Bumpy Times for S.F. Cabbies

On the worst nights, after she’s finished another shift driving a taxicab in this tourist mecca, Iza Pardinas de Arana beats on her steering wheel and nearly bursts into tears.

After 12 hours and all those miles, after paying for her taxi lease and gas, Pardinas de Arana is lucky to bring home $30.

That’s when the 39-year-old single mother brings out those depressing help wanted ads. And these days, even a job at McDonalds is worth considering.

“At least there, I’d make an hourly wage with benefits,” she says. “Here, I’ve got no safety net. If I get hurt in an accident tomorrow, I’m history. The cab company doesn’t care. At the end of each day, I’ve made so little I just want to cry. I’m starving out here.”

For many cabbies, the city’s once-teeming streets have become a decidedly lonely place.

Because of the city’s visitor appeal and its chronic shortage of parking, taxicabs have long been the tourist’s transportation of choice. But like the sun on fog-shrouded San Francisco summer days, many riders have suddenly vanished.

Thanks to the fallout from a slipping economy and recent dot-com bust, gone are the hordes of young computer company fares jockeying between bars and restaurants.

Gone are the business travelers, whose reeling bottom-line companies have decided to keep them home. Gone are the days when drivers like Pardinas de Arana could make up to $200 a shift.

Drivers have seen their take-home pay plummet by as much as 60% as they compete with a growing number of private limousines and shuttles that have cut into the once-lucrative airport business.

The city’s 5,000 taxi drivers--many of them recent immigrants--now even battle among themselves.

Some pull cutthroat street maneuvers--racing from lights, making dicey U-turns--to steal fares, breaking a long-held local code of ethics among drivers. On dispatch calls, as many as six taxis may race to a location in this new first-come, first-served battle.

“It’s more competitive out there, that’s for sure” said Mary McGuire, a veteran driver and member of the city’s Taxi Commission. “People used to flag cabs from every corner but now you’ve got to hunt for them. And then some other driver is there to cut you off.”

Since 1999, responding to the city’s good times, officials have added 400 cabs to city streets. Now, frustrated cabbies await the arrival of another 500 taxis they say will further crowd business. Approved last fall by the Taxi Commission and backed by Mayor Willie Brown, the most recent additions have been delayed pending environmental review. The commission must approve any new cabs.

Officials acknowledge that economic times have changed and that the city has been hit hard by the downturn in technology jobs. The loss of business travelers has meant a 10% drop in hotel occupancy from last year.

“The business travel market’s in the tank,” said John Marks, president of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau. “If visitors aren’t coming, we don’t need as many waiters, tour guides or cab drivers.”

With 1,381 cabs, Brown agrees San Francisco may have enough.

“Mayor Brown doesn’t have his head in the sand,” said spokesman P.J. Johnston. “If there’s too many cabs on the street and not enough people to ride in them, that causes an economic hardship.”

Los Angeles, like many big cities, limits the number of taxi licenses--this year to 2,037, most of which are driven by individual owners or co-op members. Los Angeles is also the only large municipality in the nation that awards franchises to a limited number of companies--11 at the moment--on the belief that larger firms offer better service.

San Francisco drivers say a 23-year-old city law regulating the industry, intended to help individual drivers, is actually an added drain on their salaries.

In 1978, city voters approved a “medallion” licensing system designed to make the cab business more affordable for the individual driver. The city issues a medallion to individual applicants who are supposed to drive their vehicles a certain number of hours each month. One medallion is issued for each cab on the road.

But about 130 of those licenses are held by the cab companies, and because the firms lease them to drivers--charging $83.50 a day for a rental fee, or gate--the medallions become a separate source of profit, drivers say.

Individual owners also lease their licenses to cab companies, which in turn rent them out to drivers who don’t have their own. Medallion owners can make tens of thousands of dollars a year from the practice.

Many say the law has created two classes of drivers: wealthy entrepreneurs who have medallions and indentured servants who do not.

“The law was supposed to give cabs back to the working class guy,” said veteran driver Michael Sullivan. “But what it’s created is a class of absentee landlords.”

Drivers contend that taxi companies have pushed for 500 more cab medallions so they can acquire more profits.

“Most of the big companies don’t care about service,” said Supervisor Gavin Newsom. “They’re in the car rental business, not the cab business.”

Cab company owners call that criticism unfair.

“Sure, my primary goal is to keep my cabs leased every shift because that’s where 95% of my profits come from,” said Jim Gillespie, general manager and co-owner of DeSoto Cab. “But to stay in business you have to keep your reputation of good service. Our company name is on those cabs. We care what happens after they leave the garage.”

San Francisco cabbies say another problem is payoffs expected by some cab dispatchers and hotel doormen.

“You’ve got to shell out all this kickback,” said one driver, who spoke on the condition that he not be named. “You can give out $5,000 a year to people who still expect their money no matter what goes on in our job.”

San Francisco police acknowledge such extortion. “It’s hard to catch doormen and dispatchers because most cabbies won’t cooperate with us,” said Farrell Suslow, an inspector with the San Francisco Police Department’s taxicab detail. “They think they’d be cutting their own throats.”

While they offer no specific numbers, taxi groups say most drivers are recent immigrants who are afraid to rock the boat with big cab companies.

“Many put up with corruption because they don’t know the political system and are afraid of losing the only way they know,” said Mark Gruberg, a cab driver and former chairman of the United Taxicab Worker’s Union, an advocacy group. “Cab companies pay little heed to driver welfare. They just fire any troublemakers and get somebody else.”

For those still on the street, business remains bad.

“I drive my cab 25 days a month, and over the past few months I’ve seen my monthly take-home drop from $2,300 to $1,900 and now $1,400,” said another driver who requested anonymity.

Pardinas de Arana hopes to find another job soon. “If you think the summer is bad, you don’t want to get caught cruising empty streets in January,” she said. “My family counts on me.”

A local newspaper recently chronicled reports of disgruntled drivers who have disappeared along with their cabs, presumably headed for Mexico. Michael Sullivan has dreamed of such an escape.

“Some nights when I’m done with my shift, I look at all this cash I have to give to the cab company--with not much left for myself--and then I realize my rent is due,” he said.

“That’s when I joke to myself, ‘You could always keep on driving. You know, just head south for the border.’ But then I think, ‘In a big clearly marked taxicab, you wouldn’t get very far.’ ”

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Big-City Cabs

Some major U.S. cities and their cab count.

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CITY POPULATION (2000) CABS (1998) New York 8.0 million 11,920 Washington, D.C. 572,000 7,100 Chicago 2.9 million 5,500 Los Angeles 3.7 million 2,037* San Francisco 777,000 1,381* San Jose 895,000 270

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* 2001 figure

Source: Ryan Snyer Associates: Transportation Planning and Policy Analysis