug. 19 marks the Bay Area Global Health Film Festival, hosted by the Institute for Global Orthopaedics and Traumatology. The theme of this year’s festival is “Road Traffic Safety Locally … and Globally,” and is geared toward raising awareness about the need for road traffic safety improvements. In this opinion piece, representatives from the University of California at San Francisco Orthopaedic Trauma Institute, at San Francisco General Hospital, describe how all-too-common accidents can permanently injure pedestrians and bicyclists. And they voice support for Proposition A, the San Francisco Transportation and Road Improvement Bond.

By Amber Caldwell and Nick Arlas

San Francisco is a transit-first city. Everyone shares the need to get safely from point A to point B, preferably quickly. And the various options for doing so span the full spectrum from driving, biking, and walking, to public transit like MUNI and Bart, rideshare programs, taxis, and companies like Uber and Lyft.

As we go about our daily lives, transportation is one of the most important public infrastructure systems that San Francisco relies upon. It encompasses many controversial issues and is linked to other social equity campaigns including housing advocacy and urban gentrification.

Yet the issue of pedestrian and bike safety in San Francisco has made disheartening headlines as of late. 2013 was an especially deadly year, with 21 pedestrian and four bicyclist fatalities. San Francisco General Hospital alone cared for over 1,000 road traffic injuries, with an estimated $60 million annual cost. Organizations like the SF Bicycle Coalition and WalkSF have made biking and walking leading issues in debates over transportation policy and traffic safety. Mayor Ed Lee and our city government have responded by introducing a $500 million transportation bond measure for the Nov. 4th ballot. If it passes, a portion of the funding will be allocated for improving pedestrian and cyclist safety.

Less often discussed, however, is what happens to the pedestrians and bicyclists who are hit while going about their daily routines and permanently affected by all-too-common accidents. At the UCSF SFGH Orthopaedic Trauma Institute (OTI), these patients fill our wards, the operating room schedule and our hearts as we help to heal them from these injuries. We struggle with the balance between doing what we can and what should be done to curb the growing volume of patients we see annually due to preventable accidents.

What is alarming is the socio-economic impact these accidents have, not only on the person affected, but on the hospital and our city as a whole. Even in cases where the driver is at fault, it is rare for them to even be cited for a traffic violation in most cases. More importantly, personal injury insurance and health coverage barely cover the emergency services needed for these accidents, and most services offered at the hospital are subsidized by taxpayer dollars, which means we are paying for this on all sides. This is unacceptable.

There is currently a wave of momentum to address these complex issues and attempt to tease through how we as a city can rebuild, redefine and reinforce the safety in our city. This movement is supported by a global platform addressing road traffic safety as a public health campaign, through the World Health Organization’s Decade of Road Traffic Safety. This campaign tackles the myriad polices and resource investments needed to address the enormous impact road traffic accidents have on the world. 

Injuries, mainly those resulting from road traffic accidents, account for greater disability and death than HIV, TB and Malaria combined.  An average 5.8 million die annually, and for every death caused by these accidents, eight to 10 more are permanently injured.

To bring collective awareness around this issue and to change the landscape, the community needs to stand together not only in San Francisco but also around the world, to demand safer streets. The city is doing its part to outline a roadmap to curbing these alarming statistics, and a greater global campaign is underway to promote awareness and inspire activism.

We must stand up for the injured and for ourselves as local citizens to demand safer streets and protection from when accidents occur.  We may not be able to prevent every accident, but we can improve the choreography of their outcome if we work together.    

Amber Caldwell and Nick Arlas are Director of Development and Community Outreach Coordiator, respectively, at the Institute for Global Orthopaedics and Traumatology, UCSF Orthopaedic Trauma Institute, San Francisco General Hospital.

The Bay Area Global Health Film Festival begins Tue/19 at 6 p.m. at Public Works, 161 Erie, in San Francisco.

Why I drive a taxi

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By Beth Powder

OPINION I left a 17-year career in film to become a taxi driver. I just wanted to be here full time, drive a taxi, and write.

I’ve taken cabs in several cities and countries over the last 20-odd years. When I got here in 1998, it took two hours for a taxi to get to my house on 43rd Avenue. I still never would’ve gotten into anyone’s personal car and paid them for a ride, no matter how hard it was to get a cab sometimes. Not in San Francisco. Not in Jamaica. Not in Jamaica, Queens.

I’m from Toledo, Ohio originally. We always went on road trips. Maybe being in such close proximity to Detroit, some of that car mojo rubbed off on us. My mother is the kind of woman who, at 70 years old, will drive cross-country alone, stopping to call me at 3am from deserted truck stops outside Amarillo, Texas. You might see why I’d drive a taxi.

I have a feeling that a lot of the anti-taxi contingent now in this city haven’t taken too many cabs. Cabs could never put me off because I’d taken so many of them and I knew I was safer in one than standing in a crosswalk. I’ve been hit by cars on foot and on my bike but I’ve never been in an accident in a cab. Not in London. Not in Los Angeles. Not here.

I don’t drive for Lyft or Uber because San Francisco cab drivers receive workers compensation and TNC drivers don’t. Because Lyft mustaches look unprofessional to me. I went to taxi school, got fingerprinted, had a background check, and got licensed.

My taxi has 24/7 commercial livery insurance. My company pays the bills if there’s an accident. San Francisco taxi companies don’t have bylaws stating that passengers cannot hold them liable. San Francisco taxi companies don’t have bylaws stating that passengers take taxis at their own risk. San Francisco taxi companies don’t have bylaws that can be legally interpreted to allow discrimination against passengers of any persuasion. We have to accept pets. And we have to be green.

San Francisco taxis pick up bartenders, sweet old ladies at the hospital who don’t have smart phones, teachers, lawyers, wheelchair users, people of color, San Francisco Giants, former mayor Willie Brown, hookers, trannies, ballerinas, and limo drivers. Everybody. You don’t need a smartphone, but you can always hail a cab using an app called Flywheel.

I’m not a fan of the smugness emanating from Lyft, Uber, et all. Perpetuating spurious claims that cab drivers are all scary or awful is neither cute nor clever. And it certainly isn’t true.

It’s far more likely for a passenger to physically attack a cab driver than the opposite. About a month ago, several men took a cab from my fleet to San Mateo and severely beat up the driver. We have video cameras in every single San Francisco cab, but that still didn’t guarantee this driver’s safety. Nonetheless crime and accidents in taxis are down significantly.

We’re mothers, fathers, grandparents, students, artists, musicians, and entrepreneurs. Cab drivers give companionship, counseling, and safe passage to their passengers.

I want to know how we can have faith in TNCs when drivers aren’t commercially licensed, fully insured, and packing security cameras. How should we feel about droves of these Uber and Lyft phones being shared by multiple drivers, when only one is on record? What happens when a TNC is wrapped around a pole and the driver is held responsibility for their own safety and well-being. These brand new cars won’t be paid off before we start to witness incidents such as this.

How’s a “young mother just trying to make some extra pocket money” going to feel when she has her wages garnished into perpetuity because she rear-ended someone? She’s personally liable with the TNC company. She’s your friend with a car who absorbs all legal responsibility whether she’s found at-fault or not.

As long as there’s a taxi industry, I’ll keep proudly driving my taxi in the city I love. I’ll pick up sweet and not so sweet old ladies, people in wheelchairs, people with dogs, and whomever else needs a ride wherever it is they need to go.

Beth Powder is a cab driver and writer.

 

Citizen Agnos comes on strong for Proposition B in support of his Athenian oath

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By Bruce B. Brugmann  (with the complete  text of Art Agnos speech  to the  May 21 dinner of San Francisco Tomorrow)

When Art Agnos was sworn in as mayor in 1988, he used the Athenian Oath that was taken by young men reaching the age of majority in Athens 2000 years ago.  He shortened the oath (as many did) to say: “I promise…upon my honor…to leave my city better than I found it.”

For Agnos, a Greek steeped in Greek traditions, the oath was a serious matter. “At the heart of our vision,” Agnos said in his inaugural address, “ is a refusal to let San Francisco become an expensive enclave  that locks out the middle class, working families and the poor. At the center of our strategy is a belief in the basic right of people to decent jobs and housing.”  

Twenty-six years later, Citizen Agnos was working hard  in private life to leave his city better than he had found it. He led a citizens’ movement that stopped the monstrous 8 Washington project, knocked the Warriors off the piers, forced the Giants to lower their  highrise expectations,  and promoted Proposition  B that would stop  the Wall on the Waterfront and require a public vote on any increases  to current height limits on port property.

 And Agnos is having the time of his life doing all this, as he made clear in his remarks to San Francisco Tomorrow, the one organization in town that has been manning the barricades in every major Manhattanization battle all these years  on the waterfront and everywhere else.  He enjoys taking on Mayor Lee and “the high tech billionaire political network that wants to control city hall and fulfill their vision of who can live here and where.” And he must relish  the Chronicle’s C.W.Nevius and the paper’s editors and their self-immolating bouts of hysteria.  

Agnos gave a splendid speech and confirms that he really is our best ex-mayor. I particularly liked his point about the “power to decide” on development. “Today that power to decide is in a room In City Hall. I know that room. I have been in that room. 

“You know who is in there? It is the lobbyists,..the land use lawyers…the construction union representatives..the department directors..and other politicians. You know who is not in that room. You.Prop B changes that dynamic and puts you in the room that matters. No more ‘advisory committees’ that get  indulged and brushed off. No more ‘community outreach’ that is ignored. It will all matter.”

Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes, on B and stopping the Manhattanization of the waterfront. b3

Agnos remarks to San Francisco Tomorrow 

I am delighted to speak to the members and friends of SFT about the waterfront tonight…and a special shout out to Jane Morrison as one of the pioneer professional  women in the media… and one of the  finest Social Service Commissioners in our City’s history. I also welcome the opportunity to join you in honoring tonight’s unsung heroes…Becky Evans with whom I have worked closely over the past year and half …Tim Redmond  the conscience of the progressive community for the past 35 years…Sarah Short and Tommi Avicolli Mecca from the Housing Rights Committee who stand up every day for poor and working people who need a voice in our city.

Twenty-four years ago in 1990, I made one of the best decisions of my mayoralty when I listened to the progressive environmental voice of San Francisco and ordered the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway. That freeway was not only a hideous blight but also a wall that separated the city from its waterfront. Hard to believe today…but it was a very controversial decision back then… just 3 years before…in 1987 the voters had defeated a proposal by Mayor Feinstein to demolish it. The Loma Prieta Earthquake gave us a chance to reconsider that idea in 1990. Despite opposition of 22,000 signatures on a petition to retrofit the damaged freeway… combined with intense lobbying from the downtown business community led by the Chamber of Commerce, North Beach, Fisherman’s Wharf and especially Chinatown…we convinced the Board of Supervisors to adopt our plan to demolish the freeway… by one vote.

And the rest is history…until today. 

After a period of superb improvements that include a restored Ferry Building…the Ball park… new public piers where one can walk further out into the bay than ever before in the history of this city… the 
Exploratorium…the soon to be opened Jim Herman Cruise Ship terminal…Brannan Wharf Park…there is a new threat. Private development plans that threaten to change the environment of what Herb Caen first called “our newest precious place” …not with an ugly concrete freeway wall…but with steel and glass hi-rises that are twice as tall.

Today…the availability of huge amounts of developer financing …combined with unprecedented influence in city hall and the oversight bodies of this city…the Waterfront has become the new gold coast of San Francisco. Politically connected developers seek to exploit magnificent public space with hi-rise, high profit developments that shut out the ordinary San Franciscan from our newest precious place. We love this city because it is a place where all of us have a claim to the best of it…no matter what our income…no matter that we are renter or homeowner…no matter what part of the city we come from.

And connected to that is the belief that waterfront public land is for all of us…not just those with the biggest bank account or most political influence. 

That was driven home in a recent call I had from a San Franciscan who complained about the high cost of housing for home ownership or rent…the high cost of Muni…museum admissions…even Golden Gate Bridge tours and on and on. When he finished with his list, I reminded him I was mayor 23 years ago and that there had been 4 mayors since me,  so why was he complaining to me?
“Because you are the only one I can reach!” he said.

Over the past few weeks…that message has stuck with me.  And I finally realized why. This is what many people in our city have been seeking… someone who will listen and understand. Someone who will listen…understands… and acts to protect our newest precious place…our restored waterfront. You see…it was not just about luxury high-rise condos at 8 Washington last year…It was not just a monstrous 
basketball arena on pier 30-32 with luxury high-rise condos and a hotel across the street on public land. It’s about the whole waterfront that belongs to the people of San Francisco…all 7 and half miles of it… from the Hyde Street Piers to India Basin. And it must be protected from the land use mistakes that can become irrevocable. 

