strongly feel that this city has made many mistakes. in order for us to have a unique model for san francisco the legislative analyst must have the supervisors understand that these (inaudible) actually have a solution with time pp lines and goals. it is a mickey mouse way of doing things. having 3 or 4 long presentations and then bringing us the people the taxpayers to give a measly two minute comment. the

legislative analyst should take a key role in giving an orientation to the supervisors how we can have such hearings so that the city and county of san francisco san franciscans can get help. instead of talking about spreading the tumor all over the city. we need people who can find solutions with real timelines and goals. thank you very much. >> thank you for your comments. please forward the next caller. >> good afternoon. my name is dr. kelly knight, a professor at university california san francisco and i conducted research with homeless san franciscanss over 25

years and researcher mentioned earlier are in the hearing that conducted the evaluationf othe sro project pilot program. i was excited and relieved to hear the report from department of public health (inaudible) play a key role decreasing overdose in their buildings. this life-saving program is the community members most at risk in the work of overdose prevention responds and offer a critical currently missing component to san franciscans (inaudible) as already discussed the sro project developed by the project in san

francisco and has 4 components naloxone availability throughout the property, units with brave buttons to alert hotel staff and (inaudible) overdose specialist peers trained in overdose reversal with nulaunl naloxone (inaudible) my evaluation shows the resident specialist felt valued for expertise in doing the life-saving work. opened dialogue about health concerns and critically engage hotel residents immediate access to life saving tools naloxone and brave buttons every floor and room. i encourage to support the project and all permanent supportive housing in san francisco. thank you. >> thank you. next caller.

>> ellen graham. thank you for having me here today. a san francisco mother and member of the mother against drug deaths and thank you to the dph putting forth the plan. we want the type of relief described. i'm (inaudible) vetoing sp57. what vancouver found one of the references you made is that it was one of the first in north america to launch a safe consumption site and study over 10 years it broadened more opioid users and created more strain in the system and now they got safe supply and the overdose rate is way higher then alberta

canada with a recovery oriented system of care. our group is frustrate by the lack offunding in recovery promises that have been made over decades and there is no transparency. what i mean by that for example on demand has been promised for years and not on demand t is far from it. it is limited in days of week, limits hours and staff. canceled appointment even when made by san francisco general. we have a lot of insight because we interface with the system all the time and for us we want to see more recovery. this is a premature plan to launch supervised consumption and will have unintended consequences (inaudible) i also recommend you look at the greater (inaudible) coalition which has lots of community feedback, not positive on their supervisor consumption. i think that's the missing

piece and again i think we have to work together. let's broaden the conversation and not jump to conclusions. >> thank you for your comments. next caller. >> thank you supervisors. my name is (inaudible) the director of operations at the gubio project and resident of mission district. i worked in the tenderloin over 13 years. winced and intervened in countless overdose reversal andprint in vancouver columbia when safe injection sites were introduced witness the positive (inaudible) we want to applaud the department of public health for present thg plan today. wellness hubs located across san francisco are low bear wrr and easily accessible we know they work and connect

individuals to service care and support. through our work we know coercion and intervention are not science based and solution. tough on time on people involuntary punitive approach makes our work harder. the health of those uses drugs and experience addiction are connected to the health and well pp being on our community. supervisor consumption sites work and link to health services and treatment that is defined in dph plan and implemented together we can bring people out of the shadows of suffering and stigma. meaning folks building relationships and providing non judgmental unconditional positive regard allows people to build trust and engage with public health solution so let's bebrave and lead with care and provide a path forward, build off the linkage center and focus efforts on providing life saving services a quickly as possible. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. next

caller, please. >> hi, my name is josh (inaudible) community health outreach work specializing in homeless outreach for about 15 years and hiv. and also a housing rights advocate and tenant union organizer. the thing i'm (inaudible) part of a lower polk neighborhood. we want a safe consumption site and a place for people can get everything they need including a safe space to use and to learn and to grow. just thank you for this. i have been talking to exparts for years including the last year from the people at the un site, so i know how valuable it has been and the amount of effort they put into make sure that it was legal and

safe and i just encourage you to build as many as you can as quickly as possible because it means such a great deal to the people who right now are dying. we need to stop the deaths. thank you so much. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, please. please forward the next caller. >> good afternoon supervisors preston and thank you so much for calling this hearing. i really want what everyone else wants that is called into today which is care and juss justice for the addictive (inaudible) or jail system. they should have treatment and support. district 5 is not the only place where drug addiction exists. it is only most visible in district 5 but i

can tell you as a former registered nurse that addiction exists in every district in this city. they are our neighbors, they are people who walk down our streets who look perfectly okay and i think realizing that might help the city to actually bring together neighborhoods to confront this very vital issue. i'm glad dph started the ball rolling, we still have a lot to do. integrated care and evidence based care are most important and we have so much more to do in terms of the solution, so i want the city to continue to step up and not treat this as a problem but a consequence of urban life, because it is a fact that every city

(inaudible) thank you so much. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, please. >> hi. this is marty regen from larken street youth service and resident of d1. we thank supervisor preston and committee and department of public health taking on this critical issue and creating a compassionate and comprehensive plan to prevent overdose in san francisco. thank you for humanizing this struggling of addiction, thank you for caring about people who use drugs. we sport the evidence base harm reduction strategy and tromy focus healing center approaches that eliminate disparities and access to care and therapy. these approaches must include a range of housing options many more treatment beds and continuum of health care that is low barrier ease al

accessible and centers individual choice. we look forward work wg the city to prevent overdose in san francisco and improve quality of life for all san franciscans thank you. >> thank you for your comments. please send the next caller. hello. i want to thank supervisor preston and chan for holding this hearing and the d ph for preparing the plan to move forward. i am a resident home owner in district 5, retired ucsf research scientist and all most exactly 2 years ago i lost my husband eric michael moore to a overdose. the toxicology report indicated it was he

had primarily methamphetamine and cocaine and fentanyl and during this hearing i heard methamphetamine only mentioned once or twice, whereas in some data i have seen it is involved in many of the overdose deaths. it is a entirely different issue from the opioid related overdoses. i'll get back to that in a minute. a month after eric michael died i lost my mentor and friend brian edwards to overdose. a year before that i lost a young friend to a alcohol overdose. it is not just fentanyl, but that may drive the majority of the

overdose deaths. there is other drugs that are also killing people and should not be ignored in our planning and in our efforts. eric michael's condition and addiction lead me to volunteer- >> thank you for your comments. before we move to the next speaker on the phone, please come to the podium to the speaker in chambers. >> hi. (inaudible) from the sunset district and came today because i have been interested in this a while so thank you for having the hearing and everyone involved and who spoke. i never spoken before and my dad was a police officer for 30 years for san francisco, and i don't

speak on his behalf but i remember things he would say and share with me and feel if we are going to lose support service like mentioned with this doctor today that perhaps we can consider mobile response units like we have the police response mobile units to be temporary or semi-permanent to be centers for safe injection or avenues to recovery, and then we have the six troubled districts that have challenges and we know because of the pandemic things have gone up over 30 percent in the addiction community, and then people are passing away. as we know it effects every economic and class and that people can fall

out of high economic class into peril and i also note essential workers as well. i want to consider because i worked in video gaming and worked for cfo, there are ways instead of using fire, emt and police, we could actually create a structure that could help people directly and they could perhaps consider recovery and then it would be less of a draw on the other systems. thanks for listening those who did listen and thanks for having this hearing. >> thank you for your comments. returning to public comment line. please forward the next caller. >> hello. i am a district 1 resident i like to challenge

supervisors to actively and forcefully push for a saif injection site and affordable housing on the west side when all the suvss services are in one neighborhood it isn't fair for tenderloin residents to bear the burden of the rest of the city self-ness. i was excited to think she meant the whole city and disappointed when she clarified she didn't. this sooquhole city problem so please let's come together as a whole city to address it. thanks. >> next caller, please. >> good afternoon. this is (inaudible) buckner a long time resident of the height ash berry. the governor veto of safe consumption site is a

lethal move. decades of evidence have shown the efficiency and success of safe consumption sites has worked in other countries, so it is really critical that the city partners with non profit community and establishing safe consumption sites and available treatment sources to help people move away with substance use to make sure there is permanent supportive housing. as others mentioned agressive law enforcement will only discorj harm reduction and severely hinter incentive for wellnessauss and have seen that happen. it is really time to adopt a model that is clinically proven to be success. thank you very much supervisor preston for holding this hearing. thank you supervisor chan for being a part of it and let's all move on and get to work. thank you again. >> thank you for your comments. members who wish to provide public

comment call the public comment line, 415-655-0001. meeting id-248448900660 then pound and pound again. please press star 3 to line up to speak. there are 4 remaining callers in the queue. next caller, please. >> hello. my name is (inaudible) i may pee preach toog the choir but i want to voice support for opening the overdose prevention centers or safe consumption sites. i like (inaudible) 7th and market street and the only traumatizing thing as a housed person is i don't know how to help and cant do enough to save everyone i see that is suffering because this is a systemic society issue so (inaudible) is great for everyone.

