Taxi drivers criticize changes
San Francisco’s transportation agency board adopted all but one of the proposed reforms Tuesday night to the city’s taxi medallion system, the government-issued permit to operate a single cab.
The vote by the Municipal Transportation Agency’s directors was an effort to revive a heavily regulated industry that has lost customers as ride-hailing companies have thrived with limited oversight. The action followed close to three hours of heated and emotional testimony from taxi drivers and other members of the industry expressing fervent opposition to the changes.
Though varied in style and substance, of the almost 80 people to speak, all but a handful expressed deep distress over the reforms, mirroring the acute desperation of the taxi business as a whole.
“You are killing us, you are destroying us,” Sukma Widjaja, a driver since 2011, said to the board. “You will make some of us homeless. One of them is going to be me.”
Collectively, they spoke of a hopeless struggle to make ends meet as drivers on San Francisco’s roads, and of a conviction that these reforms will deliver the fatal hit to an already wounded industry.
“If you don’t want taxis, then just kill us,” said Martin Kazinski, a driver for 15 years. “Don’t let us suffer.”
Despite repeated rebukes from Chairman Cheryl Brinkman — including multiple threats to clear the room — audience members frequently burst out in expressions of disbelief and anger at the MTA, and support for their fellow drivers.
The passionate displays stood in stark contrast to the measured presentation of Kate Toran, director of taxis at the MTA, and the determinedly placid expressions of all seven members of the MTA board.
“The plan doesn’t make any sense,” said Mark Gruberg, a driver for over 35 years. Gruberg sits on the board of the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance, an organizing group of a protest staged outside City Hall before the board meeting.
“What the MTA is doing, it’s going to crush cab drivers,” he said. “Our blood will be on their hands.”
The reforms target several areas of the city’s complex — and convoluted — medallion system. The city now has approximately 1,458 medallions in service operated by about 4,824 active drivers. This number is divided across three medallion types, which function under three sets of rules.
The first category, called “corporate” or “pre-K” medallions, were acquired at a nominal price by individual and corporate holders. In 1978, the second type of permit, referred to as “post-K” medallions, was created. These medallions cost only a small registration fee but came attached to a driving requirement and up to 20 years on a wait list.
In 2010, the third class of medallion, “purchased medallions,” was created and each sold for $250,000 to working drivers.
The MTA’s reforms are aimed at helping this final class of medallion holder and revive the stagnant medallion market.
“Those medallion holders have invested the most and gotten the least,” Toran said. “I think it makes the most sense that they be the focus.”
The two aspects of the reform package that sparked the most violent reaction include the barring of all but purchased medallion holders from picking up passengers at San Francisco International Airport and the phase-out of all “pre-K” or corporate medallions — the only part of the reform package not passed by the board.
But even the changes that were ultimately passed by the board were met with intense skepticism.
“We don’t know that this will work,” board member Mark Heinicke said. These reforms might cause “useless pain.”
Discussion among board members and those in attendance persistently circled back to Uber and Lyft, ride-hailing companies that enjoy relatively slack regulation compared with that of the taxi industry. But the MTA lacks jurisdiction over those companies, impairing their capacity to revive the taxi industry.
“When you have two players in the market that are not playing by the same rules ... there’s very little we can do,” board member Gwyneth Borden said.