This is not new to our time…8 Washington and the Warriors arena were not the first horrendous proposals…they were only the latest. Huge… out of scale… enormously profitable projects… fueled by exuberant boosterism from the Chamber of Commerce… have always surfaced on our waterfront. 50 years ago…my mentor in politics…then Supervisor Leo McCarthy said, “We must prevent a wall of high rise apartments along the waterfront…and we must stop the filling in of the SF bay as a part of a program to retain the things that have made this city attractive.” That was 1964…

In 2014…Former Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin said it best this way…”It seems like every 10 years…every generation has to stand up to some huge development that promises untold riches
  as it seeks to exploit the waterfront and our public access to it.” Public awareness first started with the construction of the 18 stories of Fontana towers east and west in 1963. That motivated then Assemblyman Casper Weinberger to lead public opposition and demand the first height limits… as well as put a stop to 5 more Fontana style buildings on the next block at Ghirardelli Square. This was the same Casper Weinberger who went on to become Secretary of HEW and Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan.

In 1970 the Port Commission proposed to rip out the then “rotting piers” of piers 1 – 7 just north of the Ferry Building. They were to be replaced with 40 acres of fill (3 X Union Square) upon which a 1200-room hotel and a 2400 car garage would be built. It passed easily through Planning and the Board of Supervisors. When the proposal was rejected on 22 to 1 vote by BCDC, Mayor Alioto complained, “We just embalmed the rotting piers.” No… we didn’t …we saved them for the right project…and if one goes there today… they see it…the largest surviving renovated piers complex with restaurants, walk in cafes, port offices, free public docking space, water taxis and complete public access front and back. 

In 2002… that entire project was placed on the U.S. National Historic Register. But my favorite outrageous proposal from that time was the plan to demolish another set of “rotting piers” from the Ferry Building south to the Bay Bridge. And in place of those rotting piers… the plans called for more landfill to create a Ford dealership car lot with 5000 cars as well as a new Shopping center. That too…was stopped.

So now it’s our turn to make sure that we stop these all too frequent threats to the access and viability of our waterfront.

In the past 2 weeks…we have seen momentum grow to support locating the George Lucas Museum on piers 30-32 or the sea wall across the Embarcadero.I love the idea…but where would we be with that one be if a small band of waterfront neighbors and the Sierra Club had not had the courage to stand up to the Warriors and City Hall 2 years ago. Once again they used the all too familiar refrain of “rotting piers” as an impending catastrophe at piers 30-32.

Proposition B will help prevent mistakes before they happen. Most of all… Prop B will ensure protection of the port on more permanent basis by requiring a public vote on any increases to current height limits on Port property.All of the current planning approval processes will stay in place…Port Commission…Planning commission…Board of Permit Appeals…Board of Supervisors…will continue to do what they have always done. But if a waiver of current height limits along the waterfront is granted by any of those political bodies…it must be affirmed by a vote of the people. Prop B does not say Yes or No…it says Choice. It is that simple. The people of SF will make the final choice on height limit increases on port property. 

The idea of putting voters in charge of final approval is not new. In the past the people of San Francisco have voted for initiatives to approve a Children’s budget…a Library budget…retaining neighborhood fire stations… minimum police staffing… as well as require public authorization for new runway bay fill at our airport. And at the port itself… there have been approximately 18 ballot measures to make land use and policy decisions.

So…we are not talking about ballot box planning…we are talking about ballot box approval for waivers of existing height limits on public property. Opponents like Building Trades Council, Board of Realtors, 
and Chamber of Commerce are raising alarms that we will lose environment protections like CEQA by creating loopholes for developers. 
Astonishing! 

Prop B is sponsored by the Sierra Club…Tonight we honor Becky Evans of the Sierra Club who sponsored Proposition B. That same set of opponents are joined by city bureaucrats issuing “doomsday” reports stating that we will lose thousands of units of middle class housing… billions of dollars in port revenues…elimination of parks and open space on the waterfront. Astonishing!

These are the same bureaucrats who issued glowing reports a couple of years ago that the America’s Cup would mean billions in revenue for the port and the city. And they wanted to give Oracle’s Larry Ellison 66-year leases to develop on 5 of our port piers for that benefit! Now…how did THAT work out? So far…city hall will admit to $11 million dollars in known losses for the taxpayers.

Another opponent… SPUR says any kind of housing will make a difference and there are thousands in the pipe line… so don’t worry.
Astonishing!

We have not seen one stick of low income or affordable housing proposed on the waterfront since the 80s and 90s when Mayor Feinstein and I used waterfront land for that very purpose. Hundreds of low-income housing dwellings like Delancey Street and Steamboat Point Apartments…affordable and middle class housing like South Beach Marina apartments and Bayside village comprise an oasis of diversity and affordable housing in the midst of ultra expensive condos. For me…that was part of an inaugural promise made in January 1988…I said, “At the heart of our vision is a refusal to let San Francisco become an expensive enclave that locks out the middle class, working families and the poor. At the center of our strategy is a belief in the basic right of people to decent jobs and housing. 

Yes…that was the commitment on public land on the waterfront by 2 mayors of a recent era… but not today. Indeed…San Francisco has been rated the #1 least affordable city in America…including NY Manhattan. That is one of the many reasons we see middle class  people…as well as working poor…being forced to leave San Francisco for Oakland and elsewhere in the bay area. That reality was reinforced in the February 10, 2014 issue of Time Magazine…Mayor Lee said, “I don’t think we paid any attention to the middle class. I think everybody assumed the middle class was moving out.”

Today…An individual or family earning up to $120,000 per year …150 per cent of the median in this city… do not qualify for a mortgage and can’t afford the rent in one of the thousands of new housing units opening in the city. The Chronicle reported a couple of weeks ago that a working family of  3 who have lived in a rent-controlled studio apartment in the Mission is offered $50 K to leave. That is what the purely developer driven housing market offers. And that philosophy is reinforced by a planning commission whose chair was quoted in December 2013 issue of SF Magazine saying, “Mansions are as just as important as housing.”

Prop B changes that dynamic by putting the Citizen in the room with the “pay to play” power brokers. That is what it is all about my friends. Power.

Former SF city planning director and UC School of City Planning Professor…Alan Jacobs recently related what he called the Jacobs Truism of land economics: “Where political discretion is involved in land use decisions…the side that wins is the side with the most power. And that side is the side with the most money.” Prop B will ensure that if developers are going to spend a lot of money to get a height waiver on port property …the best place to spend it will be to involve, inform, and engage the citizen as to the merit of their request…not on the politicians.

Today that power to decide is in a room in City Hall. I know that room…I have been in that room. You know who is there? It is the lobbyists…the land use lawyers…the construction union representatives…the departmental directors… and other politicians. You know who is not in the room? YOU. The hope is that someone in that room remembers you. But if you really want your voice to be heard…you have to go to some departmental hearing or the Board of Supervisors…wait for 3 or 4 hours for your turn… and then get 2 minutes to make your case. Prop B changes that dynamic and puts you in the room that matters. No more “advisory committees” that get indulged and brushed off. No more “community outreach” that is ignored. 

It will all matter. That is why today there is no opposition from any waterfront developer…They get it. We are going to win. It is easy to see how the prospect of Prop B on the ballot this June has changed the dynamics of high-rise development along the waterfront. The Warriors have left and purchased a better location on private land in Mission Bay. The Giants have publicly announced that they will revise their plans with an eye to more appropriate height limits on port land. Forest City is moving with a ballot proposal to use Pier 70 to build new buildings of 9 stories…the same height as one of current historic buildings they will preserve on that site for artists.

The Pier 70 project will include 30 percent low-income…affordable and middle class housing on site… along with low-tech industries, office space and a water front promenade that stretches along the entire shoreline boundary. A good project that offers what the city needs will win an increase in height limits because it works for everybody. A bad one will not. My friends…I have completed my elected public service career. There will be no more elections for me.

And as I review my 40 years in public life…I am convinced of one fundamental truth. The power of the people should… and must… determine what kind of a city this will be. It must not be left to a high tech billionaire political network that wants to control city hall to fulfill their vision of who can live here and where. It starts with you… the people of this city’s neighborhoods… empowered to participate in the decisions that affect our future. You are the ones who must be vigilant and keep faith with values that make this city great. This city is stronger when we open our arms to all who want to be a part of it…to live and work in it…to be who they want to be…with whomever they want to be it with. Our dreams for this city are more powerful when they can be shared by all of us in our time…

We are the ones …here and now… who can create the climate to advance the San Francisco dream to the next generation. And the next opportunity to do that will be election day 
June 3. Thank you.

B3 note: The full Athenian oath: “We will never bring disgrace on this our City by an act of dishonesty or cowardice. We will fight for the ideals and Sacred Things of the City both alone and with many. We will revere and obey the City’s laws and will do our best to incite a like reverence and respect in those above us who are prone to annul them or set them at naught. We will strive unceasingly to quicken the public’s sense of civic duty. Thus, in all ways, we will transmit this City not only, not less, but greater and more beautiful than it was transmitted back to us.”  The National League of Cities publishes the oath and says it “was recited by the citizens of Athens, Greece, over 2,000 years ago. It is frequently referenced by civic leaders in modern times as a timeless code of civic responsibility.” 

(The Bruce blog is written and edited by Bruce B. Brugmann, editor at large of the San Francisco Bay Guardian. He is the former editor and co-founder and co-publisher of the Guardian with his wife Jean Dibble, 1966-2012. He can be reached at Bruoe@sfbg.com) 

 

 

 

Agnos offers waterfront development history lesson during SFT speech

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[Editor’s Note: This is the text of a speech that former Mayor Art Agnos gave at San Francisco Tomorrow’s annual dinner on May 21. We reprint it here in its entirely so readers can hear directly what Agnos has been saying on the campaign trail in support of Prop. B]

I am delighted to speak to the members and friends of SFT about the waterfront tonight…and a special shout out to Jane Morrison as one of the pioneer professional women in the media and one of the finest Social Service Commissioners in our City’s history.

I also welcome the opportunity to join you in honoring tonight’s unsung heroes: Becky Evans, with whom I have worked closely over the past year and half; Tim Redmond, the conscience of the progressive community for the past 35 years; and Sara Shortt and Tommi Avicolli Mecca from the Housing Rights Committee, who stand up every day for poor and working people who need a voice in our city.

Twenty-four years ago, in 1990, I made one of the best decisions of my mayoralty when I listened to the progressive environmental voice of San Francisco and ordered the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway. That freeway was not only a hideous blight but also a wall that separated the city from its waterfront.

Hard to believe today, but it was a very controversial decision back then. Just three years before, in 1987, the voters had defeated a proposal by Mayor Feinstein to demolish it. The Loma Prieta Earthquake gave us a chance to reconsider that idea in 1990.

Despite opposition of 22,000 signatures on a petition to retrofit the damaged freeway, combined with intense lobbying from the downtown business community led by the Chamber of Commerce, North Beach, Fisherman’s Wharf, and especially Chinatown, we convinced the Board of Supervisors to adopt our plan to demolish the freeway, by one vote.

And the rest is history — until today.

After a period of superb improvements — that include a restored Ferry Building, the ball park, two new public piers where one can walk further out into the bay than ever before in the history of this city, the Exploratorium, the soon to be opened Jim Herman Cruise Ship Terminal, Brannan Wharf Park — there is a new threat.

Private development plans that threaten to change the environment of what Herb Caen first called “our newest precious place,” not with an ugly concrete freeway wall, but with steel and glass high-rises that are twice as tall. Today, the availability of huge amounts of developer financing, combined with unprecedented influence in City Hall and the oversight bodies of this city, the waterfront has become the new gold coast of San Francisco.

Politically connected developers seek to exploit magnificent public space with high-rise, high profit developments that shut out the ordinary San Franciscan from our newest precious place. We love this city because it is a place where all of us have a claim to the best of it, no matter what our income, no matter that we are renter or homeowner, no matter what part of the city we come from.

And connected to that is the belief that waterfront public land is for all of us, not just those with the biggest bank account or most political influence. That was driven home in a recent call I had from a San Franciscan who complained about the high cost of housing for home ownership or rent, the high cost of Muni, museum admissions, even Golden Gate Bridge tours, and on and on.

When he finished with his list, I reminded him I was mayor 23 years ago and that there had been four mayors since me, so why was he complaining to me? “Because you are the only one I can reach!” he said.

Over the past few weeks, that message has stuck with me. And I finally realized why. This is what many people in our city have been seeking, someone who will listen and understand. Someone who will listen, understands, and acts to protect our newest precious place, our restored waterfront.