i see tragied and people suffering and don't want the people (inaudible) or arrested. i want us to for them and not be stingy with the funding to care for them. personally if you want to cancel urban (inaudible) contracts to get more money that would be great too because i see them arguing with (inaudible) and if there is any way it get a (inaudible) i are think that would be cool too. i want to second supervisor chan questions how to educate and empower community members what to do when we see our neighbors in distress. >> thank you for your comments. next caller. >> hi, supervisors (inaudible) a student at usf and live and work in san francisco

5 district and calling in support of the tenderloin center and acknowledge the necessity of overdose prevention center. there are people i know struggling with drug addiction and think we all know someone or have a friend with a loved one impacted by drug addiction. i think that overdose prevention centers wellness hubs having a safe consumption sites are all necessary and solving the issue of overdose deaths in the last 3 years about 1700 people have died in san francisco and the tenderloin center reversed 11 overdoses in the last week and 214 total which can put san francisco on track to save 500 lives per year and minimize overdose deaths in the city. also reduce public drug use (inaudible) report feeling safer then those who use publicly and there is no proof they disrupt the neighborhoods.

not only do they reduce death but also provide a pipeline to treatment and rehabilitation. centers lirng people to substance use disorder treatment health care and service reducing the barriers for marginalized population. once again urging the board to acknowledge necessity of overdose centers and actered cooingly not just the people i love and care about but all the human beings in the city who need access to this resource to move towards fixing the public health crisis. thank you so much. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, please. >> good afternoon supervisors. thank you for hearing us today. thank you to everyone who has spoken in support today. echoing what the folks have said. my name is amber shelden, i work for (inaudible) in the tenderloin neighborhood. the need for low barrier overdose prevention city wide is dire.

this is part of the city overdose prevention strategy and having multiple locations will allow more people to access associated services save more lives and make a impact on public drug consumption. similar sites are opened world wide and evidence shows they reduce open drug use (inaudible) crime in surrounding areas. inyeas access to treatment and save taxpayers millionsf odollars. (inaudible) in new york city and proven to be success. (inaudible) imagine what (inaudible) properly funded city overdose prevention sites would bring. our city drug users do not have proper access to narcan to the extent needed and organizations that pass out the life

saving drug (inaudible) [difficulty hearing speaker due to audio quality] more sites and this would benefit our community greatly. more money for harm reduction service and are staff to be able to have a livable wage and are continuum of training for best practices and lastly, treatment for people who want it is limited. (inaudible) more available treatment for people who wish to access it is long over-due. thank you for your time. >> thank you for your comments. next caller. there are 3 callers in the queue. >> hello, my name is alex (inaudible) from health (inaudible) policy public affairs manager and also a member of the human o(inaudible) as well as safer inside. want

to thank you supervisor preston for calling this hearing. also want to thank dr. kunins and jeff and eileen from department of public health. as pointed out earlier more people died of overdose then died during the covid-19 pandemic in san francisco and really appreciative of the work that department public health has done to put together the plan and the city of san francisco for finally putting together a broad public health response for the overdose crisis we are seeing. this really-we appreciate supervisor preston and department for including the community in the process. we really are supportive of this plan. i also want to say that some of the previous comments made disingenuous remarks saying the plan doesn't address recovery. the plan makes multiple mentions of increasing

treatment, goals related to increase in treatment and how they are going to do that and by getting more people into treatment (inaudible) helping people get on a path to recovery. also like to say that we are deeply troubled by the da new proposal to hold fentanyl dealers responsible for murder. right out of the war on drugs and we know the negative impact that has caused, and the timing of that announcement with the overdose plans seems a little ominous. also i like to mention that for the workers that are involved in providing the services especially the non profits that- >> pardon the interruption your time has lapsed. please forward the next

caller. >> it appears we have a unattended line. please go to the next caller. >> good afternoon supervisors. first i want to especially thank dean preston for calling the hearing. i appreciate it supervisor preston a opportunity to talk that is fonded by the health policies and not centered on the drug war. i do think it is kind of what i want to talk about a little with my time and that is to say that as much as we might attempt to address the effect of the fentanyl crisis on the street the core cause of the disease is still prohibition we are implementing so the prohibition means simply no matter what

substance it is if we criminalize it we make it more potent and that is called the iron law of prohibition. what this is meant on the streets is we have gone from using opium to heroin and heroin to fentanyl and fentanyl replaced by (inaudible) this path is continuous and expected and predicted and it is reliable. let's take a look at the rest of the united states where we decided to criminalize alcohol for youth and those youth predominantly use vodka and tuquilla then beer and wine. just like fentanyl icmakes it dangerous on the street. we can't escape the war on drugs allow the overdose to take place and if we allow less nob #2345ub relative to this and specifically what the dea has to say about

the crisis is that the majority of people exposed to overdose do not know they are taking it. these are people that expected to get oxy codon. these are people that expected to get a hit of cocaine and these things again can be cured only by ending our war on drugs- >> your time has lapsed. thank you for your comments. you time lapsed. next caller, please. >> thank you supervisor preston. grateful for the report. (inaudible) god meets us where we are wherever we are but does not leave us there and we as a city can work to meet people where they are. people are using drugs and dying and they are dying in the

streets and alleys and bathrooms and homes. let's give monitored drugs and stop the bleeding, stop people dying. i support the wellness hubs and i support them being in different neighborhoods. we need one here in the north mission. we see people suffering on the streets not just overdose but dirty and laced drugs and people are without support stigmatized misunderstood and pushed to dark corners so lets collaborate with neighborhood and build community centered around human dignity everyone deserves and has inherent in being. encourage urgency and care as we expand our response to this issue. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. chair preston, no further callers on the line. >> thank you madam clerk. public comment on this item is now closed. i want to thank all of our presenters today and also all the members

of the public who waited patiently to weigh in and appreciate all the comments that were made. we have covered a lot of ground today. just like the plan released by dph covers a lot of ground. i want to highlight a few handful of take aways from this plan and from this hearing before we wrap up. i want to lift a few things up. first is from the title of this. i appreciate the title of this plan from dph. which is overdose deaths are preventable. i think we can solve this, we must ask i think that title is important and profound and i think should be a point of agreement. second thing is the racial disparities and saw the chart presented by dr. kunins are unacceptable. black residents are 5 times

more likely to die of drug over dose in san francisco. this cannot continue and appreciate the plan contains concrete goals about tackling this and reducing the racial disparities in overdose. third thing is that a number of callers touched on this, that so called solutions that may poll well in some circles and play to people's worst instickts are not only unhelpful solving the crisis, they can often make the crisis worse. this isn't a opinion, it is fact and laid out by our presenters today as well as many members of the public. fourth is safe consumption sites work and are must be part of any serious effort to reduce overdose fatalities. there is fortunately a emerging

consensus in city government i think there is already been a consensus among health experts. whatever we call them, they must be implemented to the greatest extent legally possible and i very much appreciate that the overdose plan dph released with approval from the mayor call s specifically for wellness hubs as not just to create them, but calls them the cornerstone of the plan. with respect to the tenderloin center, theed a ministration is committed to opening the wellness hub by the time the tenderloin center closes which is significant and something the office has been requesting and pushing for. i want to be real about it, we need more detail to make sure that it is not a step backwards reducing service, there is no

disruption in service for people who rely on the service but a very positive sign we now have as of yesterday afternoon in anticipation of the hearing a explicit commitment for there not to be a gap. we need to dramatically scale up narcan distribution testing, other harm reduction services in the plan and making treatment on demand realty in the city and county of san francisco. a public health response includes making sure people have housing mental health care food and other basics and life. without addressing that, we will take steps backwards while we take steps forered forward. i appreciate this is made explicit in dph plan. i want to emphasize that the significance of the department of public

health building up the team, opening the new office to compile and are release this first comprehensive overdose plan and i urge everyone to read it if you haven't already members of the public. it includes not just many things described but complete inventory of the programs identification of existing gaps in the services in the city and forward thinking goals and i know there is certainly room to grow and scale up this plan and for those who are frustrated by some of the numbers that is 15 percent, not 30 percent, there are many things we can do, many things outside of strictly the confines of this plan including being bold and aggressive about housing people and getting folks off the streets that can dramatically increase that number. i know there's-we will continue working with dph and advocates and be as aggressive as

possible scaling up the plan but i think the plan is a very strong starting point for the city and i hope board of supervisor jz mayor office can collaborate and show united front to insure we bridge the gaps, scale up the programs that work and do everything in our power to save lives and connect people to treatment and resources they need. the bottom line after our several hours on this, i think what is clear is that we must uplift public health solutions data driven proven solutions with significant and positive public health outcomes as we continue to try to prevent overdoses and fatalities. the response to a public health crisis should be guided by public health strategies, not the latest newspaper headline and not by the same tactics that have torn apart families and proven not to work over the

past decades. thank you all for participating in this today and unless my colleague has any comments final comments or questions, my intention is to take a short recess. can we proceed to that? thank you very much. let's move to file the hearing request. can you please call the roll on that? >> file and close the hearing. [roll call] >> motion passes 2 ayes. >> thank you. let's recess and come back at 3 o'clock. thank you. [recess]

