Mis Fitzsimmons, I'm not sure by what metric you consider Uber to be Silicon Valley's "biggest success story," as the firm has yet to make a profit.
2
Last year Uber lost an eye popping 2 billions dollars to subsidize your ride. Great if you are a rider.
If you are a driver this is what it looks like for an experience 10 years ex yellow cab driver:
In 1994 a cab to Kennedy from anywhere in Manhattan was $30. In 1998 $45. In 2018 $60 all increase based on the cost of living.
With Uber in 2018, 25 years later, the ride to Kennedy is $34 including $6 toll if you are lucky.
Now explain how a driver to survive on half an old income?
In outer borough the average fare is $4 on excessive pooling. How many pools do you have to ferry for a living?
So the drivers I know who are not Caucasian or African American are picking up street hail uptown and downtown Brooklyn to survive because Uber, Lyft and others do not make the cut.
This is our reality in a so called liberal city.
4
The taxi industry in NYC has long been a perfect example of terrible service at high cost. UBER is no better: drivers have no idea where they are going, and following a GPS step by step leads to long and terrible drives. How about educating drivers? How about making them go through a test of the geography of our city? How about improving public transportation. Our subway system is third grade. The key word here, is Professional driver - a status that should be acquired only after going through training and certification.
1
Airbnb should be next...
4
Finally. This should have been done years ago. An app company gets super rich while the quality of life in the city gets ruined has been a travesty.
5
"Taking lead in crackdown" I would rather call it "panders to the taxi lobby". In London the mayor also tried to drive Uber out of business in order to placate the black cab drivers, who are also politically well organised and contribute to the politicians' coffers. In London though the Times did not print laudatory articles supporting anti-competitive measures and did not bemoan the effects on the poor taxi cab owners. Indeed, after a million signatures were rapidly gathered supporting Uber and threatening retaliation at the polls the politicians backed off. Time for similar responses in NY?
1
@ian stuart-sorry but it is not a level playing field. These companies avoid most of the rules that govern taxi drivers and cab companies. They do not pay taxes, they do not train their drivers, background checks are woefully insufficient; fraud is a huge problem; sexual assault; refusing rides to people with guide dogs...the list goes on and on. People think it is great but if something happens, watch out.
5
I'm a big fan of ride hailing services but agree that regulators must deal with the unexpected consequences of their proliferation (e.g., unlivable wages, Manhattan congestion, pollution, etc.). Proposals around congestion pricing, eco-friendly vehicle fleets, and taxes earmarked for investment in mass transit all seem logical.
3
I wish I can start a business and have the government come in and take away the competition.
The taxi company's need to step up their game if they want to "compete". But in this case it is not a competition if they are backed by the city.
This is horrible in so many ways.
4
This article is all over the place.
1) "In New York, many Uber drivers work full time and the city regulates Uber vehicles as part of the for-hire vehicle industry, which is different than other cities." - it should have started with this. The rest of the content would make a lot more sense.
2) 6 suicides - is that high or low compared to other industries?
3) Some data on median driver earnings, on the number of vehicles in NY and other information would be very useful.
Reading this its just hard to figure out the potential impact of this policy. All it talks about is grievances and what each politician/uber spokesperson said. Try including some more facts - the NY times is usually very good at this.
4
Let me say a few words on behalf of medallion owners. (And I'm former NY-er, who could not find a cab when I needed one when I lived there. So I know what it’s like.)
For literally generations, the City refused to allow people to drive personal cars as taxis. Instead, they made them purchase medallions, which were strictly limited. Cab owners and drivers had to scrimp and save to play by the rules.
Along comes Uber and Lyft which starts putting personal cars on the street -- the exact thing taxi owners/drivers weren't allowed to do. Medallion owners are mortgaged to the hilt because they played by rules. And no one finds that unfair?
Sorry, but I have sympathy for the medallion drivers.
11
WONDERFUL NEWS!!!
This and the AirBnB crackdown has been a flicker of positive progress in a dark year of bad news. I hope other cities follow suit.
5
About time UBER's wings got clipped.