You see, it was not just about luxury high-rise condos at 8 Washington last year. It was not just a monstrous basketball arena on Pier 30-32 with luxury high-rise condos and a hotel across the street on public land. It’s about the whole waterfront that belongs to the people of San Francisco, all seven and a half miles of it, from the Hyde Street Piers to India Basin. And it must be protected from the land use mistakes that can become irrevocable.

This is not new to our time: 8 Washington and the Warriors arena were not the first horrendous proposals, they were only the latest. Huge, out of scale, enormously profitable projects, fueled by exuberant boosterism from the Chamber of Commerce, have always surfaced on our waterfront.

Fifty years ago, my mentor in politics, then-Supervisor Leo McCarthy said, “We must prevent a wall of high rise apartment along the waterfront, and we must stop the filling in of the SF bay as a part of a program to retain the things that have made this city attractive.”

That was 1964. In 2014, former Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin said it best this way: “It seems like every 10 years, every generation has to stand up to some huge development that promises untold riches as it seeks to exploit the waterfront and our public access to it.”

Public awareness first started with the construction of the 18 stories of Fontana towers east and west in 1963. That motivated then-Assemblyman Casper Weinberger to lead public opposition and demand the first height limits, as well as put a stop to five more Fontana-style buildings on the next block at Ghirardelli Square. This was the same Casper Weinberger who went on to become Secretary of HEW [formerly the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare] and Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan.

In 1970, the Port Commission proposed to rip out the then “rotting piers” of Piers 1 – 7 just north of the Ferry Building. They were to be replaced with 40 acres of fill (three times the size of Union Square) upon which a 1200-room hotel and a 2400 car garage would be built.

It passed easily through Planning and the Board of Supervisors. When the proposal was rejected on 22 to 1 vote by BCDC [the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission], Mayor Alioto complained, “We just embalmed the rotting piers.”

No, we didn’t, we saved them for the right project. And if one goes there today, they see it, the largest surviving renovated piers complex with restaurants, walk-in cafes, Port offices, free public docking space, water taxis, and complete public access front and back. In 2002, that entire project was placed on the U.S. National Historic Register.

But my favorite outrageous proposal from that time was plan to demolish another set of “rotting piers” from the Ferry Building south to the Bay Bridge. And in place of those rotting piers, the plans called for more landfill to create a Ford dealership car lot with ,5000 cars as well as a new shopping center. That too was stopped.

So now it’s our turn to make sure that we stop these all too frequent threats to the access and viability of our waterfront. In the past two weeks, we have seen momentum grow to support locating the George Lucas Museum on Piers 30-32 or the sea wall across the Embarcadero.

I love the idea, but where would we be with that one if a small band of waterfront neighbors and the Sierra Club had not had the courage to stand up to the Warriors and City Hall two years ago. Once again, they used the all too familiar refrain of “rotting piers” as an impending catastrophe at Piers 30-32.

Proposition B will help prevent mistakes before they happen. Most of all, Prop. B will ensure protection of the Port on a more permanent basis by requiring a public vote on any increases to current height limits on Port property. All of the current planning approval processes will stay in place — Port Commission, Planning Commission, Board of Permit Appeals, Board of Supervisors, all will continue to do what they have always done.

But if a waiver of current height limits along the waterfront is granted by any of those political bodies, it must be affirmed by a vote of the people. Prop B does not say Yes or No, it says Choice. It is that simple. The people of SF will make the final choice on height limit increases on Port property.

The idea of putting voters in charge of final approval is not new. In the past, the people of San Francisco have voted for initiatives to approve a Children’s budget, a Library budget, retaining neighborhood fire stations, minimum police staffing, as well as to require public authorization for new runway bay fill at our airport. And at the Port itself, there have been approximately 18 ballot measures to make land use and policy decisions.

So we are not talking about ballot box planning, we are talking about ballot box approval for waivers of existing height limits on public property. Opponents like Building Trades Council, Board of Realtors, and Chamber of Commerce are raising alarms that we will lose environment protections like CEQA by creating loopholes for developers. Astonishing!

Prop B is sponsored by the Sierra Club. Tonight we honor Becky Evans of the Sierra Club who sponsored Proposition B. That same set of opponents are joined by city bureaucrats issuing “doomsday” reports stating that we will lose thousands of units of middle class housing, billions of dollars in Port revenues, elimination of parks and open space on the waterfront. Astonishing!

These are the same bureaucrats who issued glowing reports a couple of years ago that the America’s Cup would mean billions in revenue for the Port and the city. And they wanted to give Oracle’s Larry Ellison 66-year leases to develop on five of our Port piers for that benefit! Now, how did THAT work out? So far, City Hall will admit to $11 million in known losses for the taxpayers. Another opponent, SPUR [San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association], says any kind of housing will make a difference and there are thousands in the pipeline, so don’t worry. Astonishing!

We have not seen one stick of low income or affordable housing proposed on the waterfront since the ‘80s and ‘90s when Mayor Feinstein and I used waterfront land for that very purpose. Hundreds of low-income housing dwellings like Delancey Street and Steamboat Point Apartments, affordable and middle class housing like South Beach Marina apartments and Bayside village, comprise an oasis of diversity and affordable housing in the midst of ultra expensive condos.

For me, that was part of an inaugural promise made in January 1988. I said, “At the heart of our vision is a refusal to let San Francisco become an expensive enclave that locks out the middle class, working families, and the poor. At the center of our strategy is a belief in the basic right of people to decent jobs and housing.”

Yes, that was the commitment on public land on the waterfront by two mayors of a recent era, but not today. Indeed, San Francisco has been rated the #1 least affordable city in America, including NY Manhattan. That is one of the many reasons we see middle class people, as well as working poor, being forced to leave San Francisco for Oakland and elsewhere in the Bay Area.

That reality was reinforced in the February 10, 2014 issue of Time Magazine. Mayor Lee said, “I don’t think we paid any attention to the middle class. I think everybody assumed the middle class was moving out.”

Today, an individual or family earning up to $120,000 per year — 150 percent of the median in this city — does not qualify for mortgage and can’t afford the rent in one of the thousands of new housing units opening in the city. The Chronicle reported a couple of weeks ago that a working family of three who have lived in a rent-controlled studio apartment in the Mission was offered $50,000 to leave.

That is what the purely developer-driven housing market offers. And that philosophy is reinforced by a Planning Commission whose chair was quoted in December 2013 issue of SF Magazine saying, “Mansions are just as important as housing.”

Prop B changes that dynamic by putting the citizen in the room with the “pay to play” power brokers. That is what it is all about my friends: Power.

Former SF city planning director and UC School of City Planning Professor Alan Jacobs recently related what he called the Jacobs Truism of land economics: “Where political discretion is involved in land use decisions, the side that wins is the side with the most power. And that side is the side with the most money.”

Prop B will ensure that if developers are going to spend a lot of money to get a height waiver on Port property, the best place to spend it will be to involve, inform, and engage the citizen as to the merit of their request, not on the politicians. Today that power to decide is in a room in City Hall. I know that room. I have been in that room.

You know who is there? It is the lobbyists, the land use lawyers, the construction union representatives, the departmental directors, and other politicians. You know who is not in the room? You. The hope is that someone in that room remembers you.

But if you really want your voice to be heard, you have to go to some departmental hearing or the Board of Supervisors, wait for three or four hours for your turn, and then get two minutes to make your case. Prop B changes that dynamic and puts you in the room that matters. No more “advisory committees” that get indulged and brushed off. No more “community outreach” that is ignored.

It will all matter. That is why today there is no opposition from any waterfront developer. They get it. We are going to win. It is easy to see how the prospect of Prop B on the ballot this June has changed the dynamics of high-rise development along the waterfront.

The Warriors have left and purchased a better location on private land in Mission Bay. The Giants have publicly announced that they will revise their plans with an eye to more appropriate height limits on Port land. Forest City is moving with a ballot proposal to use Pier 70 to build new buildings of nine stories, the same height as one of current historic buildings they will preserve on that site for artists.

The Pier 70 project will include 30 percent low-income, affordable and middle class housing on site, along with low-tech industries, office space, and a waterfront promenade that stretches along the entire shoreline boundary. A good project that offers what the city needs will win an increase in height limits because it works for everybody. A bad one will not.

My friends, I have completed my elected public service career. There will be no more elections for me. And as I review my 40 years in public life, I am convinced of one fundamental truth: The power of the people should, and must, determine what kind of a city this will be.

It must not be left to a high-tech billionaire political network that wants to control City Hall to fulfill their vision of who can live here and where. It starts with you, the people of this city’s neighborhoods, empowered to participate in the decisions that affect our future. You are the ones who must be vigilant and keep faith with values that make this city great.

This city is stronger when we open our arms to all who want to be a part of it, to live and work in it, to be who they want to be, with whomever they want to be it with. Our dreams for this city are more powerful when they can be shared by all of us in our time.

WE are the ones, here and now, who can create the climate to advance the San Francisco dream to the next generation. And the next opportunity to do that will be election day June 3.

Thank you.

 

Dear United States: #Jessicastux discrimination shows SF inequality

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Dear United States,

Yes,  you’ve found San Francisco out. You’ve got us. Our city is not the bastion of equality we claim it to be. 

It’s something most San Franciscans know, but now you, the country, are getting a peek at how discriminatory our local institutions can actually be.

Just last week, the news of Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep’s discrimination against young Jessica Urbina went viral. Urbina just wanted to wear a tuxedo in her yearbook photo, and the Catholic school, Sacred Heart, said it would not print her photo in a yearbook because she wasn’t in a dress.

The resulting social media firestorm blew up in national media, propelled by the hashtag #jessicastux. Today Sacred Heart issued an apology, offering to work on its policies moving forward.

“On Friday, May 16, the school communicated that it will change its policy regarding senior portraits. We agree with our students who showed solidarity with their classmate that the current policy regarding senior portraits is not adequate to meet the needs of our families or our mission. We will involve our students, families, and Board in crafting the updated policy.

Many people suggest that the past few days have been deeply revealing about our school community. We agree. We are an imperfect community that can and does fail. We are a community that is open to self-reflection, and to the constructive criticism and leadership of its students, as well as to the criticism from members of our broader community. We are a community that strives to grow, improve and do what is right. We are a community that sees, in all situations, an opportunity to learn.”

But before we let Sacred Heart be crucified in the court of public opinion, let’s remember an old religious maxim: let ye who is without sin cast the first stone. And when it comes to inequality, San Francisco has many sinners.

Yes, dear country, you spent the last week utterly aghast that San Francisco, the champion of marriage equality, could discriminate against an LGBT teen.

You really don’t know the half of it. 

Take our public schools. Even as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of Brown vs. the Board of Education, an investigative report by the San Francisco Public Press revealed massive inequality in San Francisco public elementary schools. Though the SFUSD suffered funding cuts totalling $113 million in the 2009-10 school year (after numerous annual state cuts), some public schools managed to stave off layoffs and provide excellent facilities for their children. The catch? Only the elementary schools attended by rich families survived, bouyed by nearly $3 million in PTSA fundraising in 11 elementary schools.

But 35 of SFUSD’s elementary schools raised no money at all. These schools are not surprisingly attended mostly by the city’s poorest families, and their schools were met with brutal cuts.

The SFUSD is only now allowing students to wear hats (including some religious headgear), and is only now considering raising its minimum wage to San Francisco’s minimum of $10.24 an hour (as a state entity, it only has to pay $8 an hour).

And lest we pick on the schools too much, the explosive tech industry has had its impacts on San Francisco equality too. As taxi drivers flock to rideshare companies like Uber, Lyft and Sidecar, there are fewer drivers to drive wheelchair-accessible taxis. Those rideshare companies don’t yet have a plan to offer service to our city’s many persons with disabilities. Even our beloved regional transit system, BART, has new proposed “trains of the future” offering less space for electric wheelchairs to move around as well.  

San Francisco has also seen massive numbers of folks displaced by the tech boom, symbolized (and even exacerberated) by our city’s most hated/loved/over-discussed behemoths, the Google buses.  

We’ve even got the second highest inequality in the United States, fast headed for number one. Go us.

And though Bill O’Reilly at Fox News loves to make funny videos about San Francisco’s homeless while he talks up our love of hippies, he’s got it all wrong (unfortunately). The city issues numerous citations against homeless youth for the act of sitting down in the Haight Ashbury district (the birthplace of the Summer of Love), and has struggled with policies to help the homeless for over 10 years running. 

Also, did we mention one in four San Franciscans are food insecure? That means about 200,000 San Franciscans don’t have enough money to eat healthily, and many are near starvation. 

Yes, dear country, San Francisco espouses many loving principles, and we do have an innate sense of justice to help immigrants, the poor, and the marginalized.