>> welcome back everyone. we are back in session and madam

clerk, why don't we call item 4. >> item 4 is resolution urging san francisco municipal transportation agency board of directors to remove third party district from the taxi up front fare pilot program. members of the public who wish to provide public comment call 415-655-0001, enter 24844890060 and press pound and pound again. if you have not already done so please dial star 3 to line up to speak. the system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand. please wait until the system indicates you have in unmuted and you can begin your comment when we go to public comment. >> thank you madam clerk. this item thank you everyone for

your patience as we heard other matters for earlier today, but glad we are at item 4. supervisor chan is the sponsor of this item. appreciate your leadership on this and we'll turn it over to you. >> thank you chair preston. thank you so much for allowing us to have this schedule this hearing today. this resolution is to urge our san francisco sfmta board directors to remove the third party dispatch from the taxi upfront fare pilot program. it is no secret or taxi industry is devastated since the emergence of transportation network companies. tnc has been on the city streets and recently because the impact of

the pandemic, there is a lot of damage done for our taxi industry. frankly, actually also to our public transit system as well as really our road and congestion. unlike taxi, transportation companies are regulated by the california public utility commission only, which preempts nearly all local regulations in california and in san francisco i should say. we have limited local jurisdictions and oversight around the economy yet we are saddled as a city every day the impact of this industry on the streets and communities. in san francisco in 2019 the voters passed proposition d and it was effective since january 2020. prop osition d impose a

traffic mitigation tax. it is a tax that administer in san francisco only our controller at that time though said that the tax would generate about $30 million to $35 million annually. since then we have been seeing challenges that still remain with the tnc's in san francisco, and that we now have sfmta trying to attempt to mitigate that impact to try to assist our taxi industry. trying to figure out a way to make sure they can continue in san francisco, but i don't know if this taxi fare pilot program is the way to go. today the goal is to figure out

would this presentation from fmta we can learn more what the pilot program is about and whether the third party dispatch is a necessary function for this pilot program. i do want to actually first thank supervisor hillary ronen and gordon mar as cosponsors of the resolution. i also want to thank the letters of support coming from sierra club, california alliance for retired americans, san francisco labor council, great (inaudible) of san francisco, safe muni, san francisco living wage coalition, harvey milk, democratic club and thanking san francisco taxi workers alliance and many individuals that have expressed concern to us and in support of this reslution as it is. we do actually have some today if i

may chair preston i want to quickly make the motions to make some clarifying amendments. they are miner. on page 1 line 11 after it effectively allows, insert the phrase, third parties. on page 1, line 14 strike the word and. after public transit insert locally regulated taxi service. page 2, line 5 insert whereas taxi public transit pursuant to the transit first policy in section 8a115 of the san francisco charter and on page 2, line 829, after further given tnc, strike the ability to eliminate and insert,

permission to deviate from. on page 2 line 16 after result, strike the word create and insert would create. on page 2, line 24 through page 3 line 1, but instead insert tnc are allowed to set fares and strike allows rules to be set by tnc. page 3, line 3-4, after tnc to charge, strike a and insert taxi drivers and unregulated. page 3, line 5 to 6, strike being accountable and replace with responsibility. page 3, line 5 to 6, strike vehicle maintenance and vehicle insurance for drivers and insert for the cost of vehicle operations and on page 3 line

1-sorry, i got out of order. page 3, line 1 after more difficult, strike with insert for. they are clarifying amendments. they are miner and dont believe they are substantive, and just like to make the motion to amend and today i'm pleased to actually sfmta here. the pilot program was approved by sfmta board of directors this year. we didn't have a chance to hear from sfmta directly why we are launching the pilot program, why it is necessary, whether a third party dispatch is necessary and truly just really learning more about the technical aspect of the pilot program. i'm glad to have them here today to just educate us too and the

general public to have a better understanding where sfmta is coming from so grateful to have the sfmta team here. we have kate (inaudible) if you like to introduce, please go ahead. >> (inaudible) director of taxi access and mobility for the sfmta and appreciate you calling us here today and giving us a opportunity to share a preezentation and here with my colleague fillip (inaudible) a legal affairs enforcement manager and supporting us we have a whole team here as well, so know that we got the experts in the room with us. i will walk through a presentation and happy to answer questions of course. i'm going to give brief background on the taxi up front fare pilot status

update, where we are at now and next steps. the one year taxi up front fare pilot approved by the sfmta bord in september 2021 so the original pilot approved at that time. the pilot allows taxi apps to offer a flat rate fare based on the taxi meter system so customers are offered a flat rate fare in advance of the trip and then customers can then choose to book and pay for the trip in advance. that is different as we know then how taxi's typically work. that functionality allows customers to price shop and also lock in a fare in advance of the trip and it eliminates the stress people may feel in the back of a taxi and watching the meter click up. for these reasons, we brought this pilot concept to

the mta board again in september 2021, and mta board approved it at that time and subsequent to that, after that approval of the initial pilot as staff was developing program rules, taxi industry members requested that mta allow taxi apps to dispatch trips from third parties. from parties or entities that don't hold the permit with the mta such as uber and which may offer fares that aren't based on the taxi meter rate. at that time we took a look at this internally and understood that it needed mta bord approval so we went back to the mta board with a amendment and the mta board approved the third party aspect of the pilot in april of 2022. since that

time, the mta has been working with the taxi industry and key stakeholders to develop the program rules and those program rules were issued in early august: applications for the taxi apps to participate in the pilot were due mid-september and mta received three applications. one from arrow, one from fly wheel and one from yo taxi. currently mta is in the process of reviewing those applications. to highlight key goals which i think we are on the same page of the goals is increase taxi trips, increase the fare income for drivers, we want to increase the number of drivers. we want to improve customer service and offer a

customers this additional type of functionality and ability to price shop. we also want to insure that traditional taxi trips including paratransit taxi are not negatively impacted by the pilot. i'll highlight a few of the key rules, which we developed based on input from the taxi industry. one thing we heard and we are hearing today most importantly is that many drivers dont want to participate in the third party trips. they for a variety of reasons they want to be able to opt out. don't want it to happen at all, but so how we address that is that we required that there be a opt out option, so if drives dont want to participate in those third party trips, they don't have to participate. they can choose to opt out and there can be no

penalty if they choose to opt out so that is a really key point and a key program rule for us. we have a lot of data requirements we require trip information. we require geographic information such as drop off location, pick up location, fares, fare information. the driver fee schedule must be reported prior to service launch, and we also know that because this is new, this is something new mta is trying under this pilot, again this one year pilot program, and so because of that, we allowed ourselves the ability to update the rules as we are in the implementation phase or as we are going through the pilot if there are uninteneded consequences. that's really important for us that if we see

something happening that is not going in the direction we want it to go in, we have the ability to update the program rules. and we have a number of metrix, so we have our measurements, how we are going to measure whether or not we are meeting our stated goals and so we developed a number of metrics one for transparency, so the public, the taxi industry, those interested can see how we are measuring success and we are developing dashboards for each of our metrics so again we can track and understand how are we as it relates to if increasing taxi trips by 10 percent and driver income 10 percent, increasing number of drivers. we will track complaints. some of this again this is new for us so we are not sure where

the numbers are going it go. we might take a look at this and adjust upward or downward. there are also a lot of additional factors extraneous factors that we don't control, for example, with the number of drivers. there are global labor issues occurring and so there are a number of factors as it relates to drivers and taxi drivers in recruiting new drivers so while we are tracking that we dont have a clear metric or set metric, at least not yet. we do have good news in that regard and mention it now, our new drivers have been trnding upward during 2022. so far we increased and added about 75 new drivers, so positive trend. so, also one key metric for us is we want to track the

fares. with the up front fairs we have the pilot allows two elements. it allows a taxi app to offer a upfront fare and a third party to offer a upfront fare and the customer to choose that and the trip if it is a third party trip it will be provided on a taxi. we are going to track and analyze how those fares compare to what the meter rate would have been. again, i want to acknowledge that this is a novel concept. there are a lot of unknown s and we heard a lot of concerns from a lot of different arenas, and we heard a lot of support as well. we had a lot of internal conversations about the program, and that is why we structured it as a one year pilot with data and

reporting requirements and the ability to update program rules as needed. we also have committed to holding quarterly public meetings to provide status updates, to share the status of the key metric analysis and to hear from key stakeholders. additionally, the pilot after that one year period, the pilot cannot continue without action by the mta board, so that is a really another guardrail on this to address the concerns that we heard. for our next steps,-can you go back? i want to just spend a minute too on enhanced monitoring and reporting. again, to emphasize that we have heard from those who are concerned and i want to thank the supervisors for their leadership on this and

to push mta to even put additional guardrails and make sure we are doing our due diligence with this type of program and so, we want to enhance the data monitoring and reporting and one thing we think is important to track is we want to track the number of drivers that-taxi drivers that provide third party trip jz that will show us again if drivers are taking this up or not. that is a important measure for us in terms of understanding whether there is success or not. i mentioned comparing third party fares to taxi pilot trip fare, so that is important for us to understand what is happening in the service in the pilot. we also want to conduct aggregated geo graphic third party analysis. third party