Software in another jurisdiction should not enable a person to bypass laws and regulations with impunity just because it works great on an iPhone.
Whats happened with UBER sets very poor precedent. Whats next, iPhone pharma that bypasses all reasonable controls just because "there's an app for that"? Will DA's and courts ignore iPharma and allow drugs to flow freely from unqualified sources within the US market and across state lines just because its 2 clicks on a phone?
How about iDoctor, iAccountant, iOptomitrist, iLawyer, or iPilot. How about iPolice? iFireman. iOncologist. We can make them fast, cheap and an iPhone icon too. Ultimately, whats the difference?
Common sense still has to prevail over convenience, only common sense is becoming less and less common all the time.
In the end - fix the taxi industry, don't bypass laws and regulations to do it.
7
The law of unintended consequences:
In 1937, in an effort to regulate the number of taxis, New York City established the medallion system. I haven't been able to find what the original price was, but it climbed to over one million dollars before falling back to today' ~$200,000. While the concept undoubtedly limited the number of licensed city taxis, this pricing phenomenon is, in my opinion, indefensible. I hope that the decision to limit Uber permits doesn't end up the same.
2
Just to think: now all of the Uber riders in my generation will have to experience socialism first hand in the subway. When it's 90+ degrees, it smells like urine and human waste, you've got to go to the bathroom but the station attendant won't open the door, and you just missed your train leaving Penn Station because that scheduled subway was supposed to arrive 30 minutes ago, will you think about not voting Democrat?
Capitalism is pretty much summarized as the minimization of force. While all New Yorkers subsidize the MTA whether they provide value or not, Uber rides are voluntary contracts on both sides. Buyer and seller come together for an agreed-upon price, and both sides are made better off.
I've driven for Uber, and prefer to do it during surge pricing. Low prices/wages signal to drivers that their labor would be higher-valued in other areas of the economy, all Uber really does is help find those signals.
Shame on the New York City Council and shame on Bill de Blasio.
3
How is the subway the epitome of socialism? Are subway and metro systems everywhere such a failure that people must use alternative (and more costly) services? Or perhaps it's poor urban planning, corruption, underfunding (because, as you say, why should the government pay for it), mismanagement of those funds and lack of foresight that is the issue. With the right (and by that I mean wrong) actors, the NYC subway system can be replicated anywhere. And yet, cities all over the world, in places where the cost of living is just as high and "socialism" is preceded by "democratic" and not considered a bad word, are not crippled by poor transit... This is not an issue where Democrats, Republicans or socialism are real factors.
6
The biggest joke of all is that the mayor needs a year to study the problem. We are reminded that he first proposed restricting Uber in 2015 for a year of study. Nothing has stopped his studying in the last three years, but somehow he needs more study time now. Don't for a minute believe that this will end in one year. Ride hail services will be restricted to benefit medallion holders indefinitely; those restrictions will only increase; expect ride/hail drivers to need to purchase a medallion in the future. Mayor de Blasio has just given an enormous middle finger to the citizens and visitors of NYC. How dare you try to use a better service?
4
Oh yes - "We LOVE the marketplace" & then you Stifle the marketplace because the monopolizers are whining and crying like babies.
You can fight the changes. Twist arms at City Hall to resist the changes. But in the end - the changes will come. And nothing you do will stop what works for the marketplace
3
Oftentimes when local governments intervene in a market, the affect is to limit competition, reduce the quality of service and raise prices for consumers. So it was with the cable industry, where localities gave monopoly access to one or two companies to lay the "last mile" lines in return for a few "free" Prius cars. We know the result.
While Uber and Lyft subsidize fares, which is one important reason for their growing ascendance, a key reason overlooked is that the ride-share companies performed an end run around the high tax, anti-competitive practices that many cities have employed with the taxi business. The whole NYC medallion system is ridiculously anti-consumer.
More generally, what most surprises me is how the level of responsiveness of government to its citizens declines as the government entity contracts towards local governments. I suspect it is because so few people vote at the local levels, which allows city counselors to, literally, count their votes. Those voters are not broadly representative.