But we still have a long, long way to go. 

Best,

A San Franciscan. 

 

 

Waiting for transit

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joe@sfbg.com

Transit options for wheelchair users and people with disabilities are under threat in the Bay Area, and riders are losing ground on multiple transit fronts.

In late April and early May, hundreds of advocates for those with disabilities took to the streets, protesting BART’s Fleet of the Future, a touring mockup of a new BART trains slated to roll out in 2017.

The trains are a step backward in wheelchair accessibility, among other issues, advocates said.

Just last month, advocates for senior and those with disabilities stormed a San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors meeting, asking for free Muni for the most economically disadvantaged among them. They were denied based on dollar amounts, while drivers were given an $11 million giveback restoring free Sunday parking meters.

The SFMTA promised to revisit the issue in January. Meanwhile, San Francisco’s wheelchair accessible taxi fleet has seen its drivers flee to so-called “rideshare” companies — whose cars aren’t equipped to carry wheelchairs — causing what officials say is a record low number of wheelchair accessible taxi trips.

Compounding that decision was the SFMTA’s March adoption of its Transit Effectiveness Project, which the agency billed as expanding service by 12 percent and improving the system’s efficiency, but some advocates for seniors and the disabled noted it removed some bus stops, requiring longer walks by those who have a hard time getting around.

The transit troubles cover most of the transportation options available to San Franciscans with disabilities, and that’s the problem.

“We’re one of the most transit-dependent populations,” Peter Mendoza, a community organizer with the Independent Living Resource Center, told the Guardian. He also uses a wheelchair. “Everything we do in our everyday life, we mostly do with public transportation.”

Their needs are simple: getting groceries, seeing a movie, picking up their kids from school. People with disabilities are now in a multi-pronged fight for their right to everyday mobility, and to do so with dignity.

 

BART’S FLAWED NEW FLEET

A walking tour of BART’s Fleet of the Future shows much is new: computer screens with live GPS updates of the train’s location, triple-bike racks, and redesigned seats. BART Vehicle Systems Engineer Brian Bentley proudly showed us the new touch screens in the driver’s cockpit.

For people with disabilities, the Fleet of the Future is a step backward. Their first beef with BART’s new trains is a simple one: there’s a pole in the way of the door.

Hundreds of disability advocates protested BART’s public tour of its newly redesigned trains just last week, with more protests planned for the future. All they want is the damned pole moved.

The handhold in question features a triple-pronged design: what begins as one vertical metal column branches into three partway off the ground.

“Where the pole is now is in the path of travel for the accessible seating area,” Mendoza said. “People holding onto the poles and the power wheelchairs will be in a sense be trying to occupy the same space.”

BART’s Fleet of the Future will arrive in limited numbers in 2015, and fully roll out by 2017, according to the BART website. BART plans to use the new trains for decades. So will BART move the pole to a different location in the car before then?

“It’s too soon to say,” BART spokesperson Alicia Trost told the Guardian. “That’s why we’re doing outreach.”

Trost told us BART did its due diligence by garnering feedback from the BART Disability Task Force. But the DTF, a volunteer body serving like a consistent focus group, informed BART of the pole-problem years ago.

“From day one, they identified the pole as being a problem,” BART Access Coordinator Ike Nnaji told us. Now, he said, “the pole has been moved slightly.”

The triple column handhold has also been raised since the initial outcry. But advocates say the changes still haven’t solved mobility problems. And lack of BART access would be especially poignant, as the trains are now one of the most seamless public transit trips a wheelchair rider can take, advocates told us.

Unlike a Muni or AC Transit bus, no one needs to strap in a wheelchair user on a BART train. After an elevator ride to the train platform (assuming they’re working), they easily roll onto the train: no muss, no fuss.

“On BART, I can be a regular customer,” longtime disability rights activist Corbett O’Toole told the Guardian. “I can ride it with dignity.”

The wheelchair-using community isn’t the only one with BART concerns. Emergency intercoms have long been an issue with the deaf community, O’Toole told us. The BART train’s new video screen would be a natural place to integrate visual emergency communication, she said.

Trost told us BART is trying to balance the needs of many communities, from bicyclists to folks not tall enough to reach the handholds.

“It’s public transit, you try to help everyone,” she said. But people with disabilities are a group with federal law mandating consideration of their access, Mendoza said.

We asked BART if the agency had specific employees (besides the DTF) in charge of ensuring American with Disabilities Act compliance. BART spokesperson Luna Salaver told us the agency doesn’t have an ADA compliance officer, but its engineering staff and consultants are well-versed in ADA compliance issues.

BART’s board may take a direct vote on disability access modifications to the Fleet of the Future at its May 22 meeting, but that may be subject to change.

While the wheelchair accessibility of the Fleet of the Future is hotly contested, the future of rideshare disability access remains a mystery to most.

 

RIDESHARE TROUBLES

Regulations task the taxi industry with providing wheelchair accessible cabs, something the rideshares don’t do, at least not yet. And as taxi drivers flee to the more profitable rideshare industry, fewer and fewer wheelchair accessible taxis are being driven in San Francisco.

Worryingly, the newest numbers from the SFMTA paint a portrait of hundreds of stranded wheelchair users. In January 2013, there were 1,379 wheelchair trips via taxi cab, according to numbers provided by the SFMTA, which regulates taxis. This January, that number plummeted to nearly half that.

The drivers just weren’t there. The SFMTA Board of Directors voted in January to offer a $10-per-trip cash incentive for drivers that pick up wheelchair users. But it was like a bandage on a gaping wound: the number of taxis picking up wheelchair users in San Francisco has not yet increased.

And Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar aren’t yet equipped to pick up wheelchair users.

As we’ve previously reported, Lyft, Sidecar, and Uber were recently required to file disability access plans with the California Public Utilities Commission. Some mention researching wheelchair access in the future, but most of the one-page plans tout their apps’ ability to speak to visually impaired users. None promise wheelchair-accessible cars.

The SFMTA is trying to lure taxi drivers back from these Transportation Network Companies through waived permit fees. Deputy Director of Taxi Services Christiane Hayashi said, “the total cost to the public of the TNC phenomenon is over $3 million and counting.”

Despite the stark numbers offered by the SFMTA, the CPUC doesn’t see the situation as a crisis. At a hearing on accessible transit, Marzia Zafar, the director of policy and planning division at the CPUC, told the Guardian there isn’t enough data at this point to say why the disabled community isn’t riding taxis as often as they did before.

“The commission will step in once we have information, verifiable information, that there’s a divide between the disabled and abled communities,” she said. “If there is such discrimination (on part of the TNCs), we will step in and bridge that divide.”

The CPUC could require TNCs to provide access, BART may modify its Fleet of the Future, and the SFMTA can still provide free Muni for seniors and people with disabilities in January.

And in the meanwhile, people with disabilities are waiting for a ride which may or may not ever arrive.

Uber neighborhood pricing surge charges Marina most

43

Uber charges the Marina and Pacific Heights districts up to three times as much for a ride as the rest of the city in its new “neighborhood surge” program, according to leaked emails and screen captures. 

The surges happen during rush hour, weekend night bar crawls, and also around concerts and other events that would draw riders to Uber’s app. 

Uber has caught a lot of flak for its New Year’s Eve “surge pricing,” a practice where the company raised rates during peak hours. Hell, it even looks like they’ve been raising rates when it rains. Just last month the Wall Street Journal reported that Uber would spike rates in neighborhoods of cities with the most demand, a practice called geo-surging.

The rates seem to go at least as high as $4 per mile in surge times, drivers told us, while SF taxis generally charge about $2.25 per mile. 

marina4

A driver sent a screenshot of a 9am morning surge. This particular morning the Richmond and Mission districts seemed to get a spike in pricing as well.

“If they’re upset about the price they accepted, that’s a different conversation than, say, a driver took a wrong turn,” Uber CEO Travis Kalanick told the Wall Street Journal, about neighborhood pricing in general. “The price must go up for these rides to happen. If surge pricing doesn’t happening, there’s no availability. You can’t get a ride.”

We emailed Uber but did not get a response.

In San Francisco, that demand is apparently highest in the Marina. In the leaked emails, Uber wrote to drivers to explain its reasoning behind the neighborhood pricing:

“Instead of rates being the same everywhere in SF, surge rates will be higher in busier parts of the city. 

Typically, the most demand comes from the Marina (and surge pricing is the highest), with some demand in the Mission neighborhood. 

We’re excited about this change, since this means surge pricing will happen in the areas that need it most.”

A look at their “typical morning rush hour surge pattern” has Uber labeling the Marina “high surge,” the Mission “low surge” and no mention for the rest of the city. Maybe the Outer Sunset and Excelsior folks just don’t use Uber? (Or maybe they’re bigger fans of pink mustaches.)

After we obtained the emails, we verified them with Uber driver Zach Hudson, who’s employed with a private limo company but uses the Uber app to find his riders. 

“The morning rush is in the Marina,” he said. “It’ll be near up to three times the normal rate. I don’t think there’s a limit. But near New Year’s Eve it’s been known to go up to 500 percent.”

marina1

In this screencap of an Uber email, the company advises goign to the “outer” neighborhoods. From the context of the rest of the email, it seems “outer” is anywhere not downtown. 

Uber seems to want to lure more drivers to in-demand areas, but it’s not a total loss for the western and southern neighborhoods, Hudson said. 

 “The avenues are pretty dead most of the time,” he explained. 

And besides, can’t the Marina dwellers afford it? Though the surge pricing may not be great for consumers, Hudson said it was good for drivers.

“After Uber cut fares and essentially our commission by 20 percemt, surge pricing is the only way we can survive,” he said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvRuaNr5DKY

Broken bodies, broken lives

42

Motorists driving for rideshare companies have struck and also killed pedestrians in San Francisco, even since state regulations were adopted to make these new transportation businesses safer and more accountable to the public.

Four months after the new rules were created, lawsuits from these incidents reveal that the new regulations contain gaping holes that continue to place passengers, pedestrians, and even drivers at risk.

One recent local story actually started in 2004 in Florida’s Monroe County. A vehicle sped down the Overseas highway at over 100mph. Ever seen the movie The Fast and the Furious? It was like that.

In the Florida heat, the car blazed by palm trees and an ocean view, hell bent for Miami. It accelerated as it took a curve, swerving around two vehicles going half its speed. Brazenly passing a traffic control device, the car cut off one more vehicle, then another, and another. Still barreling over 100mph, the driver swerved across the double yellow lines, forcing an oncoming vehicle to veer off the highway.

A traffic snarl put an end to the thrill ride. According to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office incident report, which the Guardian obtained through a records request, driver Syed Muzzafar was accompanied by his wife and three children during his death-defying drive. He told the police officer, “This was just a dumb thing to do. I know I’m wrong.”

Muzzafar was booked for reckless driving. Nine years later, he would be booked again in San Francisco for hitting a family as they crossed the street in the Tenderloin.

On New Year’s Eve 2013, picking up fares for the tech company Uber, Muzzafar’s car struck young Sofia Liu, her mother, Huan Kuang, and brother, Anthony Liu. Six-year-old Sofia did not survive. Her family filed a wrongful death suit against Uber on Jan. 27, and will be represented by attorney Christopher Dolan.

Uber is part of an emerging cast of companies commonly known as rideshares, now legally called Transportation Network Companies (TNCs). The gist of how they operate is this: the company’s mobile app connects a driver with a customer, much like a taxi dispatch. Only a few years old, the TNCs initially operated in a wild west, devoid of regulation. But the California Public Utilities Commission passed rules for TNCs in September with the aim of protecting pedestrians, passengers, and drivers in collisions.

Uber, formed in 2009, has drivers in over 50 cities worldwide and an estimated worth of just over $3 billion, according to leaked evaluations. But Uber may still be in need of a version 2.0.

The death of the young Sofia Liu, killed by a driver already arrested for reckless driving, shows the state still has a long way to go on the road to regulating rideshares.

 

NOT MY PROBLEM

The night Muzzafar struck the Liu family, he was ferrying customers using the Uber app — but the company disavowed responsibility for the incident.

“We thank law enforcement for the quick release of information,” Uber wrote in a blog post the day after Sofia Liu died. “We can confirm that the driver in question was a partner of Uber and that we have deactivated his Uber account. The driver was not providing services on the Uber system during the time of the accident.”

But that’s a half-truth: Muzzafar was picking up passengers for Uber all night, but because he’d just dropped off a customer, he allegedly ceased being an Uber driver. With no passengers in the vehicle, Uber did not consider him “on the Uber system.”

If that sounds like a giant loophole, you’d be right — but it’s a legal one, for now.