trips occurring under the pilot and to understand where those trips are happening, pickup, drop-off, on a aggregated basis. we will be providing quarterly reports to the mta board and want to add the board of supervisors on the list to distribute or quarterly report and i mentioned we will be meeting with the taxi industry and public, those interested on a quarterly basis. in terms of our next steps, i mentioned we are reviewing applications received. we are making sure we understand the submittals. we are doing live testing again to get the look and feel of how the apps will work and there is a whole data validation and testing component, so the pilot can't start until we validated the test data is coming through and been received and then

obviously that is a important key part of this pilot so we can analyze whether it is successful or not. that will have to happen before service launch and again once the service has launched we will do our quarterly reporting and meetings. and just to say iterate the rules as needed if needed as needed. and we have a broad schedule of when we have our quarterly meetings and all are welcome to participate. we have a broad outreach list so all are welcome to attend. also wanted to say, just a couple key recent initiatives to support the taxi industry. we have a whole long list which i won't go into, it slaet late in the afternoon but based on

strong feedback from the taxi industry, we increased the trip that is allowed to be provided in the paratransit taxi program, so that was again in response to the taxi industry and so in september 1 the allowable tip for paratransit taxi trips increased from 10 percent to 15 percent and up to $4 maximum, so i wanted to note that. and also, we are vetting and we have been taking feedback on the taxi meter rates and this is important to us again in terms of supporting drivers. the taxi meeting rates have not increased in san francisco since 2011 and you see this wonderful graphic that our colleague designed which showed taxi meter rates staying flat while other items skyrocketing so increase in goods 45

percent, increase in gasoline of 82 percent and transportation increase of 50 percent. we have a strong case to increase the taxi meter rates and so we are planning on bringing a proposal before the mta board early this fall, hopefully in october. i think we are on track for that but more information to come once it is clear, and then--so, we are proposing-i won't go through all of this, because there is a lot here, but we do have fliers actually for those that are interested and there are three different components to the taxi. the standard taxi fare. the flag drop and time and distance and so we are proposing about 18 percent across the board on those three aspects. if we go to the next slide, we did a estimate of what that would cost to

general public rider for a typical trip and cost increase would be about $3 on a typical taxi trip. obviously it will vary depending on how long the trip is and if you have run into traffic or not but just to give the public a sense of the cost increase to the public and since taxis are in the paratransit program we did a similar analysis for the paratransit taxi. paratransit taxi trips are subsidized by the mta, subsidizes 80 percent of the cost for the riders so when we do a typical trip for a paratransit customer and cost that is about 50 percent increase for the paratransit customer. i'm going to leave it there. we have more slides in the slide deck and i go into

data and more information about given the presentation is so long i want to differ to supervisor chan whether you want me to go through those as in response to questions or do you want me to continue through? >> since i don't quite know what is the rest of the presentation, it is hard to decide but i do have questions and perhaps we can start with that and then maybe that could also be answered from your presentation if need be. i think the first-i just really wanted to understand and i think when i was talking to constituents or colleagues and trying to explain about this resolution is that, the taxi upfront fare pilot program allow 2 type of trip. one is taxi pilot trips which means it originates with the customer ride request just on the app and so that's sort of the basic taxi app.

just a app you open up and call for a taxi and the taxi ride is still calculated by meter. is that correct? >> yes. just to say yes-a taxi app will offer an upfront fare based on what the meter rate would be. the meter won't run during the trip. the customer will know in advance that the trip will cost $15 and they can say, yes, i want this trip or no i'll continue shopping around. if they lock in the trip they can book it and pay for it in advance. so, yes. the estimate of that $15 is based on what the taxi meter rate is anticipated to be and we are going to analyze that on the back-end so we understand how close

are those fares, the taxi pilot trip fares to what the meter rate would have been. >> thank you. just want to also be clear too, i think just for general public, this resolution is non-binding that i have introduced and now that as discussion for this hearing. it is non-binding it because the board of supervisors does not have direct jurisdiction over mta board of directors it appointed by the mayor so we are just urging for the consideration and specifically we are--the spirit of the resolution is actually not really about the taxi upfront fare pilot program. understanding the app we want to have effective app for the taxi drivers and industry. that isn't what the resolution is about. what specifically this resolution is about which i love to confirm is the third

party dispatch function. it means that what we just talked about is i think we all can agree this seems like a good idea. it is functioning and that's what our taxi driver needs, but this is what i love to just walk us through, what is a third party dispatch and i think that is where some of the folks have concerns because that is actually where really what is known as transportation network companies can come in what we identify as a third party in this function within the app. >> okay. thank you. thank you for the question. for the third party trips under the pilot, i'm talking just under the pilot, it means a entity that doesn't have a permit with the mta-in the very real world in the specific example we are talking about, it is uber, but it could mean other

third party entities. it could mean other tnc or heard international travel agents want to have some kind of function for upfront fares. there could be a number--i want to say it is broader then just the uber discussion. for a very real world example, uber partnered with two taxi e hill apps so for the third party trip under the pilot how it would work is that a uber customer would open the app and select-decide to take a uber x trip and if they are okay with having a taxi pick them up, if the taxi is the closest vehicle and they opt-into that type trip or pickup then that trip would be kind of sent over

to the taxi e hill app and provided on a taxi. what it allows is the taxi drivers to have more trips so in addition to the retail pickups and paratransit taxi or phone dispatch taxi service or taxi at the airport in addition to all of those types of taxi trips, they could choose to service this type of trip and so that the customer side how it works from a customer perspective. if they say sure, i want a uber x taxi, a taxi is the closest to me, i'm okay with taxi servicing this trip, excellent taxi provide wonderful customer service, i want this trip, they could select it and then they again the trip is sent over and provided by a taxi driver on the taxi driver side they will get a choice whether to opt in to provide that trip or

not. for those drivers that do want to service those type of trips they can add additional trips to their work day. >> right now as just i think all apps or all these type of apps basically say here's to offer other customers be it a right now with your pilot program for a taxi app or even a tnc transportation network company app, uber in this case, the customers all across the board will know up front how much their fare would be. we do know though while the customers would know upfront what the fare would be for them to decide whether to take this ride or which ride-which type of ride, the difference between uber or any transportation company app or the way they operate versus our taxi industry is that

our taxi industry is based on a meter, regulated by sfmta. we know that as we know tnc have what we consider as dynamic pricing. they (inaudible) depending on peak hours or specific time of day or situation, so when someone like a customer using a uber app and say i'm going to take a taxi instead of a uber driver ride, will that taxi or can that taxi-is it always calculated by meter or not? >> for the third party trips they are not required to be based on the taxi meter amount. >> even if i take the taxi- >> that's right.

because you start the trip with uber x, you get quoted a fare and then you decide whether or not you want that and then there is also-i think there are a couple decision points, the fare. are you going for the trip and book it with that fare amount and is it okay if a taxi is the closest vehicle is it okay to be dispatched a taxi, and so but the fare is in this case based on the uber x fare structure, so it is not based on the taxi meter. you are correct. you framed it correctly. >> so, while it is true a taxi driver in this case within your pilot rules a taxi driver can turn down and say because the uber dynamic pricing at this moment it is

really-it is below what i would typically earn if i am doing the sm meter ride. i can turn it down, right? >> yes. of course, the driver has a choice. >> but they have to do the calculation on their own? they have to make the decision on their own? >> it is the drivers decision, yes. the driver has the decision whether or not to take the uber trip. >> i think that is also part of the as i'm learning i think i can also imagine this is part of the problem and so, now that the taxi driver are within the economic-how to make the economic choice for themselves within this realm because of the option of the third party app or third party dispatch function. i know they will be taxi drivers actually including a taxi

workers alliance can make the point better then i do why this is problematic for the drivers. i love to ask questions from a consumer perspective. in this case if a senior needs a paratransit and in this case a senior has been relying on taxi drivers as part of the san francisco paratransit program because like you presented earlier that it is actually subsidized as a trip. it works well. seniors as you-i know in the richmond typically it is calls and the reason some of them prefer taxi over the paratransit program because to schedule for a ride sometimes it is pretty hard and difficult and actually easier to call for a taxi. usually it is a phone call they are making on a land line, and/or

not smart phone. in this case how do we make sure that it is still readily available for them once we have this third party dispatch, it is not sort of like throw all the demands for those who are in need as a paratransit riders? >> okay, great. thank you for the question. that's super important to us to my team to my division to the director of accessible services who pushes me on this quite frequently and we share that same concern, and we hope the demand for taxi increases. that is a good thing. we want more trips, we want the demand to increase. we want the market to adjust to get more medallions on the street, draw more drivers and we want to make sure our

traditional taxi services including paratransit taxi which is very important to us has the same level of service. that is something we will be monitoring and watching and making sure there are not unintended consequences and hat is something we will be meeting internally about, we are tracking metrics and flagged it in the program rules this is important and flagged want to make sure our traditional taxi service isn't negatively impacted but we want the increased demand and offer or have taxi drivers have more trips so see it as a good thing but again want to make sure the market response in the way we think the market should respond. >> why do you think a third party dispatch function is necessary and how does it really provide the advantage