4
This is ridiculous. Free enterprise is free enterprise. Uber, Lyft, they offer a better service, taxi’s are hit or miss. Do you know how many times a taxi driver left me at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, stranded, because they did not want to go that far. Taxi’s are mostly dirty, hardly ever do they keep the A/C on.
Tell the City Coucil to stay out of free enterprise. Did not see them jump in when all the banks where collapsing in 2008/2009. They have gone too far, this is a dictatorship plan and clear.
The next time I vote, I vote for hands off free enterprise candidate.
25
@Kirk S.
The issue is that there is limited capacity on the roads - so they must be treated as common resources. The more people use a common resource, the faster it is depleted and no one gets to use it - its the classic tragedy of the commons.
Thus, trying to limit the number of vehicles in total does make sense. What is awful about this policy is that it targets only for-hire vehicles in particular. Congestion pricing on the other hand treats all vehicles the same based on time of day. That would be a far better policy.
4
@Kirk S.
Agreed, ridiculous. Either completely deregulate the taxi industry so that they are competing on a level playing field, or regulate and control UBER for the same effect.
It can't be one way for those trying to abide by laws and reg's, and open season for those that don't, and call it free enterprise.
By that standard, the local corner drug pusher is just mobile pharma.
2
Also ban or heavily tax street parking!
1
The ridiculous price for an artificially low number of medallions is what has caused the financial stress for the taxi community. The business must have been ridiculously profitable for a bank to lend hundreds of thousands to those willing to purchase one or entice those who wanted to borrow. The same thing will happen if the city decides to artificially limit companies like Uber and Lyft that provide a necessary service more conveniently and cheaper, and safer for the drivers since there is no cash involved in the transaction.
2
Uber is the new, and better way, so naturally this Paper will oppose this. I love uber and use it all the time. It is the future and this paper clings to the past. Yuk!
5
And cheers were heard from the buggy whip industry. Medallion taxis are like dead wood books - not totally obsolete, but definitely getting there.
6
Now we can move on to freezing the number of automatic elevators. The elevator operators should be earning a living wage.
8
Under DeBlasio the city has been hijacked by special interest groups in all areas. Medium class people are paying the price of his disastrous choices. He goes unchecked.
6
I have nothing against paying more for Uber/Lyft rides as part of giving drivers a living wage and it won't change my usage habits anymore than toll hikes on a highway. I also don't mind making Uber follow existing laws. I only make the following observations:
1. Since Uber's/Lyft's inception, the taxi industry's steadfast, passionate concern for me, as a consumer, has been quite touching. All that time spent trying to flag one down, begging them to take me to Brooklyn, dealing with "broken" credit card readers, etc., must have given me the wrong impression.
2. One wonders what to make of the multiple articles (including some published in this paper) explaining that increased ride-share presence has not correlated very strongly with decreased traffic speed, while failures of mass transit and/or infrastructure have.
3. I note at the same time that the more blame the Mayor/Governor shifts to ride-share companies, the less portion of the blame falls on them for not having done very much to maintain such mass transit and infrastructure until they systems began to fail.
4. With the last point in mind, it occurs to me that a focus on maintenance of mass transit systems might require politically dangerous discussions about budget realities, administrator salaries and/or tax policies. Capping Uber does not.
5. One would expect horrible congestion to increase subway ridership (especially as population has grown). Instead, ridership has fallen. Why is that?
8
The entire predicament the cab drivers are in was created by government regulation requiring medallions. The government should step in to bail out the existing medallion debts and then going forward allow drivers to determine whether they want to drive cabs or drive for ridesharing companies. At the end of the day these companies have been successful because they are offering a superior product that the consumer clearly wants. Government intervention to save an antiquated model is no better than Trump's attempts to save the coal industry through tariffs etc.
