welcome back.

we went into recess and are now reconvening. supervisor kim i believe will not be rejoining us so we are now on item number 7, so madam clerk, will you please call that item? >> yes, i item number 7 [inaudible]. >> thank you, we are joined by supervisor mar, who is the lead author. >> i believe we're having representatives from the budget and legislative analyst's office to talk about their report and also for the interim taxi and accessible services director from the mta who is here. colleagues, throughout the year i've been working with various stakeholders to find a balance between our transportation needs and the safety of drivers, passengers and pedestrians. i think the tragic new year's

eve incident where 6-year-old sofia, her mom and brother were hit by an uber driver. 6-year-old sophie was killed and her mom and brother were injured. i think sofia's life matters and this meeting is partially in response to that. the issue also raise add number of questions about lift companies like uber. i think what we found over the tremendous explosion of growth in the industry where there's an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 new drivers on the road, we've been operating with lack of regulation and very little controls for public safety and concerns and precautions. i think what we' seen a rapid growth and now the industry is

huge, with uber valued at $7 billion so there's a lot out stake in the industry. i use ubers and other vehicles so i kind of understand some of the comparisons, but i think what many people have reported to us is price increases or some call it price gouging, discrimination with people with disabilities or sometimes not allowing seeing eye dogs into vehicles and the problems of safety impacts on the environment and other issues too. i think the taxi industry has many challenges, but that's not the issue today. we'll have a follow-up hearing in a few months from the taxi industry, but in the richmond district we have different issues that we share with district 10 and 11 with very

poor taxi responsiveness. so i've requested a controllers report later this year on taxis and accessibility of services as well. but the fact that the taxi industry has shortcomings doesn't mean we should ignore the safety concerns of the growth of the tmcs and the california ewe fillties commission on july 10 will be finalizing new rules that will make them stronger in protecting public safety and driver training and other issues too, but i believe san francisco needs to step up to ask and urge as much as we can for the state's pec to move forward with additional safety regulations. the resolution before us that has a number of mendments, the resolution before us urges the california public utilities commission to establish more

stringent safety regulations. number two, create more comprehensive insurance requirements on the new tncs. and three, create restrictions on the number of consecutive hours that a tnc driver may work. and four, requirements for fully acceptable service for people with disabilities. it urges the sfmta to report on the steps necessary to establish a local tmc local regulations or locally enforce the california puc's regular laces. it's about ensuring all our transportation services are safe for everyone and i don't think we need to trade sifty to get good service. i'd like to ask if fred --

here's fred and dan from the budget legislative analyst office could give their report. >> before we get this stuff, we'll have opening comments as well. thank you supervisor mar for raising some of the issues in your resolution and i agree with some aspects of it and disagree with others. i think it's important to step back and look at where we are as a city in terms of our transportation system. we are a transit first city and voters made that pronounced back in the early 1970s and now more than ever we need to put our money where our mouth is when it comes to a transit first city. what that means in my view, and in the view of many, means is that we give people so many terrific options other than driving their own personal automobile, that they -- some people will choose to give up

their automobile, some people who have a car will choose to drive it less. we're a growing city and have grown by 85,000 people in the last eleven year. s. we're going to grow another 150 ,000 people between now and 2040. for many of us who spends time throughout the city, we see what it means when we have a growing city where our transportation system hasn't kept up. muni is overcrowded, bart is overcrowded. cal train is overcrowded, our streets are clogged and overkrouged. crowded. we don't have enough parking. we have traffic like crazy. we have all this growth, but our transportation options haven't kept up so we have so many people driving their own cars because they don't think they have other ways of getting around that we have this congestion and it's only to get worse if we don't take decisive

steps to make sure we have giving people options. we of course -- one of those things we have to do is invest aggressively in public transportation which we have not done as a city and we are trying to change that now and into the future, but public transportation will never be enough. one thing is car sharing and mta's doing very creative things around this. our taxicab system is another key aspect of that. unfortunately over the years it's become very clear that our taxi system is not adequate to meet the demands of san francisco and i think supervisor mar acknowledged if you're not living in the geographic core of the city is incredibly difficult. in fact, sometimes being in the core of the city it is very

hard. for many years, a group of cab drivers have fought every effort to increase the number of cabs. our cab companies have fought every effort to have centralized dispatch. and have enough cab service and have good centralized dispatch so that the people of this city can actually utilize a cab system and that has been over and over again so not surprisingly competition came along and ride sharing, tmc's ride sharing, uber, live and so forth, have come in and changed everything. we see our cab system now finally starting to adjust to modern reality. we see good movement in our cab system. i believe our cab system will survive and thrive. but people now can actually get a ride when they need a ride without having to just rely on

their own car. so i am fully supportive of making sure through the state puc that these tmcs are well regulated, that they have good insurance and that is an issue that has to be meaningfully addressed, that there are good safety and background standards and so forth. i don't disagree with the notion that we need to improve oversight and regulation by the cpuc, but i am offering amendments today to make sure we paint a complete picture of what we need at the city. so the amendments which colleagues have distributed to you and i provided to supervisor mar before the hearing, do a few things. it keeps in the language and concepts about making sure we're improving these regulations. it removes reference to the sfmta because they don't have jurisdiction to regulate the tncs.