to taxi driver, especially in the event when the upfront fare is with these tnc can be dynamic and not going to-it robbed the taxi drivers the way they operate-the way they earn their living is based on a meter calculation and operation which is regulated again by sfmta. because of that way of operation and regulation that it already put them in disadvantage right now so to speak, because of how uber or companies like uber can do dynamic pricing and so just throw out the market so to speak and they are no longer in a level play field when they try to earn their wages and earn the fare so to speak. why do you think that is helpful to the taxi industry to add this

third party dispatch function? >> i will say that the dynamics you raise are very clear to us and we've been grappling with this as a agency as the taxi staff we are very well aware of the negative impacts and agree with the concerns. i think the benefits and why we think this is well novel new unknown and we have concerns, why we still think it is worth exploring with these guidelines and these guardrails is because the trip demand is so huge on uber and if in other-again, other possible third parties and so we want to allow this to happen so we can test and see will drivers take this up taxi drivers, will customers opt in and be happy with it and bring more trips and

income to our drivers so i think because of those reasons, that is why we establish the guardrails we think with the guardrails we want to test it, we want to see will this have the positive impacts we anticipate if it doesn't do we need to change the program rules to make sure we drive it in the right direction or at some point depends on how things unfold in the quarter reports and analysis or quarterly meetings but we can always reevaluate. we left ourselves the flexibility again to adjust and to reevaluate if needed. there is the choice and it is fine if some don't and we understand that but the drivers that do support this it can bring more trips, it can bring more income so if they have a

quite moment and you mentioned the decision whether to take a trip, i think drivers know better then i can speak better but it happens all the time. that choice and that decision and it is a very dynamic type of work and so this is another opportunity to layer in additional trips and we think the demand will be again, it will allow drivers to be busier and more efficient with their time and service more trips. >> i want to be in agreement with you anticipate as i mentioned in the introduction is that you know, proposition d which is the traffic congestion tax. at that time we -the controller office project at that time we generate around roughly 30 to $35 million of tax revenue

from taxing the transportation network companies, and again, they are very specific categories. i want to say that the applicants you have received they are actually even though maybe they are a app like fly wheel and arrow and yo taxi they are not categorized as transportation network companies. >> that is right. >> this is simply the prop d was to really look at the congestion that are brought on by transportation network companies and as recent as i think fiscal year 21-22, i believe that the projection of the tax or the actual tax revenue brought in by prop d was actually less then 1/5 of what it was projected in

2019. however way you look at it i'm not too sure if the ride demand among tnc is there to make this a worthwhile endeavor for our taxi industry to allow the third party dispatch as a function on this pilot program. so, i am going to ask questions. today we also have our county transportation authority staff. joe, (inaudible) i hope i say his name correctly is our deputy director for technology data and are analysis. i believe he is here remote. >> yes. >> hi, joe and thank you so much for standing by. i think my question is that, i wanted to have a better understanding of just based on your knowledge right now, how do we as a city

actually get the data about tnc and their activities in san francisco? >> sure. i am happy to speak to that issue more generally apart from the particulars of this program. when i say we, i mean the city family the county transportation authority as well as our colleagues at sfmta have really been working together very closely for i say all most up to 10 years now seeking to get tnc data, because i think we have done a number of studies around this question, because of course there was as we all saw maybe not so much today or in the covid era, but certainly prior to covid there was simply a lot of tnc on the street. by our own estimates and will describe how we got the estimates in a moment, there was

something like at peak hours as much as 10 to 13 times as many tnc on the street during the peak hour peak half hour as taxis and not surprisingly when we dug into the information that we were able to acquire we found they did account for significant share of increase in congestion in san francisco between the time tnc roll on the streets around 2010 and when this original set of data we were able to scrape which was from late 2016 occurred. about half increase in congestion was attributed to tnc eequivalent to the population and job growth at the time. at that time we it was very clear it was a significant impact on congestion resulting from tnc in san

francisco. we have done other studies that looked at impacts on transit, ridership in san francisco and also found a negative impact there not surprisingly lots of people use tnc instead of walking or biking or transit more sustainable modes we try to prioritize from a policy perspective. we can't and haven't been able to answer a lot of questions around the impacts because the tnc's have been resisted sharing any information what so ever with us in san francisco or really with anybody for that matter unless they are absolutely forced to. a tremendous amount of information is reported to the public utility commission, actually been determined by their

administrative law judges to be matters of public record but they continued to protest and so we had very very limited ability to get data. in fact, since 2016, when we teamed up with some computer scientists actually to get some of the data, we only have gotten one delivery of data from the cpuc. they have 10 years of data at this point. they gave us one set of data. we just begun to look into it. even after all of the resistance to sharing it, what we have found is there are really significant issues and questions raised by the data both respect to the voracity and accuracy of the data as well as completeness of it. so, i do think that with respect to this program in particular, i do think that-i

can't spaeck speak to the policy aspect. mta identified a number of very important goals and metrics and are tried to insure there are guardrails, but it seems like a important part of the program is this evaluation component and in order to really do a robust evaluation you really do need to insure you have good data and the record thus far with respect to tnc providing data and providing accurate data is not encouraging. >> right now i i do trust the mta team and they are doing due diligence with applicants that do apply for this program and being able to actually garner those data from their applicants based on this pilot program.

what i am kind of curious is that based on data provided through this pilot program, because of through the third party dispatch, what could be the challenges from your point of view, joe, that could complicate-i'm not saying-i'm not-i'm just curious. could this actually complicate, add a complexity that we already face to try to figure out tnc data that we receive not directly? >> yeah. i'm not trying to be evasive in the answer. it is difficult to answer with any certainty. we have been involved in the design or

implementation or specification of the data reporting, so i can only speak broadly and i want to limit my comments to saying, even when required to provide data the tnc have not been cooperative or forthcoming, but truly mta staff are in a position to i think more completely speak to whether even participation in the program, in the way the back end of all the data i processing happens, there is simly no way to avoid providing all the data or whether it is dependent on some good faith effort. i just don't-not familiar enough with the technical details how it dispatch would work in order to speak to that. >> thank you joe. i really appreciate it. i think that just for that just to understand, it is complex and so for sfmta. i know that

when we in advance to the hearing we had a brief conversation and just trying to understand-i think i purely just asking questions from a lay person perspective. i did not understand the technology. i still don't. i cannot claim i clearly understand. i'm trying to learn and trying to understand better and but it just-if we dont know-this is not about the taxi industry or actually the pilot program. this is more just about the city's obligation to the voter s and trying to understand responding to the mandates from proposition b and with that, the tax revenue is really based on the data provided by tnc's and in this case we also understand-try to independently verify the data has been difficult, so now with this third party dispatch, again, just

this component piece, we are sharing information with tnc, but as we already know, it is not quite a two-way street so to speak. we don't really have data from them, so how do we make sure that the-now that we are in partnership with them, as they have information about the public trip or the taxi trip so to speak and that is all inclusive in that database because it goes-it is in their app and then they turn over that data, but it isn't clear to us what exactly how they parse it out and what does it look like? we know what we know, but we don't know really know everything that they know, so how do we in your program how do we figure this out? >> okay. thanks for the questions. i want to acknowledge joe's comments of appreciate his expertise and value his opinions and he really is the go-to

guy on data and so just a valuable colleague. for the pilot we structured it so that the data has to come in through our-we call the api or application program interface so it actually comes in and there are different types of data. i talked about geographic data, called teleemtry and that is a repause tav and the trip data comes through another. oen the taxi side of the house we had the api, we had this requirement for the data provision for many years. it is in the transportation code, and so we have a long-standing requirement again on the taxi side of the house but we got the team and we got the repository so we have the structure to receive the data and i'm going to just-we got-i want to

acknowledge we have a lot of data team here from the mta. there is a full team behind me behind phil and i that will be looking at what we receive through the api and doing that type of analysis, but again we have those guardrails if we feel like we are not getting all the dat a. first of all hold the app responsible. they are the partner with this third party, so if we feel we are not getting the data we have some off-ramps in the program and if the entity that is the e hill app, the taxi app approved, if the third party isn't providing the data we have disciplinary action and can actually say okay, this is not working and you can't participate in the pilot so that is

extreme case. but we will have a team looking at it data and analyzing through the data reapause tore. >> if i'm a uber user and i have two options one as a uber ride and one a taxi ride you will only receive the data in the event i select a taxi ride but if i select a uber ride you will not know i rejected a taxi ride as a user that i rejected a taxi ride and selected a uber ride? >> we won't get that-if i understand you that specific data piece-let me make sure i understand it. if i'm a rider uber x customer, i say i want a uber x trip and say okay the closest vehicle is a taxi and if i say no i don't want that taxi, is that the case?

