When Marcelo Fonseca began driving a cab in 1989, he memorized a map of San Francisco and could recall the location of any street without assistance.
Seeking a stable income with plenty of socialization, he applied for a medallion from the city, then slowly climbed a 15-year waitlist. But within a year of receiving his medallion in 2009, and the stability it brought, the cab industry would dramatically change.
“I was probably the very best cab driver you could get out there. I understood my job. I took a lot of pride. I did it well. I learned the streets of San Francisco well,” Fonseca said.
“But I also understood that our profession did not get the respect we deserved. When they changed the system that trapped my colleagues with unpayable loans, I saw the pain and the suffering.”
This Sunday, the San Francisco Documentary Festival will show a short documentary created by Fonseca, “Taken For A Ride: How San Francisco Backstabbed a Generation of Cab Drivers.” It will show at 1 p.m. at the Vogue Theater at 3290 Sacramento St. The film was produced by Fonseca and Mark Nassar and directed by Peter Thomas Ruocco. It’s also available to stream online.
Fonseca has been a full-time cab driver for 31 years, and he received his medallion in 2009, a month before the SFMTA changed its process for awarding medallions. Prior to 2010, drivers paid a small monthly fee to the city for the medallion. Fonseca waited over 15 years to clear the waiting list for his.
But the SFMTA created the Medallion Sales Program in 2010, which sold medallions to drivers for $250,000 going forward. Fonseca was grandfathered out. At first, cabbies earned more than enough to cover the price of payments to the SFMTA, and drivers expected the value of their medallions to rise over time, making money when they eventually transferred ownership.
But just months later, Uber and Lyft arrived in the city, and the cab-driving industry tanked. Now, drivers are stuck with overvalued medallions.
“We have been ignored all those years, when Uber and Lyft came to the scene,” Fonseca said. “I came to a conclusion of, well, what is a good way to get attention to this crisis, to this broken medallion system?”
In making the documentary, Fonseca enlisted his colleagues from the cab industry who bought their medallions from the Medallion Sales Program and are saddled with debt.
The documentary makes a plea to the SFMTA to buy back the medallions, which generated $60 million for the department. The SFMTA is anticipating an annual budget deficit of $300 million by 2026.
Fonseca said that, like many Brazilians, his driving career started in pizza delivery, learning the city routes with a stack of steaming boxes in his trunk. A cab driver who used the bathroom at the pizza restaurant where he worked convinced Fonseca that driving a cab would be more comfortable and profitable.
He drove his first cab when he was 28. He’s 64 now, and has been off the road because of health issues, but he’s eager to get back when he’s cleared. He has spent the last six years working on this documentary, hoping it will attract City Hall’s attention.
“To be honest with you, I could walk away from the taxi industry tomorrow. I could return my medallion to the MTA, but I’d like to leave the industry with dignity,” Fonseca said. “Our only choice throughout this crisis is to leave the industry, losing money, pride and dignity. I really feel we’ve been stripped of all that.”
Watch “Taken For A Ride: How San Francisco Backstabbed a Generation of Cab Drivers” on June 1 at 1 p.m. at the Vogue Theater, or stream it here.
Cold comfort – at least they didn’t get screwed by the City as much as their colleagues in NYC. Still, it’s a scandal. SFMTA happily took the cabbies’ dollars all these years, just to throw them out into the cold just like so.
A few counts against the cabbies though, they couldn’t be concerned with maintaining a consistent standard of service. What with cabbies:
– Blasting AM hate radio at level 11
– Not watching after personal hygiene
– Aiming at ppl in the street mid block
– Refusing rides to the west side
– Playing christian missionary wannabies, annoying a captive audience
– Defrauding riders, claiming they couldn’t process a CC payment at the end of the ride, just to charge 10x later
– Paying off an SFMTA official to avoid testing for license renewal. That was dozens, not just isolated cases BTW
Daniel,
As a career cab driver, I find your generalization of “cabbies” very insulting.
Before given a license, San Francisco cab drivers would go through a rigorous training program. We were taught the rules and regulations to comply with, we were taught professional behavior, and we took video classes from the insurance companies on safe driving.
Most of us took our cab driving careers very seriously!
I never had my AM/FM stereo on unless my passengers requested it. I took a shower before starting my shift and I took a shower at the end of my shift.
Did it ever occur to you that clean cab drivers get stinky passengers as well?
Although illegal, many cab drivers were picky about destinations. I’m sorry you went through that.
I never chose my passengers’ destinations, and I never preached my beliefs to anyone unless it came spontaneously in a conversation with passengers who liked to engage in a conversation.
The credit card system in taxis in the early days had faulty technology; there were many cases of passengers getting charged the wrong amount, but most of them (99%) were errors.
San Francisco used to have more than 5,000 licensed taxi drivers; none of them would get away with charging $600 on your credit card for an airport ride.
Regarding your comment on “paying off an SFMTA official to avoid testing for license renewal”, I really don’t know what you’re talking about. We are given a geography test before getting our licenses and we are drug tested at clinics recommended by the SFMTA. In my very long career, I have not heard of a single case of a cab driver bribing an official from the SFMTA. Never! And why would anyone at the SFMTA do that?
Unprofessional and dishonest people are everywhere, not only in the taxi industry.
Regarding the plight of medallion buyers portrayed in the film mentioned in this article — TAKEN FOR A RIDE — the SFMTA and the City of San Francisco MUST make them whole.
You cannot charge the downtrodden cab drivers $250,000 to drive for hire when Uber, Lyft and now Waymo get a free ride. It is that simple!
Please watch the film. You’ll see the faces of those who really appreciate your business.
The SFMTA’s Medallion Sales Program is a complete disaster and a shameful abuse of power. What they have done is akin to burning down one’s own building in order to get the insurance money. At a time when the City should have been bending over backwards to allow taxis to adequately compete with Uber & Lyft, the City WRECKED the cab business and destroyed the lives of hundreds if not thousands of people while pocketing many millions of dollars. It was government gangsterism. They did this knowing that the people who got crushed by all of this had little or no ability to defend themselves. The City paints itself as so loving and kind, but the SFMTA’s Medallion Sales Program shows us who they really are.
The city definitely owes it to these people to buy back their medallions. $60M is a drop in the bucket of the SF budget.
I first read about this in regards to NYC cabbies. These drivers lost life savings. There were suicides. This is a horrible indictment of San Fran, a city that prides itself on its progressive ideals.
It’s a city of 2 camps of progressives – people who actually do care about the little people, and those who use the veneer of giving a crap as PR hair gel.
How are they not class-action status already? SF absolutely willingly screwed them!
How does this city justify treating people like this and never tending the wounds?