The new CPUC regulations specify that TNCs must only provide liability insurance when drivers are “in service.” The Taxicab Paratransit Association of California is suing to modify those rules, saying the meaning of “in service” was never defined — and they allege this wording allows companies to disavow responsibility for a driver not carrying passengers at the moment of an accident.

This gaping loophole can also lead to insurance and liability consequences.

“I would guess that’s on the order of a $20 million liability case,” Christiane Hayashi, director of Taxi services at the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency, said of Liu’s death. “The question is, who is going to pay for it?”

Muzzafar, and not Uber, may be on the fiscal hook, even though it’s unlikely he could cover the family’s medical and legal fees on his own.

Though much reporting has focused on TNC drivers’ lack of insurance, the collision that killed Sofia Liu on New Year’s Eve raises other questions as well. Just how did a driver with a reckless driving record manage to become a partner with Uber in the first place?

Checking out drivers

The recently drafted CPUC regulations require the TNCs to carry out background checks, a key element for safety. As it turns out, not all background checks are made equal.

Uber hired a private company called Hirease to conduct its checks, the Guardian learned in emails obtained from drivers. While Hirease requires Uber drivers to fill out a form with their personal information, taxi drivers who must register with the city’s transportation agency are screened with fingerprinting, Hayashi from the SFMTA told us.

The fingerprint checks make use of the FBI’s national criminal database, something a company like Hirease lacks access to (since it isn’t a government agency). We called the FBI’s background check department, based in West Virginia, to better understand the two methods.

We spoke to a rank and file employee, not a spokesperson, so he declined to give his name. The FBI employee spoke with a twang, and clearly laid out the problems.

The first snag with private background checks are false positives from common names (like John Smith) or stolen identities, he said.

Self-identification is also a problem. “If you’re a criminal, you’re not going to use your information,” the FBI employee said. “What if you were a lady and you were married six times, which name will you use for a background check? Bottom line, fingerprints are exclusive. Names are not.”

Another flaw is that while background checks performed for entities like the SFMTA make use of a federal database that dates back 100 years, California law doesn’t allow private background checks to go beyond seven years — and Muzzafar’s reckless driving arrest was nine years ago.

“Uber works with Hirease to conduct stringent background checks,” Uber spokesperson Andrew Noyes wrote to us via email. “This driver (Muzzafar) had a clean background check when he became an Uber partner.”

Hirease and Uber did what they legally could, but the summation of laws and regulations blinded Uber to Muzzafar’s background — and nothing in the new CPUC regulations would have prevented this. That may go a long way toward explaining how a man caught recklessly driving with his own family in the car in Florida was driving for Uber the night he allegedly struck and killed a child.

Importantly, California law does allow for a taxi driver to have one reckless driving incident, or one count of driving under the influence, on his or her record. But as Hayashi told us, stricter background checks make it easier for taxi companies to spot a red flag before making hiring decisions.

The relative insecurity of private background checks raises an unsettling question: How many others with reckless driving records or DUIs drive for TNC companies like Uber, Sidecar, and Lyft without the companies’ knowledge?

The results of a collision can be severe, as San Francisco’s tragic New Year’s eve incident demonstrates. But even those who survive are left with bills that Uber, allegedly, isn’t paying.

 

PAYING NO ONE

Last September, Jason Herrera and Nikolas Kolintzas summoned an Uber driver via smartphone, intending to hop from Valencia Street to the Marina district. Driver Bassim Elbatniji responded, and drove the pair down Octavia, where his Prius collided with a Camry.

Herrera suffered a concussion and was knocked unconscious. Kolintzas also suffered a concussion, and they both sustained injuries to their necks and backs, according to court documents.

But when the two sought financial assistance from Uber to cover their medical costs, Uber said it was the driver’s responsibility.

“As far as Uber’s concerned, their insurance isn’t providing any of this,” attorney Colleen Li told the Guardian. Li is representing Kolintzas and Herrera in their suit against Uber, which seeks damages to cover their medical bills, which reached “tens of thousands” of dollars, Li told us.

According to a policy published on Uber’s website, the company maintains a $1 million “per incident insurance policy applicable to ridesharing trips,” which is in keeping with requirements under the new CPUC regulations.

Nevertheless, Uber has not stepped up to cover damages in response to a lawsuit arising from a similar incident. Months ago, the Guardian reported on the case of an Uber driver who hit a fire hydrant, which flew through the air and struck Claire Fahrbach, a barista living in San Francisco (“Lawsuit over injury from airborne fire hydrant tests Uber’s insurance practices,” 8/8/13). She sustained lacerations to her body, a fracture in her lower leg, and multiple herniated discs, according to her lawsuit against Uber.

Her medical bills and injuries destroyed her dreams of living in San Francisco, and she moved home with her parents in North Carolina to recover. Her lawyer, Doug Atkinson, told us Uber still hasn’t paid for his client’s medical services.

“They’re still denying they have any liability for the driver,” he said. “They said they wouldn’t fight the CPUC ruling, but in our case they obviously are.”

But the hydrant also sprouted a geyser that flooded a nearby business, Rare Device, and the apartment building above it. “It was horrible. Our store flooded, we lost a bunch of inventory,” Rare Device’s owner, Giselle Gyalzen, told us.

Her insurance covered the damage, but she’s still trying to recover the deductible from Uber.

Uber directed the lawyers to its terms of service, which tell people up front that they won’t cover anything: “Uber under no circumstance accepts liability in connection with and/or arising from the transportation services provided by the Transportation Provider or any acts, action, behavior, conduct, and/or negligence on the part of the Transportation Provider.”

Meanwhile, the drivers also find themselves in a bind when it comes to obtaining insurance. Given the lack of clarity, state agencies have opted to alert TNC drivers that they’re going without a safety net.

On its website, the California Department of Insurance posted a notice warning, “TNCs are not required to have medical payments coverage, comprehensive, collision, uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage or other optional coverages.” It goes on to explain that TNCs’ liability policies aren’t required to cover bodily injury to the drivers, damages to the drivers’ cars, or damage and injuries caused by an uninsured or underinsured motorist.

And as the Guardian previously reported (“Driven to Take Risks,” 8/6/13), rideshare drivers don’t qualify for commercial insurance since their vehicles are registered as private automobiles, yet insurance companies won’t grant complete insurance coverage to TNC drivers since it’s considered an insufficient safeguard against risk.

Notably, limo drivers who also work for Uber (and get commercial insurance through those companies) don’t have this problem — just those using Uber or other rideshare apps as independent contractors. Taxi drivers are also eligible for commercial coverage.

Is there any way for an independent TNC driver to legally insure him/herself on the road? “Not that I’m aware of,” said Patrick Storm, a spokesperson for the Department of Insurance.

 

FIXING SAFETY

Paul Marron is an attorney for the Taxicab Paratransit Association of California, the group suing the CPUC to tighten up its regulations. In his view, a key test of the new CPUC regulations is whether they’re enforced — and with a bare bones staff, enforcement is likely to be anemic.

“The CPUC does not have the adequate resources to regulate (transportation) safety statewide,” he told us.

As a lawyer for taxi interests competing against rideshares, Marron obviously has skin in the game, so we looked at the numbers.

We compared the staff counts of the SFMTA, the CPUC, and for some perspective, the New York City Taxi Commission.

The SFMTA has 15 employees who oversee San Francisco’s 1,850 taxi cabs. That’s one staff person for every 123 cabs in the city. The NYC Taxi Commission’s staff of 569 oversees 94,500 taxis, town cars and similar liveries, according to their posted annual report. Though the numbers are greater than San Francisco, the ratio is similar: One staff person for every 166 vehicles.

Now for the CPUC. Though it is now tasked with overseeing “rideshare” TNC vehicles, the agency is also responsible for regulating limos and town cars statewide. Public documents obtained by the Guardian show it oversees 1,900 liveries in the Bay Area, and though there are no official numbers, there are an estimated 3,000 rideshare drivers in the city, according to data compiled by the San Francisco Cab Driver’s Association.

The CPUC has a staff of six based in San Francisco, responsible for overseeing an estimated 4,900 vehicles. That leaves the CPUC with one staffer for every 700 vehicles, a ratio wildly out of sync with other vehicle safety regulators.

Hayashi pleaded with the CPUC to allow cities to regulate rideshares on the local level, saying, “You don’t even have the resources to monitor this stuff.”

Sup. Eric Mar met repeatedly with the SFMTA over these concerns, and will hold a February hearing to get to the heart of the safety culture around San Francisco’s TNC rideshares.

CPUC spokesperson Christopher Chow defended its safety regulations and enforcement. “We can clarify or modify our TNC requirements, if needed, particularly the insurance requirements, as we see how the TNCs attempt to comply with the decision’s directives,” Chow wrote in an email. “If we believe there are any issues that should be addressed, we will take action.”

But as things stand, Claire Fahrbach, Giselle Gyalzen, Jason Herrera, Nikolas Kolintas and the family of Sofia Liu are all waiting for that action.

Reed Nelson contributed to this report.

 

Mayor Lee addresses Google bus controversy

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At a press conference on affordable housing today, the Guardian asked Mayor Ed Lee about San Francisco’s favorite pinata: tech buses. The monstrous private shuttles, which daily whisk tech workers away to Silicon Valley, currently use Muni bus stops without paying fines, like most private autos do. 

In Guardian News Editor Rebecca Bowe’s article in the print edition of the Bay Guardian this week, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency spokesperson Paul Rose tells her that although there is a proposal in the works to regulate them, the SFMTA won’t profit a single dime from the plan. 

“We are developing these policies to better utilize the boarding zones for these shuttle providers,” Rose said. “What we’re trying to do is provide a more efficient transportation network.”

But everyone in San Francisco who has ever ridden Muni knows that it struggles to run on time, and chronic underfunding is a perennial Muni problem. It even hurts the city’s bottom line, depressing our economy by over $50 million a year, according a report from the city earlier this May.

The report also highlights the cost to overhaul Muni between now and the year 2020: over $167 million would be needed to overhaul the system.

So why not make a few bucks from tech companies using Muni stops, who, according to the city, cause Muni delays? 

We asked Mayor Ed Lee that very question at a press conference today. You can listen to his answer in the audio embedded below, or read the transcript for yourself. 

San Francisco Bay Guardian: “Housing is one aspect of this, but transportation is another. The MTA’s plan to deal with tech buses is cost neutral. Is that a missed opportunity to get additional funding for Muni?”

Mayor Ed Lee: “Not a missed opportunity. That’s the essence of that 2030 task force, transportation task force, that we put together where they send a report to me, I’m in a process of reviewing all aspects of that. 

Muni officials themselves were directly involved in producing that very comprehensive review along with our Planning Department and many in fact all of the departments here had implemented them.

Transportation is not just about Muni, it’s about all the modes of how people get around the city. You can’t forget that, because that’s a really big part of the task force’s work.

How to get people walking. How to get them bicycling safer and more. How to get cars less, and the cars that do, get them through where they have to go without stalling and congesting. 

How do you invest in Muni? In its assets, in its transportation, in all of its aspects. How do you work with taxis and all the other car-sharing and automobile sharing companies. It’s not just about taxis, by the way. I hear from my taxi friends as I walk around City Hall, they don’t want to be left behind so we want to bring them in to see the new exciting use of Uber carshare and Lyft… all of those modes have to be paid attention to at the highest level, including investing in the assets of Muni.

I want Muni to be the choice.”

Earlier in the press conference Lee voiced his opposition to all of the hatred pointed at tech companies. 

“People, stop blaming tech, tech companies,” he said. “They want to work on a solution. I think it’s unfortunate that some voices want to pit one economic sector they view as successful against the rest of our challenge. The reality is they’re only eight percent of our economy.” 

We tried to ask a follow up question, but at the end of his answer on Muni, the mayor’s spokesperson Christine Falvey told the Guardian “We’re going to go on a tour now, this is off topic.”

The other thing Chelsea Manning said, and more updates

By now, we all now that Pfc. Bradley Manning, who was sentenced to 35 years on Aug. 21 for leaking classified U.S. government documents, would like to enter the next phase of her life as a woman named Chelsea. “I want everyone to know the real me,” Manning said in a statement. “I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female.”

But the message on gender identity wasn’t Manning’s only public statement the day the sentencing was decided. There was also this, a heartfelt explanation of why the whistleblower did what she did, titled, “Sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society.” Manning writes:

“It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we were doing. It was at this time I realized in our efforts to meet this risk posed to us by the enemy, we have forgotten our humanity. We consciously elected to devalue human life both in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we engaged those that we perceived were the enemy, we sometimes killed innocent civilians. Whenever we killed innocent civilians, instead of accepting responsibility for our conduct, we elected to hide behind the veil of national security and classified information in order to avoid any public accountability.”