3
@A Many cities control the taxi industry. They set the regulations and fees, they controlled the number of taxis on the roads, training, background checks, etc, etc. Uber came along and was allowed to operate without any compliance to the traditional structure. They totally upset everything. Unlimited cars on the roads, no training, no proper insurance...and they undercut taxi pricing. Caused chaos, destroyed the livable wage, caused huge traffic volume, fraud, sexual assault, etc. Of course the public loves Uber until something awful happens to them. Then they discover Uber doesn't pay any of their losses and they have to sue. But the politicians who let Uber in have been letting the regulated industry suffer horribly and let all the other damage build up until it is intolerable. Every major city (Toronto, London, San Francisco...) has these issues. We are finally seeing some action from officials. Hopefully, it is not too late to fix all the problems caused by Uber.
3
This is a big mistake. There are no taxis to hail in central Brooklyn, even on the major thoroughfares. Green cabs were a nice try but can only reliably be hailed in the busiest and most prosperous commercial areas like Park Slope. Livery services are unreliable and frequently feature filthy cars. Liveries rarely come when promised (always "five minutes") and the drivers seem to make up the fare on the spot. Getting a taxi from the airport or the city to my neighborhood is often miserable as well as drivers simply don't want to come here and sometimes illegally refuse.
Into this mess came Uber and Lyft. Despite their flaws, suddenly I could reliably get a car at my front door in under 5 minutes. Suddenly I could get a car at the airport or the city that was happy to go to central Brooklyn. I mostly take the train, but these improved options improved our quality of life.
Why go back? Why are yellow cabs deserving of city protection when they delivered terrible service to so many residents? Do yellow cabs serve anyone well except Manhattanites and tourists?
4
So what is the current cap of drivers both for uber (ie ride sharing) and yellow cabs and how is that determined? How does the government think this cap relates to actual traffic in the city?
1
OK, the city limits the # of Uber and Lyft cars and the result will be that those to services will be harder to come by in the outer boroughs. Good job! Cities, including NY, need to face the fact that Uber and Lyft are as successful as they are because they provide a service that more people want and at a price they are willing to pay. Public transportation doesn't, in New York or anywhere else, and probably can't. Cabs are hideously expensive; are hard to come by outside of Manhattan, and can be impossible to come by at rush hour or when the weather is lousy (as it so often is in NYC). Face it, people, you want to cut back on traffic in Manhattan. Pick about 1,000,000 people at random and order them to move somewhere else.
1
“We are pausing the issuance of new licenses in an industry that has been allowed to proliferate without any appropriate check or regulation,” Mr. Johnson said before the vote, adding that the rules would not diminish existing service for New Yorkers who rely on ride-hail apps.
In other words we are trying to get a handle on this thing so we can make more money for the city. We will study ways to tax and fee the service to death. LOL Bureaucrats at there worse.
1
I wonder how recently Uber/Lyft supporters have actually been in a cab with a medallion? There are at least two apps that allow one to hail a cab via phone - Curb and Lyft. Very handy in remotely served areas.
I will never use a service that rates my quality as a customer. That is insulting. I am s very good and considerate customer but I am aware that there are difficult customers in all industries. Dealing with obnoxious customers is pay off the job when you are in the service industry and these ride share companies have a poor attitude.
God forbid you be held accountable for bad behavior.
1
People can be so selfish in terms of their willingness to take advantage of the exploitation of workers just to get a cheap taxi ride. All because a company came up with a way to exploit workers. Uber promised better lifestyles. A scam. They forced all workers to be contract with no health insurance, and lousy pay that averaged little more than fast food workers.
Where did we lose our moral compass that we would rather not fix a problem that would force liveable wages because we can get a taxi ride for $5 instead of $8?
Uber's response to this new law will tell you what you need to know about them. They promised to balkanize and destroy car services in order to greedily amass a bigger footprint in NYC.
The truth: This law does not reduce Uber service. It freezes it for exactly one year. Your rides will still be there.
The truth: Most of Uber's rides no matter where they start, end up in Manhattan.
Yes, the Mass Transit Authority needs to better service outlying areas. Gov. Cuomo has raided the MTA budget 5 of 7 years to service NY debt to the tune of more than 300 million. He cut $250 million from what corporations must pay to support mass transit.