>> well, i mean the-here are your options and you click the one you want and you book the trip. you are not reject-you are, but you are rejecting by selecting and booking the specific one you want, so in this event i'm basically booking a uber driver instead of the taxi, you would not know, you as sfmta or the e hill applicant, will not know that actually you have selected a uber ride. >> yes that is right. if it starts as a uber x trip and they say say sure taxi is great, pick me up and it goes through our pilot then we will get that data. >> otherwise you won't? >> that's right.

right. the data repository is set up to receive trips through the pilot so all the pilot trips occur we will get but anything outside the pilot that is a trip outside of the pilot so we would not receive that. that is accurate. >> thank you. i'm going to conclude my question and conclude my comment and know chair preston has questions so i want to finalize why conclude why the third party dispatch function itself is problematic for me. it is really it does not level the play field. the problem that we have been having with tnc for the taxi industry is the way that while the taxi industry is operated and regulated by a meter system, the tnc has as a private

or public company, but still they can actually have things like flexible and dynamic pricing, however way they determine how they want to flex their pricing. that in itself is already not a level play field for all drivers. then now we are subjecting they are not subject but asked to consider whether they should abandon our taxi driver are asked to abandon as the rest of them to be as part of meter regulated pricing operation to now a possible dynamic flexible pricing operation that could actually short sell themselves in that trip. that is one problem i have with third party dispatch function. the second part i have and it is not really about the

taxi industry or this pilot program is as a policy maker responding to san francisco voters, it demand on the implementation on proposition d, that the data itself we receive as joe from county transportation authority has already mentioned that the data has not been very clear to us what they are and how we can independently verify and so with that, it is very-to add another layer to add public data into this tnc data group and this hole we can no longer parse, which one could be a taxi ride, which is a uber ride to further complicate the data that they provide to us it seems like making it more challenging for

someone like joe from cta to parse out that data to make sure we can independently verify. thank you. thank you chair preston. >> thank you vice chair chan and i have some thoughts. i do want to start-i really appreciate you bringing forward a resolution on this. it is one of many areas where i think we have board of supervisors that is extremly interested in transportation policy and yet we have an mta that is appointed by the board, by the mayor, so these things only come here for discussion either when there is a contract approved and money at issues before the budget committee or someone brings a resolution like this, so i appreciate you bringing it forward. i also acknowledge because of state law we dont get to sit and chat about these things before the hearing soei hear my

colleagues thoughts on the resolution for the first time and appreciate the discussion and have been hearing from a lot of folks from drivers, met with mta, with e hill app in the lead up to the hearing it is very interesting so i appreciate-i have some thoughts that are more kind of editorializing a bit where we are in this and specific questions around some of the data and issues raised. i can't-i have got to say that this whole thing as i have been digesting it is one thing that is such a strange moment that we are in that we have-i will speak with

much more knowledge about san francisco taxi cabs and permit holders that operate e hill then uber. forgive if what i say about uber user is clueless. i have never ridden a uber or lyft or tnc so i will speak cluelyless about the service. i have on the other hand taken my share of taxi cabs proudly is and only been when i need to use something other then the bus and need a cab, i use a real cab. including e hill as well as calling. it is very very strange-just to kind of name it and know this has come in up a lot of policies, we have a industry that has completely skirted our local regulations

with a level of arrogance that is become the norm in this last decade or so, is is capitalism at its worst where you have big players with billions of dollars in investors who write their own rules and just before-one thing about this is we are normalizing uber and we get to this point every time one of these industries comes. air bnb did it in the housing market. they came and violated san francisco law. brutally blatantly never held accountable until they had such market share you have to figure how to regulate them and now they are part of the city. we reward the companies. my view of it is, tnc is

a nice moniker. these were blatantly blatantly illegal taxis and fake taxis rolled out recollect took over the streets of san francisco, creating enormous congestion, drove people to bankruptcy if not worse and suicide in extreme cased all noest completely destroyed a industry, ruined countless lives, able to make it legal defining as a mythical tnc thing and buy whether through ballot measures or political legal or illegal corruption, call it what you want, buy their way to a parallel industry that gutted the lives of people who are playing by the rules, the values of the medallions they bought and went into debt to by and our city tried to help in some ways

but theen of the day hasn't done enough. uber lyft, they completely screwed the drivers of the city and the city has some level of complicity in that but sometimes our hands were tied by state regulators. what is weird is here we are years later and this is a strange proposal. these are the goal of uber and lyft to be real was not to be here today with this kind of proposal. the goal of uber and lyft was that all of these folks would be out of business. every driver here would no longer drive or would have quick working for taxi and drives uber and lyft with no rights as workers, with no regulations, with no oversight of the mta. that was the goal and the goal was bigger then that and

this isn't conspearancy theory. the goal is not only do that to all the cab drivers but also to gut public transit in san francisco. not just san francisco, to gut public transit anywhere they could and actively get people off public transit and into their private vehicle. the good news maybe not for uber investors or lyft investors, the good news is that taxi industry despite taking these hits is more resilient then they expected. there were folks who figured how to do e hill outside uber and lyft. that is not just here. (inaudible) in other cities and europe. so-and their effort to create a 100

percent deregulated futile istic form of-i don't want to call it employment. whatever you call what they do with their drivers. has run into legal problems also. and the cost suddenly and uncertainties of that market lead them to this point where suddenly the folks-very folks they wanted to obliberate and whipe off the map in san francisco they kind of need at this point. they got vehicles and insurance and stay on the jobs more then 6 months before they cycle out. it is a actual stable work force. that is where we are. i don't-wrapping my brain around that and where we are, we can talk about details but it is such a strange

place to be. now, what is new here is us instead of viewing as a rogue actor violating our rules and trying to regulate as best we can, despite state limitations, here we are in a way partnering with them. in that we have-i think some negotiating power we might not have had two years ago. i don't know if that's the case. maybe i'm overstating it. i am curious if we are exerting that. in other words, are there any-what are we getting-we can talk about the benefits to drivers of doing this, being on the app, but curious as mta, what are we-what is mta

getting out of this arrangement and you mentioned the benefit to drivers of the additional fares. is there anything else in terms of additional data? it sounds like on the data front it sounds like it is one-sided. uber gets all their data about their own uber drivers and all the data about taxis to compare. we are only getting the sliver of the taxis, right? let me stop myself. what are we getting other then the additional rides and additional revenue for drivers? what are we getting owt of this deal? >> thank you. i appreciate the commentary and it resonates and could be seen as success story for the taxi industry in that professional drivers are still here as you note. i will just say that that resonated. we are getting data, so we are getting data from trips that we would

not have-getting data for the trips in the pilot we wouldn't have otherwise and that's really important to us and we talked about enhanced reporting and monitoring so we talked about geographic analysis that we want to do based on where these trips happening that originate with the third party or uber, where in the city are customers originating trips through uber then taxi. that is helpful information for the taxi industry to understand. maybe it is rich mnds or sunset or areas historically taxis haven't been seen to provide service. there are avenues to market and promote. i think those are the biggest and i did have slides to show some of the data snapshots of the data. not the uber data or third

party data but thought it might be helpful to show screen captures of what we are tracking and looking at and what we will be looking at but that is a huge one. in addition, obviously in addition to supporting the drivers which you acknowledge is a given and baseline. this data is-will be very helpful for us and the data isn't flowing the other way. we are getting data in o the mta side of the house. not sure any separate arrangements between the taxi industry and any other third party entities, but mta is receiving data. i wonder if we can pivot. would you like to see some of the data we collect and what that looks like? would that be helpful or not? >> i don't know what it-the data i was going to ask about, i don't know if you have it is we have fare

comparison data between the tnc and the cabs. >> we don't have that yet. there has been some initial analysis like joe mentioned that the data from the tnc side has been hard to come by and the cpuc just released the one year of the annual report, so as i understand it, our colleagues at the sfcta have been doing some data analysis. there is some initial but i don't have any of that to show and that isn't my area of expertise, that is your staff over at all the ta, joe and drew and their team. but we do have some-we do track it on the taxi side of the house. i could show you we track the median taxi fare on a bi-weekly basis so if that is helpful to see and once we get the data in, again for those

pilot trips then we can do that type of comparison. there will be a bit of lag time and before the data enters into our system, but- >> i don't think i need to see the median tax fare i'm interested as it relates to the wisdom of the policy the only relevant thing is comparison to what we expect. it is hard to know do we expect generallyal the uber fare will be significantly higher, significantly lower, 50/50 because each has different policy concerns or implications. if it is lower we are picking up market share for taxi industry but driving down the per ride price and that has positive and negative. if it is higher then we actually run the risk that situations

it is higher you run the risk little old me over here who is like i'm not using uber and i'm going to use fly wheel or call up or whatever that folks are not going to take my ride because it surge pricing and they can get $50 to go across town on uber by clicking that thing and if they me on fly wheel they know it is a $15 ride. but i don't know, it is hard to evaluate because i don't know generally speaking- >> i answer generally. i would say a general analysis that again this was initial analysis, my understanding is the uber fares are about 80 to 85 percent of taxi fares but if you look based on trip distance it is different and that is based on certain policies. for longer trips the taxi fares are higher because we

have taxi fare policy called meter and a half, so if you go 15 miles beyond city limits all is a whole structured rule around it, but the meter rate increases and so the shorter trips on whole are more expensive. i believe on uber the longer trips more expensive on taxi, so there is variation, but on whole, again the initial data analysis i have seen is about 80 to 85 percent that the uber trip is of the taxi trip. again, a lot of variation between and that's supervisor challenge mentioned drivers making decisions in the moment and a lot of that is like, very smart group of individuals and they'll know okay, to make that determination what will work for them. i certainly trust the drivers to know which

