First the press release and then the truth. Mayor Newsom's Green Taxi Legislation,

Mayor Newsom Signs Alternative-Fuel Taxi Legislation






Legislation to create 100% green taxi fleet by 2011

3/6/08 - Thursday, Mayor Gavin Newsom signed legislation that will enable the purchase of more alternative-fuel taxi cabs for use on San Francisco streets. The legislation will help the City meet its commitment to reducing green house gas emissions with a higher gate fee, which will allow taxi cab companies to purchase new alternative fuel vehicles and supply them to drivers. Taxi drivers also benefit with lower gas costs associated with more efficient vehicles that get better gas mileage, or use less expensive alternative fuels.

"Transportation accounts for over half of San Francisco’s greenhouse gas emissions, and it is imperative that we look to this sector for commensurate emissions reductions," said Mayor Newsom. "The legislation I am signing today complements the pledge I made in 2006 for an all-green taxi fleet and provides a mandate for cab companies to convert their vehicles."

Mayor Newsom’s 2006 State of the City Address challenged the Taxi Commission to create a 100% "green" taxi fleet. Approximately 15% of today’s fleet is either Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) or hybrid vehicles. This legislation is expected to increase that percentage to 100% by 2011.

Last week, the Board of Supervisors passed legislation codifying the Taxi Commission’s policy and added a gate increase of $7.50 per vehicle. Specifically, the legislation amends the San Francisco Police code by raising the taxicab gate cap to $96.50 and ratifies gate fees previously charged up to $91.50 per shift for the period of January 1, 2003 to October 27 2006; to authorize a $7.50 surcharge on the gate cap for low emission vehicles; and to require taxi companies to reduce average per vehicle greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2012.

"This legislation came about because the status quo gate cap cannot continue," said Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier. "I’m pleased we found a way to green the taxi cab industry without bankrupting the companies and without doing so on the backs of cab drivers."

The 2007 Taxi Emissions Resolution required that the San Francisco taxi industry reduce its total Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by 50% from current levels and 20% from 1990 levels by 2011. Under the resolution, the San Francisco Taxi Commission committed to work to achieve zero net carbon emissions by offsetting the total amount of GHG produced by the San Francisco taxi fleet with an equal amount of renewable energy or energy efficiency by 2015, and by 2020 will work to achieve zero gross GHG emissions by permitting only zero emission vehicles. Additionally, the Resolution urged the Board of Supervisors to enact legislation to raise the per-shift gate fee to subsidize the purchase of high-efficiency vehicles.



This press release barely mentions the $5.00, retroactive gate increase which has nothing to do with hybrid taxis. Every taxi in the City qualifies and every cab driver will pay an additional $5.00 per shift to the cab company. The fact is that a taxi driver who is assigned a dreaded Crown Vic powered by CNG (compressed natural gas) will have to pay the additional $5.00, plus an additional $7.50 because he was so fortunate to be assigned a cab that can only go 110 miles on a full tank of fuel. The driver will in effect be paying more for a cab that costs just as much to operate as a regular gas cab. CNG is hard to find and usually has to be purchased through the cab company. In other words this press release is either full of lies or someone has turned Mayor Newsom into Jester Newsom. Maybe Mayor Newsom was listening to the wrong people?

Look for the holes. The press release says, "This legislation is expected to increase that percentage to 100% by 2011". Expected? What exactly does that mean? To me expected means that the cab companies will have a lot of wriggle room.

Note the goal for zero emission vehicles. Is there such a thing? Will there be? That is just cream on the crap cake right there! Even an electric vehicle has to receive energy from somewhere. I don't see anyone jumping on the idea of a power plant being constructed in their neighborhood. This whole piece of legislation is just pure waste. This legislation is in itself damaging my environment!

Make no mistake about it, this legislation was purely strategic. It began not as a green legislation but as a gate increase of $18.50 only for the City's biggest cab companies. The gate increase was cut to $5.00 for all cab companies plus an additional $7.50 for vehicles that are categorized as clean energy by the Taxicab Commission. Michela Alioto-Pier is quoted in the release as saying, "I’m pleased we found a way to green the taxi cab industry without bankrupting the companies and without doing so on the backs of cab drivers". Really? Let me see, the cab drivers are going to pay more money to the cab companies so that the cab companies can do more of what they do already, buy cars, hack 'em up and lease them to drivers. But somehow this is not on the backs of the drivers? Michela, are you aware of what you are saying? I'm not calling you a liar but you said it and the money is coming from the cab drivers. That by definition means that this policy is being carried on the backs of the cab drivers.

This legislation is complete and total garbage and should never have been approved. It is San Francisco politics at it's most embarrassing. It is embarrassing to the people who wrote it, it is embarrassing to the people who approved it and it is embarrassing to those who supported it (that's you Taxicab Commission President Paul Gillespie, you let us down, again).