Meanwhile, Bay Area supporters who rallied for Manning at the San Francisco Pride Parade and every other juncture – including attending the trial in Fort Meade, gathering on the day verdict was announced and most recently launching a campaign calling for the WikiLeaker’s pardon – also gathered at Justin Hermann Plaza Aug. 21 in response to the sentence.

The SFPD and CCTV


Yesterday, we told you about CommunityCam, a new online mapping platform that displays surveillance camera locations throughout San Francisco. We’d placed a phone call to Sgt. Dennis Toomer of the San Francisco Police Department’s Media Relations Unit to ask whether SFPD has an eye toward collaboration on this effort, but didn’t hear back until after publishing the post. In a voice message, Toomer explained the manner in which SFPD utilizes CCTV footage to investigate crimes. He said:

“The SFPD does not own or operate any [permanently installed] cameras. There are some cameras throughout the city, but those are operated by the Department of Emergency Management. Consequently, we don’t monitor cameras either. At events like the Pride Parade, Bay to Breakers, we have put up our own cameras along the parade routes, or along the race routes, just for the purpose of deploying resources.

“As soon as the event is over, those cameras come back down, and we don’t store any kind of video footage. What we do is, we rely on the public, the commercial businesses, banks, stores, you name it, to provide us with video if a crime occurs in that area – but it’s not something that we monitor. We ask the public to provide us with any kind of video tape, or cameras or surveillance that they operate. We don’t maintain our own system. Again, the city cameras that are around in certain areas – like the Tenderloin, Bayview, I believe out in Ingleside – those are all operated and managed by DEM.”

Where the Uber meets the road 

We recently reported that Uber, the smartphone-enabled ride service that does not wish to be lumped in with rideshares or taxis, is facing a class action lawsuit from drivers who claim they were cheated out of hard-earned tips.

Uber spokesperson Andrew Noyes initially declined to comment, but has since emailed an official response (which does not actually contain any answers to the Guardian’s questions). Here is what Noyes had to say about the lawsuit, which Uber has not yet received:

“While we have not yet been served with this complaint, the allegations made against our company are entirely without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously. Uber values its partners above all else and our technology platform has allowed thousands of drivers to generate an independent wage and build their own small businesses on their own time. Frivolous lawsuits like this cost valuable time, money and resources that are better spent making cities more accessible, opening up more possibilities for riders and providing more business for drivers.”

The Selector: August 14 – 20, 2013

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WEDNESDAY 14

SPF6

Long before SF became hospitable to starts-up and high tech biz, it fostered dance innovation. No one in the city boasts this continued support more so than the Garage, the place with the red door that welcomes all-comers. Some of those choreographers, however, have outgrown the Garage’s limited studio space. Hence, the yearly Summer Performance Festival (SPF), which throws the spotlight on those ready for the bigger world. Last year SPF moved to ODC Theater, which was a great decision. ODC offers a superb, professional, yet still intimate environment. The eight 2013 choreographers — selected from 120 — are BodiGram, Jenni Bregman, Aura Fischbeck, Gretchen Garnett, Angela Mazziota, Milissa Payne, Nine Shards, and VinnicombeWinkler. Their pieces range from solos to a dozen or more dancers; from 15 to 45 minutes; inspired by, among others, kids drawings and hot air balloons. (Rita Felciano)

Through Fri/16, 7pm and 9pm, (Sat/17, also 4pm; Sun/18, 2pm, 4pm, 7pm), $10–$20

3153 17th St, SF

(415) 863-9834

www.odcdance.org

 

Ivan & Alyosha

Seattle band Ivan & Alyosha creates a beautifully feel-good take on folk and indie rock. However, the group’s songs are more than just catchy tunes. The band, which was formed by Tim Wilson and Ryan Carbary, delves into darker patterns and themes on songs like “Don’t Wanna Die Anymore,” an indignant and resolute track with soft melodies that speaks of repentance and death. This balance of fast-paced, catchy, foot-stomping rhythms with earnest, ballad-like vocals gives listeners a wide variety of moods to choose from. One of its most buzz-worthy songs seems to say it all — the band is “Easy to Love.” And this summer, Ivan & Alyosha has been hitting the venues hard, touring on the latest, highly acclaimed album All the Times We’ve Had, with a stop in SF tonight. Come and see just how easy it is to love the rising band. (Hillary Smith)

With the Record Company 8pm, $15

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

THURSDAY 15

Divisadero Art Walk

For better or worse (depends who you ask), Divisadero Street, between Geary and Haight, is undergoing a transformation. Some long-standing businesses (Blue Jay Café, Little Chihuahua, Fly Bar, the Page, NOPA) remain, while others have recently settled in that Alamo Square-ian, Panhandle-adjacent nook (Bi-Rite, Rare Device, the Mill, San Franpsycho). And yet, they all exist in basic brick-and-mortar harmony along Divis, and will showcase such familial spirits at the annual Divisadero Art Walk tonight. Journey down Divis to take in the basics: art shows, store discounts, food and drink, live music. Some offerings of note: Vinyl’s got Pizza Hacker craft pizza, the Page will have an extended happy hour till 9pm, and Madrone Art Bar hosts Fred Windisch’s surf photography from the 1960s, New Orleans piano music, and a free Night Fever Disco Party. Plus, the New Liberation Community Garden at 1100 Divisadero, a project of Neighbors Developing Divisadero and the New Liberation Church, will host SF Skate Club’s skate jam, a variety show, and jazz-inspired artwork. (Emily Savage)

5pm, free

Divisadero between Geary and Haight, SF

nddivis.org

Facebook: Divisadero Art Walk

 

“Neon Slime Double Feature!”

Everyone knows there’s beef between Los Angeles and San Francisco — and not just where baseball is concerned. But rivalries that run as deep as fault lines be damned: SoCal’s Cinefamily and our very own Roxie are making a star-spangled case for harmony — through movies! Trashy movies, no less! Cinefamily zips into town tonight carrying precious cargo: 35mm prints of 1984’s Angel (“honor student by day, Hollywood hooker by night!”) and 1982’s Vice Squad (two words: killer pimp), to be screened before San Francisco eyeballs hungry for garish, sleazy exploitation rarities. Together we can! (Cheryl Eddy)

Angel, 9:15pm; Vice Squad, 11pm, $12

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St, SF

www.roxie.com

 

Useless Children

Useless Children, a noisy hardcore act hailing from Australia, has made its way from down under to play with Seattle-based noise rock band Dream Decay, and North Bay stoner-garage act, the Vibrating Antennas. With its second album — 2012’s Post Ending // Pre-Completion — in tow, this will be Useless Children’s first time venturing into the US. The band, known for its chaotic sound, takes an artsy, more experimental approach to modern hardcore. And those supporters also pack a punch, both known for being rowdy and playing powerful live shows. If you like your music feedback-laden with murky distortion pedals, then this may be the show for you. Get ready for a night of violent noise rock in a bar. (Erin Dage)

8:30pm, $7

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

 

Matatu Film Festival

The traveling Matatu Film Festival — named for a Swahili term that refers to ride-share taxis in Kenya and other East African countries — visits Oakland’s New Parkway Theater with films depicting “global journeys of humility, pride, resistance, and faith.” The fest opens tonight with Patricia Benoit’s story of Haitian immigrants in New York, Stones in the Sun (2012). It closes Sat/17 with Senegalese director Alain Gomis’ Tey (2012), about a man drifting through the last day of his life. (Both films are followed by tie-in music events at the nearby New Parish.) Among the other screenings: powerful docs God Loves Uganda and Stolen Seas (2012), well worth catching if you’ve missed them at previous local fests. (Eddy)

Through Sat/17

New Parkway Theater

474 24th St, Oakl

matatu.eventbrite.com

 

Best Coast

Under “biography” on Best Coast’s website, there is a single phrase: “Inspired by life and love and everything else.” Brief as it is, this little credo is really all one needs to know about Best Coast’s beach-bleached garage jangle. Frontperson Bethany Cosentino’s attention is sometimes attributed to her rock star boyfriend (Nathan Williams of Wavves) or her Internet-famous cat (the almighty Snacks) but after two successful albums — not to mention an unflaggingly devoted fan base —Best Coast’s catalog speaks for itself. The LA outfit’s simple, sunny pop songs are not particularly challenging, adventurous, or intellectual, but sometimes a hyper-listenable little slice of SoCal bliss is just what you need on a gray San Francisco day. (Haley Zaremba)

With Bleached

8pm, $25

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

 

FRIDAY 16

Deadfest

Have you ever worried that you just didn’t have enough grindcore in your boring, monotonous life? For those who have had that terrifying thought, Oakland’s third annual Deadfest is the perfect remedy. Boasting headliners such as ’90s grindcore heroes Dropdead and sludge bands Noothgrush and Brainoil, this will be a weekend of hardcore not soon forgotten. In true grindcore tradition, there will be over a dozen bands in a short period of time each night on two stages. Get ready for an aural assault that will have your ears ringing for days. As the youngsters these days say: “See you in the pit!” Just a reminder: It’s best not to be 30 minutes late to this event, because you run the risk of missing two to three bands. (Dage)

Through Sat/17, 8pm, $15 per night

Oakland Metro Opera House

630 Third St, Oakl.

(510) 763-1146

www.oaklandmetro.org

 

SATURDAY 17

SF Street Food Fest

La Cocina’s annual San Francisco Food Street Festival gives locals the chance to sample cuisines from all over the world. Food trucks and booths line the streets at the festival in a pulsing, crowded mix of aromas and flavorful dishes like the Penang peanut tacos from Azalina’s, Peruvian ceviche from Cholo Soy, or beef pho rolls from Rice Paper Scissors. The Mozzeria stand can satisfy your cheese craving with the Margherita pizza — fresh mozzarella, pomodoro sauce, and basil. And if you desire a sweet and refreshing beverage, visit the Curry Up Now truck and try the Rose Lassi. The festival has an infinite amount of combinations, and it’s fun to try as many of them as your stomach, and wallet, will allow. Donations made at the festival support La Cocina’s business incubator program which aids early-stage entrepreneurs growing healthy, sustainable food businesses. (Smith)

11am-7pm, free

Folsom from 20th to 26th, SF

www.sfstreetfoodfest.com

 

“Eat a Bug! An Interactive Bug Cooking Workshop”

Oh sure, you call yourself a foodie. But would you dare snack on a scorpion or gnaw on a hairy tarantula leg? Test the limits of your taste buds (and earn some sweet bragging rights) with author David George Gordon, aka “The Bug Chef,” whose wholly unique Eat-a-Bug Cookbook contains such recipes as “Sheesh! Kabobs,” featuring “12 frozen katydids, locusts, or other suitably sized Orthoptera, thawed.” Gordon’s cooking demo is aimed at adventurous chefs of all ages — Fear Factor fans and planners of daring dinner parties alike. (Eddy)

1-3pm, $10-$20

San Francisco Botanical Garden

Golden Gate Park (near the corner of Ninth Ave and Lincoln), SF

www.sfbotanicalgardensociety.org

 

SUNDAY 18

San Francisco Mixtape Society: Camp

Bug juice and swimming holes, acoustic guitar strumming by the crackling fire and hand-braided friendship bracelets around your wrists, those sticky-sweet summer breezes whistling through the trees. Yes, the thought of summer camp tends to bring back warm and itchy memories for the lot of us who experienced such seasonal traditions in our youth (even for those who accidently went to Christian horse camp, but that’s another story). Put those nostalgic feelings to tape, or CD, or flash drive, then share them with that bright and bubbly SF Mixtape Society crowd tonight, at this newest installment of its quarterly gathering, centered around the theme of “Camp.” Maybe I’ll even make an accidently-religious-pony-camp mix to trade. Although, as the Mixtape Society smartly likes to keep its themes broad, the “Camp” distinction could lend itself to something else entirely, say, a campy Judy Garland track? As always, the meetup is open to all and free of charge, but you can only take a mix home if you bring your own to trade. Didn’t you ever learn the joy of sharing? (Savage)

4-6pm, free

Make-Out Room

3225 22nd St., SF

www.sfmixtapesociety.com

 

TUESDAY 20

The She’s

If you walked anywhere in the downtown area during July, you’re probably already familiar with the She’s. The band was featured by the Converse Represent campaign, and its image, pushing a drum kit up one of SF’s trademarked hills, has been boldly splashed around the city. Converse chose well. The She’s embody all the youth, DIY attitude, and vintage pop that San Francisco loves. Their debut album, appropriately titled Then It Starts To Feel Like Summer, retrofits dreamy ’60s pop with a crackling teenage energy (these ladies are still in high school) and they’re finishing up a much-anticipated EP, tentatively titled We’re not Best Coast (But They’re Cool Too). The band, which has credited much of its success to the open and supportive SF music scene, is giving back tonight at Bottom of the Hill, where it’s headlining this Save KUSF Benefit. (Zaremba)

With the Yes Go’s, False Priest

$10, 9pm

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St, SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

Shareable, smearable

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After writing critically about problems in the business models of so-called “shareable economy” companies in last week’s issue — including our cover story on Airbnb and other companies that facilitate short-term home rentals (“Into thin air“) and a story on the rideshare company Lyft (“Driven to take risks“) — the topic continued to dominate the sfbg.com Politics blog, with fresh posts and lots of reader comments:

AIRBNB PILE-ON

The excellent bilingual newspaper El Tecolote covered some of the same ground we did in its Aug. 1 cover story, “Unregulated Rental Business Takes Over Housing,” focused on how Airbnb is contributing to gentrification and displacement in the Mission District.