trips will work best for them. >> got it. thank you. that is helpful. just i guess back to this idea of what are we-what is mta getting from uber in this kind of pilot arrangement or if it gets renewed in some way? two other things i would be looking at and thinking whether there are opportunities to get concessions. again either in the pilot or if it comes time for renewal. one is price gouging protection for consumer. i think if we are go-moving into the phase where we are negotiating the terms of on which we will allow and i shouldn't say if we are going to, as supervisor chan said we can weigh in on our opinions but

mta is moving forward with this right now. the question is whether the board is saying we agree or not, but right now at least it is-you got the rfp out. it is happening. >> that's right. the board already approveped it. we issued the program rules-mta board approved it and issued program rules, received applications service has not started but will in the next few weeks. >> got it. i don't know- >> i'm taking notes. >> resolution or at the current pilot rules or at the 12 months and next phase if it is successful pilot. but it is just top of mind-price gouging perspective. i have questions frankly under state law whether there is model of surge pricing

especially in a state of emergency that impacted public transit and other options. i think it is a very interesting question whether they can do surges of over 10 percent, but that's not what we are here to decide, but certainly when they take a fare that is $15 taxi ride and make it a $90 ride. there may be benefits for uber drivers and taxi riders but not consumers. i think some kinds of ceiling if we have leverage and again you know maybe better then i do what leverage we have. the second is, and this is much more of a i think has much bigger implications which is compliance with the various laws of our city around what they can and can't do in the streets and never understood how we give certain permissions to

taxi drivers to pull into certain situations and never given that to tnc and they have a business model violating those rules. we can get aggressive about ticketing and implications and equity concerns because if uber pays for one thing, the driver is paying it is another. lots of policy but i think the idea saying there is a set of rules that apply to our actual licensed real professional taxi drivers in san francisco and we have been in a period where those rules don't seem to ever be applied to tnc so i put that out there as another thing if we are in fact moving to negotiating pilots and extensions and that kind of thing in this area. i'll leave it at that. i appreciate the opportunity to have the discussion and supervisor chan you bringing to committee. do you want to hear

from other speakers or open public comment? thank you very much. let's open public comment. >> thank you mr. chair. any members of the public in the chamber who would like to make public comment for item number 4? please line up on the wall to your right. remote call in members press star 3 to be added to the queue. for those already on hold please continue to wait until the system indicate s you have been unmuted. >> (inaudible) president of fly wheel and i had a prepared comments here but i want to respond to some of the things you said here because it resonates with me too. first, i want to say we are taxi loyalists as a technology company. we will never provide a ride to someone in the personal car. have to be a regulated taxi. we will always support the idea of regulated rates for taxies, so

no what ends up happening we want to make sure that so called little old lady at the safeway with fixed budget will always be able to get a fixed price in a taxi cab and that's what we do with our app and so forth. our company also has 15 paratransit contracts in the country now. paratransit is a big part of service and growing dem o graphic and we want to strengthen those services in what we do. i want to say to you though, our company is a real success story here. we have now done more then 6 million individual booked rides through the app and we have put out hundred million dollar in fares to taxi that would have otherwise probably gone to uber and lyft but as a whole the taxi industry is way behind in the technology plat form and i will tell you, i said previously just on the comments a futileism and so forth, i called ride sharing ride share

cropping. it gives a idea, we have been arch enomies 10 years. this idea that we would in fact work with them has to be in the best interest of the taxi industry and the way we configured this is make sure their customers are serviced by taxi, they have to provide teleemty and data in the way never done before and the public can always still book a taxi in regulated rates as well but now we have access to all of their business in taxi cabs. i believe we will have less congestion and traffic as this goes. thank you. >> i'm deeply concerned about the uber deal and the regulations that allow for it. we currently have nor demand for taxi service then we

can handle. that may be news to you. this deal will create a demand overload that will have dire consequences for our regular riders many whom are paratransit users who depend on the service we provide. i'm also concerned about a multi-billion dollar company with a horrible track record on a number of fronts getting its claws into our industry. uber has a terrible record on the environment documented in a number of studies here and elsewhere. luring passengers away from public transit is ingrained in the business model and stated goal is have every taxi in the world on its platform by 2025. if we lose our regular riders because we can't serve them properly and become more and more dependent on uber for livelihood the danger is obvious. i do also want to question the mta willingness to allow uber into our

industry in the absence of regulatory authority over them. the mta failed us in the past notably with the medallion sales program and other areas as well and but now we have this. if this arrangement goes badly, i have no faith that the mta will have the guts to pull the plugs. this resolution will send a message to the mta to reconsider their responsibility to the industry they regulate and public we serve. it deserves your support. thank you. >> thank you for your comment. >> good afternoon. all most good evening. i'm very concerned about this uber taxi deal. my name is evelyn ingle with taxi workers alliance. some alluded to the fact that it is kind

of easy to understand how it benefits uber. they have a driver shortage since covid. they always had a driver difficulty keeping their drivers. they had to offer bonuses. a few months ago in the sign up bonus in san francisco was $2700 to driver for uber. taxi drivererize not going to get that of course. in fact i think it has gone away, perhaps with the expectation of getting full time professional drivers for free on the cheap. we know how it benefits uber and it is really very hopeful and all most to point of wishful thinking it will benefit taxi drivers and taxi industry as a whole. i have no doubt individual taxi drivers who choose to participate will see more rides and they

will make some more money. but when they give these rides they are not always going to be additional rides to their reg yul taxi rides. some of them will be instead of their regular taxi rides for sure. i hope you will really consider also that there is a certain-the goals the metrics, these are somewhat more inclined to be measuring the taxi upfront fare pilot and not so much the third party dispatch pilot which i believe deserves the unique goals and metrics to clearly define how it will work. i hope you will consider this resolution. thank you. >> good evening. my name is (inaudible) i have been working in the taxi industry since 2005. the

business has drastically gone down so bad because of all the competition going on in san francisco. we i think the third party i see that it is a genius idea. the reason is, because we can reach all the customers we lost through the years and reconnect with them. furthermore, as far as like disabled people, they try to get the transportation. i don't believe that uber cannot offer those services. taxi cab do. i believe that these third party will create more businesses and have more frequency clients for taxi driver jz put more medallion out there and have more jobs because there are a lot of drivers out

of work. i think i hope you consider this third party. i think it is a solution. thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is george. i have been driving a tax 20 years. i'm a medallion purchase in district 1 and here today to emphasize the importance of the partnership with uber. our industry is failing. if our industry is great how come the mta have not sold a medallion in many years so this is very important, we don't want to miss the golden opportunity. uber is brand. i know we don't like uber. they all most wiped out the industry. nation goes to war and become alleys so we can not dwell on the past, we have to go

forward. uber is the hallmark of transportation. we will have non stop fares and know this because i'm in the trenches on the road 6 days a week. so, please let's not miss this golden opportunity and we have it go forward and we have a few drivers who object to uber because they have resentiment towards uber, resentiment towards the high tech. we cannot demonize them, after all the city allowed uber to operate so found with the situation and partnership is the only way to go and those who object those don't have to use it. it is optional and they can not impose their will on the rest of us. thank you. >> hello, i'm also a old time driver.

started-also a medallion holder, started back in 1988, so-i have seen all the objection. i have seen the objection when mayor feinstein wanted to introduce the super shuttle. taxi cab driver swarmed around the city objecting. i saw the objection when mayor willy brown wanted to release 500 medallions, because the city needed it. the outskirts of the city needed it. the same people that are here today objecting to this objected to the 500 medallion that lead into uber coming and filling that need. they objected to every single attempt to increase more medallions to serve the city. they objected to bart go toog the airport. the same people are here objecting to every new

attempt to improve this industry. this is about drivers and it is about the public. the public loves uber, because it is convenient. somehow it have a hold on the industry. we cab driver are struggling for fares. i don't know when someone is saying that the industry is doing well, know it is not doing well. cab drivers are struggling out there and we need more passengers, and uber has that bank of passengers in their pockets. we need it. this is win, win, win situation. win for the driver, win for the public, win for the city. we need to embrace technology. we need to move forward. we can't afford to go backward.

>> (inaudible) a driver since 1993 and medallion holder and manage fly wheel taxi. (inaudible) 2200 medallions and taxi. now we have less then 900. 900 not all in the streets. all i'm saying is, third party app will help increase our trips. help us get back on the city streets and service the public and service the paratransits program, so please and support it and vote for it and keep it going. thank you. >> seeing no more in person public commenters we'll move to the comment line. please forward the next caller.

