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The reason seems to be to make traffic manageable. It's similar to the idea of cap-and-trade pollution regulation. Each individual producer profits with pollu
by aamar 16y ago
The reason seems to be to make traffic manageable.
It's similar to the idea of cap-and-trade pollution regulation. Each individual producer profits with pollution, but people believe the environment can only sustain some level, after which we have serious harm to both polluters and non-polluters. This environmental capacity is analogous to SF's (assessment of) traffic capacity.
I don't know why SF doesn't allow trading or transferring the medallion, the way many other cities do.
- jamesaguilar 16y agoSeems like a red herring to me. Taxis aren't by any means the majority of the traffic in SF, so I doubt having more of them would cause a major issue. If anything, it would make things more manageable by easing the parking situation (since prices would be lower and people would not need to drive).
- aamar 16y agoThere are too few taxis in SF today. The city has been adding medallions[1]; unfortunately the years-old plan to add medallions has been slowed by implementation issues and controversy around details. However, my point above was more theoretical. There is still some number beyond which each additional driver would have a positive incentive to enter the market, but the net social benefit would be negative (i.e. tragedy of the commons). So it still is reasonable to cap medallions in large, dense cities. [1] http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Scaled-down-plan-for-taxi-medallions-launches-95592049.html http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Scaled-down-plan-for-taxi-me...