and it also inserts language affirming that tncs are a key part of our transportation system and our transit for system. if we're going to be saying that we need better regulation, let's do that, but let's acknowledge the important role that these tncs currently play in the light of our city. so those are the amendments that i have offered and after public comment i'll be asking the committee to adopt them. supervisor kim. >> thank you. just wanted to appreciate erik mar's office for bringing this to a second hearing. just a couple of things. i think, you know, largely consistent with some of the thoughts that supervisor wiener has brought up, this is an issue that was created by a lack of taxicabs on the streets of san francisco and it was only a matter of time for companies to want to figure out a way to fill in the gap.

so i -- you know, ten years ago trying to get a cab on a weekend night if you had been drinking or otherwise was typically an hour or two hour wait. and that's incredibly ridiculous for a city that says we are a transit for city. i recognize that tncs came out of the fact that the city as a whole on a public policy level were not able to address the demand in gap and really appreciate that tncs provide that additional service. that being said, if we are going to have tncs here in the city of san francisco, i do think it's incredibly important that we hold them to the same standards that we hold our current cab drivers.

and sofia's case really highlighted the complexity of the insurance when both the driver's insurance refused to pay for any of the medical needs that were associated with her death because the driver was using the car for commercial purposes and of course, the position that the tncs hope, which was that the driver didn't have a passenger in their car, their insurance didn't cover that fatality. we have to be able to address

that issue. i hope an incident like this doesn't happen again, but doesn't mean it won't. we want to tell our residents that they can safely walk and bike throughout the city or can drive, and there will be something that will cover them in an unfortunate collision. so i am supportive of that piece of the resolution. you know, i am very -- i am concerned about the number of consecutive hours. i'm not sure as a public policymaker i have enough information for what that would look like, but unlimited hours of driving is not safe. we at a local level are at an uncomfortable position. there's no definition of what a taxicab is at the state level. tncs are defined as other carriers that are regulated by the cpuc. i'm not sure cpuc is the best

entity to be regulating. any industry, much less transportation network companies, but at minimum, what is done for limousines at the cpuc level has to be done for tncs as well. i did want to make one amendment, although i realize in supervisor wiener's version, the amendment i was going to make was deleted so i'm not sure if the file's going to get duplicated or kind of some aspects of supervisor wiener's amendment will be accepted, but the one piece i wanted to ensure was on page 3, under the resolve of more stringent safety regulations, that when we talk about using background checks, we do it in a manner that's consistent with a fair chance ordinance that the board of supervisors passed earlier this year around background checks. did want to note that while we only allow employers to do a

seven year look back at your convictions, we do allow employers to look at traffic infractions and if you were applying for a driving job that is the one exception that we made because we think that's relevant information to an playier and the city and county of san francisco. i offer that friendly amendment. thank you. >> supervisor cohen. >> i just wanted to acknowledge -- thank you supervisor kim for raising that issue. i missed that, but that's a piece of legislation that we worked on together and it is of equal importance to me as well. because it was deleted you don't have any language. >> it hasn't been deleted. it's an amendment. >> do you have the language?

is that what this is? >> yeah, so my amendment was in the red on page 3 on line 19 and 20 and this is to supervisor mar's resolution. i wanted to note that supervisor wiener has already addressed his potential amendments, which we haven't agreed to yet, but his amendments delete that portion of the resolved clause so my amendment would not be applicable to his amendments. >> okay, thank you. so supervisor mar, would you like to call up the analysts? >> yes. so dan and fred are here from the budget and legislative analysts office. >> chair wiener, supervisor kim; we prepared a report at the request of supervisor mar

and she had asked us to profile the taxi transportation companies. we have differences in each, including benefits, challenges and risks. he asked us to review the imfacts of tncs on the taxi industry and finally he requested that we review regulatory developments that have taken place in other jurisdictions. we did issue a report addressing those questions on june 9 and dan is going to walk you through a quick summary of it, particularly focused on risks. we did identify a number of risks associated with the current state of the industry and the current regulations that apply to the industry and the risks were found to effect drivers, passengers, the public and the city. so with that, i'll turn it over to dan. thanks. >> good afternoon supervisors.