>> thank you. (inaudible) supports the chan resolution. (inaudible) hardship for our members largely seniors and members with disability who do not have cars and need taxis for medical visit, shopping and business with friends. many do not have smart phones and they would find fewer cabs presponding to landline calls for service. many have limited incomes and couldn't-would not be able to afford the risk. (inaudible) unilaterally set the rates by rides through its app. uber has a history increasing rates during high demands so rider rates would not be dependable and taxi drivers have incentive to avoid traditional calls for cabs. we

stand behind and solidarity with the taxi drivers who have been put in competition with uber drivers and have had uber service rates and will have uber service rates deducted from each of their rides. there are no plans to regulate or cap uber service charge. (inaudible) business model of off-loading transportation costs such as maintenance, licensing and registration on to its drivers. why would the city want to give open regulation of above utility by taxis to not regulated by mta? particularly entity with a history of abusing drivers, riders and the public. as we said, we are (inaudible) hundred percent of the world's cabs on the platform

by 2025. mta has shown a reluctance to rebuild- >> thank you for your comments caller. your time has lapsed. thank you, sorry for the interruption. next caller, please. >> hi, there. calling on behalf of (inaudible) teamsters who join with brothers in sisters supporting supervisor chan (inaudible) urging removal of third party dispatch (inaudible) uber continues to enshploit the irk withers with expansion of low rates model and cannot be allowed to continue. we ask the committee support our taxi driver jz pass the legislation. thank you. >> that you can for your comments. next caller, please. next caller, please. okay,

it appears unattendeded line. please skip to the next caller. >> hi. my name is dr. theresa palmer and want to weigh in of support of supervisor chan's resolution. uber doesn't treat the employees well and passenger wells. the pricing is pred tore, and you have things like people hurt by uber drivers and women sexually assaulted by uber drivers having no resource and uber not taking any responsibility. i would like to support our cab drivers, support people who invested in medallions and every cab driver i talked to is horrifyed

by the idea of essentially the city of san francisco subsidizing to uber. we are better then this. i don't care what the rest of the cities in the world are doing, we should not let uber into the taxi business here in san francisco. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. there are 20 callers on the line. 11 in the queue. next caller, please. >> david. i was a driver at fly wheel and work in the office. i want to address comment made specifically around supporting the drivers. drivers need rides to make money and they will have the option to take the uber ride or not. if we are about supporting the drivers this proposal is great. no one is forced to saep uber, they see the pricing before they accept the ride and it is their

choice. drivers do this every day all day long and they-it is freedom they most enjoy. the comment we just made about people assaulted in uber cars and all is no accountability, that wont happen with taxis. we know which cab they are in and the driver and they go through background checks and talk daily. the concerns i understand people dont like uber, but this is the realty that we are living in, this is is a good proposal and hope it continues moving forward. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, please. >> hi, this is tess (inaudible) and i'm supporting the supervisor chan's resolution. uber is desired to take over the world of transportation not facilitated in any way by san francisco. we have had too many companies come here break the law and then

ask to be blessed and forgiven and furthermore given subsidies. a lot of other things have already been said. this is just the wrong way to go to get in bed with a ridiculously illegal company that hasn't turned a profit because they are so funded by investors who are willing to wait until they capture the world for them. so, please oppose what mta is trying to do. mta is off the rails instead of providing a service they need, they should be also providing bus service and they should be doing something about it stupid medallion. thank you very much. >> thank you for your cuments. next caller, please.

>> good afternoon. this is (inaudible) long time activist and cab driver. i want to make two points. first i want to thank supervisor chan bringing this resolution forward and god bless her for understanding the issues and god bless dean preston for having (inaudible) understanding the impact it has on the city itself. i want to make a couple points here again. first, if the taxi managers and people pushing for this think that we need this badly, then why do they keep raising our lease fees. we are paying hundred dollar to $120 a shift to work these cabs, and they are raised it over the last 6 to 9 months. why would they raise it if they didn't think we were making money or able to cover that and still make money for

our selves? good question. ask mta if they know how much business has come up since coming out of the pandemic. the ort part is they are charging more for the individuals leasing the medallion. the second part of this is about the surge pricing. you have a obligation to make sure there is a service available so drivers don't feel they are being gouged by a trip only cost maybe $10, $15 but costing 50 to $60? why deyou want to allow that? the mta is partly to blame because they allow uber and lyft to operate there are over 300 for closures of medallions. now there are none because the mta made exclusive use to the airport to

those medallions. >> your time has lapsed. next caller, please. >> if uber and lyft and somebody else wants to play with the taxi they have to play by the tax ea rules which is meter rate. so, this is like pandora's box. this is bringing surge pricing to public. this is bringing surge pricing to taxi. it will. why on earth they can't charge the meter rate minus 10 percent commission and 1 or $2 booking fee-(inaudible) they

don't charge the driver anything which is fantastic. anyway, you know, as a long time taxi driver i have seen my livelihood pretty much destroyed by uber. it rebounded somewhat this summer, it is very busy. we don't have enough cabs to cover demand so why do we mess with the uber rides when there is loyal taxi customers? i just think there is so much about the plan that needs to be reworked before it is implemented rather then just throwing at the wall and see what sticks. i think taxi drivers should be guaranteed a full meter rate and don't think you should be able to surge price in the taxi and i think that we really need to think about the bigger picture here of a company that ran billboards saying never take a taxi again and giving access to this trained professional 17, 18 year pool of drivers.

what is their end game there? thank you very much. >> thank you for your comments. next caller. >> good afternoon supervisors. this is theresa (inaudible) calling in support of supervisor chan's resolution urging the removal of third party dispatch. i spent a good hour in a cab with a yellow cab driver who informed me about this whole pilot program. it was the first time i heard of it and what i heard him say is uber is going to know all about us, all about our rides, but what will we know about the other uber rides, and his understanding was that there was going to be a dedicated san

francisco cab region and then the uber drivers would get those longer rides outside of the city. that was concerning. he also told me that of the 1,000 yellow cab drivers there were only 12 who signed up to actually participate in this program, so i am asking as you did supervisor preston, why is-what is mta getting out of this? why would you want to invest in a program with a company that has-trying to create a monopoly one, and number two, that has always been non-transparnt, exploited its own drivers and again with those surge prices, why would you trust anything with this company? please, i urge your support of this resolution and thank you again supervisor chan for bringing this forward. >> thank you for your

comments. there are 19 callers on the line. 8 in the queue. please forward the next caller. >> good afternoon supervisors. eric brooks with the local grass roots organization our city san francisco. strong support of supervisor chan's resolution. as supervisor preston indicated, there are mountains of studies showing that companies like uber and lyft which took what used to be not for profit relationships between individual people who owned car s and turned it into a reaching for profit system. it is proven to be extremely bad for taxi, torpedo transit ridership, bad for the environment and increasing green house gas and grid lock in the city, and so what this muni plan amounts to is privateization. that is what this is. it is going to get people

and drivers used to using a private app to arrange their rides in a race to the bottom on the amount of money they get paid and once uber and lyft get control of the whole shebang the taxi drives in san francisco will have the same working conditions as the uber drivers. they can't possibly want that. the solution to this is to create a public central dispatch run by the city and a city app that uber and lyft have to operate under instead of their private app. that was solve the problem and probably help us get rid of uber and lyft. this is not somebody mentioned this is when you are in a war you decide to make peace and form an alliance, that isn't what this is, this is trying to prepech wait a codependent relationship with a

abusive partner. when somebody is in your house and abusing you and stealing your food you dont try to negotiate with them, you kick them out and that is what we need to do with uber and lyft. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, please. >> hello. hi. my name is (inaudible) medallion and (inaudible) to have uber and lyft, but i think the (inaudible)

but we can still keep our rate and (inaudible) business is getting better then it used to be. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, please. >> hello. this is evelyn (inaudible) calling from district 8 and i'll get straight to the point. the e hill people will not accept paratransit discount fares and are that completely completely unacceptable. in a memo to jeff tumlin

that kate turan wrote she refers to meter anxiety. this is survival anxiety. if i get into a taxi, how will i get a taxi because taxis-paratransit riders are very popular and but the thing is, okay, this only creates barriers, because why would someone want to get a paratransit rider when they might get-i don't know. i can tell you surge pricing i used to drive for a living. i was a tour guide while in school and know the rules so i was somewhere a friend called a uber for me, i will never go in uber, and the quote was $35. (inaudible) i said, i'm calling a taxi. the fare was

$17. because i was able to suggest why do this or that? it is unacceptable. if it isn't a direct violation of the ada, which it is a violation in spirit, thank you connie chan for this resolution and we seniors and disabled people just the amount gets higher and harder and fastest growing dem o graphic, this is so confusing for seniors. do i get in a taxi or automat- >> thank you caller, your time elapses. two minutes for public comment. thank you so much. apology for the interruption. next caller. there are 5 callers in the queue. >> my name is magy may, i was born and raised in san francisco and i wholely support

supervisor chan's resolution and i am very much appreciate supervisor preston's comments. i don't have a car, never have never needed one in the city. i rely on muni and taxi cabs when necessary. i would never take uber. it caused gridlock and chaos in san francisco and done great harm to taxi drivers. all the drivers i have spoken to when i take taxis about this issue are hundred percent against the uber take over of the taxi industry. it is unfair to them and speak to them if they are un(inaudible) taxi driver i spoke to said he would rather die then work for uber. if implemented this scheme and do me scheme, we further priveatize and regulate our san francisco transit. i want the city of san

francisco to be responsible for transit including taxis. who is the city doing this for? what is the city giving authorization and handing over non-regulated situations to entities like uber? what is the city getting out of this? please support the resolution. thank you. >> thank you for you're comments. next caller, please. >> hello. this is elana ingle in district 9 and with (inaudible) san francisco. i'm calling in support of supervisor chan's resolution. you know, first we allow uber to all about destroy the taxi industry after the drivers have untold hundreds of thousands of dollars into their medallions