Reporter Jackson Ly found a couple that turned a rent-controlled apartment on 24th St. into a $249 per month de facto hotel room, booking it for 24 nights in August and making $5,976 in just one month, on top of the $3,069 they’re making in August renting out the guest room in the apartment where they actually live for $99 per night.

“It’s cheating the people that pay taxes,” Maria, who lives in the unit below this couple’s investment apartment and is tired of the rotating stream of tourists in her building, told the newspaper.

I got ahold of El Tecolote Managing Editor Iñaki Fdez. de Retana, who said that housing issues like this one are extremely important to the Latino community that lives in the Mission, and he’s been surprised that Mayor Ed Lee has been unwilling to address the impacts of Airbnb and other tech community contributors to the problem.

“It is very important,” he told us, noting that visiting European tourists are changing the character of the neighborhood. “In particular on 24th Street, which was once seen as the heart of the Mission, it’s changing overnight and [Airbnb and other housing rental websites] is a big part of that.” (Steven T. Jones)

 

UBER UGLY CRASH

Uber’s policy on insuring its drivers will soon be taken for a test drive, as the company that runs the mobile app-based ride requesting service and a driver were served with a court summons last week from a woman severely injured after a crash near a San Francisco intersection.

Those insurance policies were said to meet brand new regulatory requirements on rideshare services introduced by the California Public Utilities Commission on July 30, which was meant to solve the longtime regulatory battle between rideshare services and local governments.

The plaintiff in the suit, Claire Farhbach, was a bystander, not a customer, and that unique twist in the injury suit has experts from the taxi industry waiting to see if Uber will step up to the plate to pay for Farhbach’s injuries, or if Uber will leave driver Djamol Gafurov on the hook for the bill.

Fahrbach was walking up Divisadero street near Hayes at quarter of midnight March 12 when Gafurov’s black town car, operating as a private taxi, collided with another car on Divisadero while turning left. One of the cars then collided with a fire hydrant, and in the words of the civil suit, “this impact caused the fire hydrant to be violently sheared from its base and propelled through the air a number of feet northbound…when the fire hydrant struck (Farhbach) with a tremendous amount of force.”

Gafurov’s private taxi was operating as a “partner” of Uber, which is how the company defines its relationship to the network of drivers on its website. No private taxis or drivers are considered to be employees of Uber, as the company has repeatedly maintained, claiming that the drivers, and their actions, are not its responsibility.

Uber spokesperson Andrew Noyes told us repeatedly that drivers are not employees of the rideshare company: “Our legal team took a look at the files you sent. This is not an ‘Uber’ driver, they’re not employed by us. They’re employed by their licensed and insured limousine company.” (Joe Fitzgerald)

 

MAKING CABS BETTER

For all the (justified) grumbling about the business models of ridesharing services like Lyft and Uber, the so-called ridesharing revolution may prove to be a catalyst for a taxi industry overhaul.

“We’re adding hundreds more taxis, and our board has approved regulations for each vehicle to provide real-time locational information,” San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency spokesperson Paul Rose told us.

“One of our goals is to move forward with making the data available to our customers to hail a cab with an app,” Rose added, referencing a plan unveiled by the transit agency several weeks ago. Faced with stiff competition from random vehicles adorned with garish pink mustaches, the taxi industry is taking a stab at evolution, or at least imitation.

To be a cab driver right now, paying off the pricey medallion they must purchase in order to operate while oblivious new transplants rake in the cash without following the same set of rules, must be infuriating.

At the same time, let’s be honest here: There’s a reason people are ditching conventional cabs and climbing into cars with random strangers who may be beckoned with the tap of a smartphone. And it has nothing to do with passengers’ sentiments about government regulation or newly minted tech millionaires.

The taxi industry lags far behind the lightning-speed reality many Bay Area residents have come to inhabit, but if it weren’t for the competition, they might not have any incentive to change.

Rideshare services might be your quintessential rogue tech companies backed by nauseating sums of venture capital, but at the end of the day, people also want taxi service that does not suck. (Rebecca Bowe)

Taxis reinvent themselves to be more like Lyft

For all the (justified) grumbling about the business models of ridesharing services like Lyft and Uber, the so-called ridesharing revolution may prove to be a catalyst for a taxi industry overhaul.

“We’re adding hundreds more taxis, and our board has approved regulations for each vehicle to provide real-time locational information,” San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency spokesperson Paul Rose told me in an interview yesterday.

“One of our goals is to move forward with making the data available to our customers to hail a cab with an app,” Rose added, referencing a plan unveiled by the transit agency several weeks ago. Faced with stiff competition from random vehicles adorned with garish pink mustaches, the taxi industry is taking a stab at evolution, or at least imitation.

This week’s issue of the Guardian includes a story by journalist and part-time Lyft driver Josh Wolf, exposing a catch-22 facing Lyft drivers seeking full-coverage auto insurance. On our Politics Blog, reporter Joe Fitzgerald highlights a similar question that surfaced around ridesharing after an Uber driver’s involvement in a terrible accident.

The question of who foots the bill after someone gets crippled in a rideshare wreck is one of many accompanying the rise of unregulated app-connected cabs. Customers hailing a car with Uber have nowhere to turn in the event of a bad encounter, in contrast with the SFMTA’s complaint system for monitoring registered cabbies.

The SFMTA receives 100 to 120 cab-related complaints each month, and requires the city’s 311 information hotline info to be posted in every registered vehicle. “We follow up with every incident,” Rose said. “Results range from addressing or notifying the driver, to the very extreme – a revocation of a permit.”

To be a cab driver right now, paying off the pricey medallion they must purchase in order to operate while oblivious new transplants rake in the cash without following the same set of rules, must be infuriating.

At the same time, let’s be honest here. There’s a reason people are ditching conventional cabs and climbing into cars with random strangers who may be beckoned with the tap of a smartphone. And it has nothing to do with passengers’ sentiments about government regulation or newly minted tech millionaires.

Head over to Yelp (sorry, but it’s instructive) and read the comments yourself: Services like Lyft, Uber, and Sidecar are garnering rave reviews (Homobiles actually seems to have won the most ardent fans of all), while Yelpers use the online forum for virtual venting sessions to describe their frustrating taxi experiences. Maybe it’s a skewed sample, but there seem to be lot of people out there who were left languishing while waiting for a cab, and they’re pissed. No wonder Silicon Valley investors think it’s a good idea to dump $60 million into some faux-taxi scheme lacking clarity on even the basic question of insurance.

Wolf wrote about his experience as a Lyft driver; here’s my personal anecdote as a taxi patron. I called for a cab on a recent weekday and it never showed. When I phoned again to ask where it was, a robotic voice intoned, “an error has occurred,” and then the line went dead. Twice. When I dialed a second company, the dispatcher told me flat out that there were no cars close by. He suggested I just call someplace else, because he couldn’t help. 

Fail.

The taxi industry lags far behind the lightning-speed reality many Bay Area residents have come to inhabit, but if it weren’t for the competition, they might not have any incentive to change.

Rideshare services might be your quintessential rogue tech companies backed by nauseating sums of venture capital, but at the end of the day, people also want taxi service that does not suck. The Lyft drivers I’ve met tend to be people like Wolf – young, idealistic, bent on pursuing a creative passion despite the city’s high cost of living, and grateful for flexible work hours that make it possible to follow that dream and still make rent.

With that, here’s a sappy breakup letter composed to Yellow Cab by one Cori D., a Yelper. “I just don’t love you anymore,” she writes. “You’ve left me waiting on the curb one too many times now without a word. No ‘I’ll be a little late’ or ‘sorry you’re late for work now.’ … So I’m leaving you. In fact, I’ll confess that I’ve been cheating on you. Uber is just so handsome and reliable. … You might even say he bends over backward for me.”

True story? Or just some clever guerilla marketing orchestrated to plug Uber? Like most things pertaining to San Francisco’s information-age gold rush, it’s impossible to know for sure.

Lawsuit over injury from airborne fire hydrant tests Uber’s insurance practices

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Uber’s policy on insuring its drivers will soon be taken for a test drive, as the company that runs the mobile app-based ride requesting service and a driver were served with a court summons last week from a woman severely injured after a crash near a San Francisco intersection.

Those insurances policies were said to meet brand new regulatory requirements on rideshare services introduced by the California Public Utilities Commission on July 30, which was meant to solve the longtime regulatory battle between rideshare services and local governments.

The plaintiff in the suit, Claire Farhbach, was a bystander, not a customer, and that unique twist in the injury suit has experts from the taxi industry waiting to see if Uber will step up to the plate to pay for Farhbach’s injuries, or if Uber will leave driver Djamol Gafurov on the hook for the bill.

Fahrbach was walking up Divisadero street near Hayes at quarter of midnight March 12 when Gafurov’s black town car, operating as a private taxi, collided with another car on Divisadero while turning left. One of the cars then collided with a fire hydrant, and in the words of the civil suit, “this impact caused the fire hydrant to be violently sheared from its base and propelled through the air a number of feet northbound…when the fire hydrant struck (Farhbach) with a tremendous amount of force.”

The hydrant flew 81 feet from its original position, according to the police report.

The suit notes that Fahrbach sustained lacerations to her body, a fracture in her lower leg, and multiple herniated discs that “more likely than not will require surgical intervention in her future.”

Gafurov’s private taxi was operating as a “partner” of Uber, which is how the company defines its relationship to the network of drivers on its website. No private taxis or drivers are considered to be employees of Uber, as the company has repeatedly maintained. Uber provides software that lets passengers connect with drivers, like a digital dispatch, and the ridesharing service then takes a cut of the fare.

The image above is a modified police report from the fire hydrant incident, with numbers added: 1) site of the initial collision 2) where the vehicle hit the fire hydrant 3) where the hydrant hit Farhbach.

Yet that distinction has made their insurance liabilities nebulous, and local officials have taken notice. Officials at SFO last week started arresting rideshare operators in and around the airport, and the SFMTA, which regulates taxis, also considers them a problem.

The San Francisco Airport Commission and the SFMTA submitted concerns to the California Public Utilities Commission, charging that a “lack of adequate liability insurance, criminal background checks, driver training and regular vehicle inspections all decrease public safety, and although some [transportation network companies] represent that they do all of the above, the Airport Commission is asking for regulatory verification.” according to a CPUC report. “The SFMTA asserts that TNCs have a negative effect on public safety because of a lack of regulatory oversight.”

Cab drivers have long been regulated by the state, and these agencies contend that not only are rideshare companies like Uber dangerous, but the lack of insurance can be financially ruinous to pedestrians and drivers alike.

“Because it’s a pedestrian suing, that opens up a whole can of worms, and Uber may try to put the liability on the driver,” said Trevor Johnson, director of the San Francisco Cab Driver’s Association. A former cabbie himself, he’s been on both sides of that sort of litigation, as well as in legal actions with tech companies like Uber.

Johnson is not confident the driver will be covered by his own insurance plan, because in its current pseudo-taxi company state, many insurers consider you not quite a taxi but not a private driver, putting these tech-cabbies in an awkward limbo.

“He may be left with a big judgment, and his insurance may opt to not cover him because he’s with Uber,” he said.

This is backed up in our current issue of the Guardian, where Lyft driver Josh Wolf wrote from personal experience that it is difficult for Lyft drivers to obtain full insurance coverage for their vehicles.

A rideshare driver criticized Uber in a letter he wrote to the Guardian after reading that article. “I work for a limo company, I’m fully insured, the car is fully insured, but Uber takes absolutely no responsibility for its drivers,” the driver, who wanted to be identified as “Zark,” told us. He said he feared joining the ranks of self-employed cabbies, who often are under-insured. “[Uber] holds their customers in really high regard, but they don’t hold their drivers in any regard.”

Uber maintains that the drivers, and their actions, are not their responsibility.