so just to make this a very brief presentation, the rapid growth in transportation network companies in san francisco over the last five years has a lot of impacts on the city. first just want to acknowledge that it's created a lot of job opportunities for bay area residents. it has enabled residents with smart phones to utilize a greater supply of for transportation options. so here on this slide, and on the next slide, i have summary of a table that's in the executive summary of the report and just kind of goes down the identification of differences between the two industries. and first of, the taxi industry

has a little under 2,000 vehicles in san francisco. this compares with an estimate of 5 to 10,000 transportation network company vehicles. there's about 9,000 taxi drivers in the city and again, estimated of 5 to 10,000 tnc drivers in the city. there's 27 licensed taxi i companies in the city, five transportation network companies in the city. with regard to backgrounds checks that are required, the -- in san francisco the taxi industry is required to check the entire adult criminal history of all potential taxi drivers. that's done by the mta. that compares up to seven years of recent criminal history for transportation network companies. in regards to the check of dmv history, the taxi industry

checks ten years, the tnc checks seven years. with regards to training, taxi drivers are required to attends five days of training, four days of taxi school with an exam and one day of mta led training with another exam. the tncs are required by the cpuc to provide training and a training plan to the puc, but there's no specific content requirements or exams required in the state regulations. on slide number three, the table continues, just highlighting the differences in the liability insurance requirements.

all taxicabs are covered up for up to a million dollars in primary commercial liability insurance per occurrence, which includes bodily injury to drivers and passengers, as well as vehicle damage, and that's for every vehicle every time it's on duty. the transportation network companies are required by the cpuc currently -- this is currently up for potential change by the cpuc, but currently they're required to carry one million in commercial insurance while providing tnc services, but there are disagreements between the state and tncs regarding the extent of driver coverage as well as the definition of what providing tnc services are and i can go into more detail if there are any questions about that. mostly centers around the period when a driver has the app open and is looking for

passengers to pick up in addition, currently the tncs -- it's not clear that the coverage they have has to be primary, which is an important distinction. on workers compensation insurance, the city requires that taxi companies provide workers compensation insurance for all drivers while on duty; however, there's no such requirement for tncs. tncs consider their drivers to be independent contractors and not subject to workers compensation requirements. with regards to pricing, taxis are obviously regulated by the mta. the rates do not change without mta commission approval. and on the tnc there's no regulation of the pricing, rates can change by the companies at any time for any

reason. and we also have a summary of the current rates. i'm not going to go through all the details here, but the rates -- it's really hard to do a side-by-side comparison for the tncs, we just did an average of the five companies, what they offer. this does not include surge pricing. this was done in may so it's possible that the prices have change between then and now. the only other thing i'd add is that the taxi prices obviously are metered and the tnc prices are based on their own technology that's not regulated by the state.

as well as unknown potential healthcare costs and income replacement costs due to uninsured drivers. i just have one more slide that summarizes the areas of heightened risk and i will skip over the areas i have already spoken to, but these are [inaudible] and just are areas of heightened risk due toless stringent regulation by the cpuc versus is mta. the increased number of vehicles on the streets, less stringent driver background checks, less insurance

liability and no requirement to provide workers compensation coverage. there's less stringent vehicle inspection and this is -- tncs are required by the state to do an initial inspection check, but no follow ups after that. in the city taxi cars are inspected initially and annually at the time of the mta's choosing, at any time in the year. there's no formal process for tnc drivers or companies for handling the complaints or citations or potential revocations of operating permits, whereas in the city there's a formal process in place. there's also no requirement that tnc vehicles have cameras installed in their vehicles, whereas taxi companies in the city are required to have that. it helps protect both passengers and drivers. again, no requirement to

maintain a business presence. staff in the city for lost property and there's no specific environmental requirements for the tnc vehicles, although if they are purchased in california they are obviously subject to statewide fleet rules. and lastly, i'll just say that there's no requirement or incentives in place for the transportation network companies to participate in the city's para transit program and that means that taxi companies are required to accept the debit card that's used by para transit passengers. there's no such requirement by tnc vehicles. obviously none of these companies are allowed to discriminate based on that, but these companies are not required to take that debit card, which is a primary means of payment for the para transit program. >> i have a question. so i just presented and

reviewed before about some of the themes like what you believe are deficiencies in the tnc system. did you assess the benefits of tnc san francisco as well? >> yes. we did. and -- >> where is that? >> there is some in front of the report in the executive summary we speak to the job opportunities that have been provided to tnc drivers, as well as the additional supply of for hire transportation access. >> so where exactly is that? >> let me take a look real quick. on page two, the second bullet point at the top speaks to the

job opportunities. for individuals using their personal automobiles and as well as the enabling of city residents and visitors with smart phones to more easily utilize a greater supply of for hire transportation options. >> there is a 31 page report and it looks like there's two sentences that acknowledge that it has created job opportunities, enabled city residents to utilize a greater supply than provided by the taxi industry alone and easier entry into jobs for the taxicab industry, more flexibility and better pay. better pay, more flexibility, easier entry jobs, and more supply. so did you analyze the specifics of any of those? like, how many more jobs, how

much more flexible, what the pay differential is or what the differential for experience for past for riders is ? was that analyzed at all? >> we did not look into that? >> why not? >> we were asked to provide a profile of the regulation of both industries and identify potential risks and/or costs to the city. >> did supervisor mar ask you to look at the benefits of tncs beyond two sentences? >> yeah. we were asked to, you know, look broadly at the benefits and the costs. >> okay. because i see -- i'm not trying to be critical. i have great respect for your office, but there's a lot of pages and pages that seem to be, you know -- one could read as