Even though I pay attention to national cultural issues, I've not forgot about Oakland. I scanned the blog post on the Oakland Taxi Cab problem with a chuckle because neither the Oakland North newsite or A Better Oakland blog actually hits on the real problem.
(A momentary aside. It's time to call Oakland North what it is, a news website. It's not a blog. A blog contains opinions and adheres to a blogger's code of ethics. Oakland North is a site for journalists. I don't go there to get the views of one of their writers; I go there for the news. What's annoying is that as more journalists and journalism students discover new media, they call whatever they do online a blog. Wrong. I cry foul on this. If you're going to blog, let me know what you think, not what someone else thinks; but if not, then its a news website, period. Ok, back to the issue.)
The City of Oakland let Friendly Cab have a monopoly role in the industry in Oakland. Friendly Cab is the only active cab company in Oakland. It has all of the licenses for the city and has owned them for decades.
Oakland City Attorney John Russo tried to fix the problem 10 years ago when he was a councilmember and got nowhere. The problem still exists and there's zero political will to eliminate it.
The Oakland North blog post really focused on the parking ticket problems (which an initiative can fix) not the cab problems. But the real issue behind Oakland's Cab problems can be solved if the City of Oakland takes several steps:
1. Makes all cab companies lower the daily "gate fee" of $65 to $40 - This is a real problem and yes, I know it's $120 in San Francisco, but the Oakland fee to rent a cab from a company should be fixed by the City of Oakland. A cab driver has to buy gas and then make enough daily money to offset the cost to have the car for a day. At $40, a cab driver only needs to have four passenger pickups at $10 each per day to break even. A ride from Lake Merritt to 19th Street BART is $6.86 per day.
2. Lower the license cost to establish a cab business in Oakland to $10,000 - Why it's at reportedly $40,000 is beyond me and reads like a total racket in my view. The license cost is a barrier to entry into the cab industry at a time when people need to create employment for themselves. What the City of Oakland is doing here is just plain terrible.
3. End the Oakland Parking ticket problem - which can only be done effectively via the initiative process.
The City of Oakland should be working to help cab drivers build their business, not punish them for being in it. A better cab system will hopefully avoid incidents like the one I experienced here:
I understand that At-Large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan wants to jump in and solve the problem, but she's already behind the eight-ball because the City Council's putting her out there by herself. If she had a group of councilmembers with her, I'd say she's going to fix the problem, but there's no indication of a coalition of Oakland elected officials ready to change the state of affairs.
But it's clear from the number of cab drivers and people I've talked to that there's a perception the City of Oakland's allowed an organized scheme to keep one company - Friendly Cab - active to go too far. I'm not advocating the end of Friendly Cab, just some competition for it. That will lower fare prices and make cabs more abundant in Oakland.
Finally, I'll keep my car, thanks.
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