In response to a query about the lawsuit, Uber spokesperson Andrew Noyes stated repeatedly that drivers are not employees of the rideshare company.

“Our legal team took a look at the files you sent. This is not an ‘Uber’ driver, they’re not employed by us. They’re employed by their licensed and insured limousine company,” he said. “The important thing is that theres no characterization of a driver as a driver at Uber.”

But Gafurov, the driver named in the accident, isn’t actually employed by a limo company.

Gafurov declined to speak to the Guardian, but after some digging, a disgruntled bystander, angry with Gafurov, found that he is self-employed and registered with the CPUC as the “Limo Car Service Corporation.”

Gafurov was driving with liability insurance, his CPUC registration shows — but he not did not have excess liability insurance, which would be needed to cover extraordinary damage caused by the flying fire hydrant. The gaping hole left by the hydrant spilled water out onto all the surrounding businesses, causing intense damage, and everyone affected is seeking compensation.

Fahrbach’s lawyer, Doug Atkinson, told us the cost of the accident will be enormous.

Notably, few independent drivers have excess liability insurance.

“A lot of carriers don’t have it, because it’s expensive,” Johnson told us. “This is a case for the excess insurance, as it stands right now with that much damage and that many people after him, unless Uber steps in and helps him save the day this driver is going to be in the hole for the next 20 years.” He added, “This guy’s life is over.”

Atkinson is hopeful that getting Uber to pay that insurance won’t be a hard sell. “I’m not looking for some protracted legal battle, I want to see a company that will do the right thing, who’s saying ‘I’m revolutionizing cab driving.’”

In order to persuade the CPUC of its viability during the regulatory proceeding, Uber told them it has the very excess liability insurance that Gafurov needs, in excess of $5 million, according to CPUC documentation from an April workshop.

But having that insurance in place is different from using it to cover damages when needed. According to Uber’s partner agreement with its drivers, “Uber and/or its licensors shall not be liable for any loss, damage or injury which may be incurred” by a driver.

Asked if Uber will help Farhbach pay her medical bill, Noyes responded, “You’re writing about a specific case and I don’t think I can say much more. A professionally licensed driver is protected by their company, it’s not really my issue to weigh in on.”

Meanwhile, Fahrbach isn’t doing very well at all, she wrote in an email. Her injuries forced her to leave her two jobs in San Francisco, one at a farmer’s market and another at a cafe, and she moved back in with her family in North Carolina to recover.

“My recovery has been a slow steady process laced with many ups and downs,” she said. “Having been immobile for the better part of three months has had an everlasting effect on my physical state. I will most likely be dealing with spinal problems for the rest of my life, but have tried to remain positive and grateful for the progress I have made.”

Fahrbach said she doesn’t have the money to cover her medical bills out-of-pocket, and this frightens her. “Frankly, if there is insufficient insurance to cover my injuries and losses, my financial future will be dismal.”

The ride-share parasites

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OPINION These days, all signs point to the eventual deregulation of the San Francisco cab industry.

On any given weekend night in the city, you can find a wide array of illegal taxis operating with impunity, including limo drivers, out-of-town taxis, Super Shuttle vans, ZIP cars, and even some sketchy folks driving their private vans down Valencia Street at 2am soliciting rides for hire. If you have wheels, you can become your own livery service.

It’s a free-for-all out here. The city appears to be giving all comers carte blanche. And while the courts wrangle over ride-sharing rules and what constitutes a taxicab, the cab industry could cave in under the unfair advantage given to its competitors.

The general manager of ride-share startup Uber, Ilya Abyzov, has been quoted as saying that cab companies have had a “state-sanctioned monopoly. They’re not used to competition.” I have two words for him, and they’re not, Yo taxi! We’re competing with about as much chance as the proverbial one-legged man in a kicking fight.

The advertisement on the website of another startup, Lyft, uses for recruiting drivers reads: “Make $22 an hour, have a blast, drive when you want, meet new people, make friends, learn about new restaurants …” This idyllic version of a cab shift could never happen without real cab drivers holding up the foundation.

I don’t think you’ll find a Lyft cab willing to take a sick grandmother from Kaiser Hospital to her home in the Alice Griffith projects. A pink mustache sighting at Griffith and Fitzgerald will probably coincide with the next great earthquake because only a drastic geological shift will cause that to happen.

Right now, it’s a cakewalk for the ride-share drivers. But without the cab industry picking up the rear and girding the underbelly, these parasites couldn’t exist. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a parasite as an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host’s expense. Substitute the word “nutrients” for the word “money” and you have what in the cab business we call a bingo.

At the end of the day, driving a cab is a hustle. And once your host is gone and the cab business gets deregulated, kiss your city tours goodbye. You won’t be able to rely on donations anymore, and your legal babble and dishonest terminology won’t save you from a harsh descent into the street, into the dog-eat-dog world of a real cab driver.

And then, you’ll know what it’s like to hustle, in the middle of the night when you’re worried about your gates and gas, and it gets real slow, and you have to take chances with your life.

Desoto Shelby III is the pen name for a San Francisco taxi driver.

 

Faux cabs: A tourism industry perspective

21

I got a fascinating letter from a person who’s worked in the tourism business in San Francisco for many years, and he’s very worried about the impact of the faux cabs on the city’s biggest industry. Here’s his note:

I’m a concerned representative of the tourism industry who read your article, “The cost of fake cabs,” with great alarm.  In fact, I think you should have mentioned more on how it could affect tourism beyond that just “inexperienced drivers aren’t good for the city’s reputation.”  I’ve been the Chief Concierge of a major Union Square-area hotel for the last 11 years, and if even half of what you say is true, then I fear there could be even greater damage than what your article portends.

According to the last statistic I read from the SFCVB, San Francisco welcomed 16.5 million visitors to the city in 2012, and although many of them may be “tech savvy,”  they often do not bring their smart and cell phones with them because it cost to much to use outside their own countries.  Therefore, they are just as dependent on our taxis as those seniors and disabled San Franciscans you wrote would be disenfranchised.  if, as your article infers, companies like Lyft and Sidecar (Et Al) continue their dominating trajectory over our traditional taxi industry, I worry how the millions of visitors who come to the city will be affected.

Unlike the aforementioned vulnerable San Franciscans who at least are somewhat familiar with the city, many of these visitors often have never been here before, so they have no knowledge of alternative ways of getting around and know only a taxi as a means of transportation.

Again if, as your article infers, this trend means a “race to the bottom” of qualified drivers, I fear the detrimental affect would greatly damage our city’s number on industry – tourism.  I know first had how sites like TripAdvisor can enhance or diminish a hotel’s reputation, imagine what would happen if that were expanded tenfold and millions of visitors who could have negative taxi experiences damage the image of the city on line.  It’s not beyond the realm of reason to imagine if one of these under-regulated and under-taxed companies didn’t like tourist A or tourist B for some reason, and then disseminates that information to the other companies; essentially blackballing said tourist completely.

As much concern as I have for those of our most vulnerable citizens who are already suffering the deleterious effects as these companies proliferate, I fear that our city’s greatest industry would be harmed in ways not yet imagined.  We really have no idea yet what the future is, and I fear those who can can do something about it are doubling down on an untested concept with possible disastrous effects.

Thank you for this opportunity to share my observations.

Peter Nasatir

Dealing with the faux cabs

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Lots of comments on my article outlining the problems with the fake cabs that are riding around town without medallions or proper screening. The main complaint the trolls have appears to be their dislike of cab drivers and the difficulty of getting a cab in some places and at certain times. I’ve never had a bad experience with an SF cab driver in 30 years of living here and taking cabs, but I’m sure there are others who have; no industry is perfect.

My main concern is that the cab interlopers are lying and cheating — insisting that they don’t have to follow the same rules as everyone else. Somebody in one of the comments said that there’s nothing wrong with “ride shares,” and it’s true that everyone from Craigslist to Caltrans has some verison of a ride board, and it’s not uncommon for casual carpools to share gas costs.

But that’s not what Lyft and Uber etc. are doing. They’re private businesses, set up with venture capital backers, with the aim of making a profit by ferrying passengers around cities. That’s the definition of a taxicab business. If these were just casual shared rides, there would be no business model and they wouldn’t have investors.

I’ll tell you how we can settle the issue quickly. How about all of us who need a ride around town contact Lyft, get a lift, and then voluntarily pay nothing. Or just offer the price of gas — $4.50 a gallon, most of these cars get 25 miles to the gallon, most rides around town are five miles or less, so that would be 90 cents.

Passengers get profiles on the system, just like drivers. Anyone who does that will quickly find it impossible to get rides. Which will demonstrate that this isn’t ride-sharing, it’s commerce. And while I’m all in favor of competition, everyone should play by the same rules.

 

What cabs really do

0

tredmond@sfbg.com

EDITORS NOTES There are two ways to look at the taxicab industry in San Francisco: Either it’s purely a business, out to serve customers with the products that are most profitable — or it’s part of the city’s public transportation infrastructure, and thus subject to regulations that ensure all parts of the city are properly served.

If you take the first approach, then you’re like the entrepreneurs who founded Lyft, Uber, Sidecar, and Tickengo. They offer a product that the market clearly wants — rides that can be summoned with a smart phone and tracked by geolocation (no more “when the hell is that cab going to get here?”), with both drivers and passengers rated on a Yelp-like system.

The newcomers have no interest in the city’s old-fashioned regulations, which really do, in some ways, date back to the days when cabs were buggies pulled by horses. They’ve got a business model, and they’re going to follow it.

The problem here is that cabs are not just a business. (Housing isn’t just a business, either; that’s why we have, for example, rent control, eviction protections, and code enforcement.) Taxis are an essential part of the transit system in San Francisco. They backfill where buses and trains can’t or don’t go. They provide a lifeline for disabled people and seniors who need a ride, for example, to and from health-care appointments or supermarkets.

They are absolutely essential to the tourist economy, which is the city’s biggest and most lucrative industry (tech is still far behind).

There are problems with this part of the transportation system, as there are problems with Muni and BART and airport shuttles. There need to be more cabs on the streets, particularly at busier times. The existing drivers and operators need better technology and a better dispatch system.

But taxi drivers — the old, traditional type — are required to pick up anyone and drive anywhere; they can’t cherry pick the most attractive rides. They have to go through screening and training that ensures the public is safe.

They are, like many other utilities, almost a part of the public sector. There’s a good reason for that. And it’s what the city and the state regulators should be looking at.

Time to enforce the law

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EDITORIAL The new tech companies that are making waves in San Francisco — Airbnb in the short-term rental business and Lyft and Uber in the taxi industry — may describe themselves as innovative and disruptive, and they may be appealing to investors.

But there’s a more accurate word that describes their relationship to the city:

Cheaters.

The way these companies are luring customers isn’t really about high-tech applications or brilliant business models. They’ve just found a way to get around the rules that everyone else has to obey.

Some city officials are talking about hearings and new legislation, all of which is fine. But in the rest of the business community, when someone flagrantly, openly violates the regulations, the City Attorney’s Office cracks down. That’s what needs to happen here, and soon.

Airbnb has a slick and appealing promise: You can rent out your house or apartment on the Internet to someone who wants to stay in the city for a few days, but is looking for an alternative to a traditional hotel. The homeowner or tenant gets some extra bucks; the visitor gets to stay in a cool neighborhood at a bargain price. What’s not to like?

Well, for one thing, most leases in San Francisco bar unauthorized sublets, so renters who offer their places on Airbnb face problems with their landlords, including possibly eviction. City laws also bar the use of residential property for commercial purposes. And, as we’ve pointed out repeatedly, Airbnb isn’t collecting the transient occupancy tax that every other hotel operator in the city has to pay. The total tab: At least $1.8 million a year.

Lyft and Uber say they’re using creative apps to offer an alternative to the screwed-up taxi system. Drivers offer rides to people who can “volunteer” to pay at the end — but if nobody pays, the whole business model fails and the venture capitalists who put up the money lose. So everyone knows that these are pay-for-hire taxis.

Except that San Francisco requires every taxi driver to have a permit, called a medallion — and drivers have to go through training, background checks, and carry extensive insurance. If a driver overcharges or refuses a fare, a customer can complain to the city, and get recourse. The startups don’t follow the same rules.

There are reasons the city regulates cabs and charges hotel taxes. Cab drivers are ferrying people, some of them vulnerable; it’s only a matter of time before a rogue driver who sneaks into the new unregulated startups winds up in a horrible crash or criminally preying on riders.

Driving a cab without a medallion is illegal. Failing to pay city taxes is, too. City Hall can debate and dither and try to avoid offending the mayor (who, unfortunately, is trying to help Airbnb slide). But this is a clear-cut case of businesses flouting city law. Herrera needs to put an end to it.