The solution to mass transit woes is not Uber, but a governor that cares as much about NYC as he does upstate and New Yorkers who care not to use a desperate driver's circumstance to fund their cheaper rides. Call a local taxi service. For a slightly longer wait, you'll support a fellow New Yorker's living wage.
7
@Tony Glover I may be wrong, but I don't think Uber or Lyft forces people to drive for them. Most Uber drivers (friendly and interesting) I've used have not done it to earn a living wage but to earn a little between jobs or as a way to pass the time in retirement.
But I do ask forgiveness for once again exploiting peoples.
2
Leave uber alone! It is a great service and Taxis are inferior in most cities... and please let the market determine the number of vehicles for hire in the city!!! No need to interfere.
6
In 10 years when self-driving cars are safer and cheaper than human drivers, the city council will put a cap on them to protect the Uber drivers.
4
Stupid move; people will just get back to their own cars and create even more gridlock, more drunk driving and accidents. Taxicabs drivers have to understand that the skill level and pay of their work can't be equaled to what ingeneers, Doctors or other skilled jobs makes if they need more money like everyone else they should consider a change in career or other alternatives.
5
'Bout time to walk...?
2
Remember in the movie Taxi Driver where DeNiro was talking about what he had to clean off the back seats of the cabs.
One was vomit, the other I won't mention here, but...You don't get that in Lyft or Uber..
1
@Rick
You choose a film released 42 years ago to promote the notion that taxi cabs are just too filthy to use? Or cab drivers are all unsavory sorts. Painting with a pretty broad brush there.
In my experience taxis are clean, recent model hybrids manned by visibly credentialed drivers who can get me home without resorting to their cellphone or GPS for assistance.
They also lock the left rear door so unthinking passengers don't exit into oncoming traffic, and know where to pull over so as not to obstruct traffic ... something that seems lost on Uber/Lyft drivers I've encountered.
1
@Steve
It is just your experience. San Francisco is no parameter either. too dirty.
@Rick
then you haven't listened to many UBER drivers.....
They have that, plus more, and its their personal vehicles.
Also talk to the female UBER operators that get verbally or physically abused by passengers.
Also talk to the passengers that have been in an UBER in an accident and sustained injuries and can't get paid by the Insurance company because the driver didn't have livery insurance to take a paid ride.
1
The problem with Uber and Lyft (and green taxis)is that, like medallion taxis, they like to cruise in Midtown and on the routes most likely to be called/hailed. If they ceded those routes to the medallion taxis and focused on service to the outer boroughs then the travelers would be best served. But everyone is fending for themselves and don't consider why everybody is getting stalled in traffic side by side. The city needs to take the broad view and PLAN the best traffic design possible. Piece-meal bandaids don't help anyone- drivers, residents or tourists.
1
Shameful. Private citizens want to hire other private citizens for a mutually beneficial, clean, safe car ride. There is no reason the City Council should try to outlaw that.
4
Predictable how the entrenched businesses react when technology creates a new business model that passes them by. Taxi vs Uber, Hotels vs AirBnB, etc, etc. And how their donated to pols come to their rescue.
2
Can we put a cap on tourists clogging the sidewalks?
4
...And Atlas Shrugged.
1
I applaud this legilation by the NYC City Council!
And I'll be contacting my district Supervisor this morning w/ a NYT link to your article, and urge him and his fellow supervisors to follow suit here in San Francisco!
2
@Steve
Thank goodness there are an abundance of taxis, especially in the Avenues and outer neighborhoods when you need them (sarcasm font)
I will put in a good word for Muni, which won't win any cleanliness or safety awards, but is available.
We use yellow cabs rarely, and Uber even less. But if the medallion cabs want to compete, they need to step up their game. Of the last two we hailed in midtown, the first driver didn't know where Penn Station was and the second had never heard of Lincoln Center. Aren't they supposed to be tested and certified to know such things?
And then, of course, there's the AC problem, which, with the dividers in place, serve to keep the drivers cool and the passengers sweltering.
People prefer Uber and Lyft for a reason.
41
@Jesse Stiller You should also be aware of what you are participating in. Which is an erosion of labor rights and precarity for other human beings. The sharing economy has been reckless in their participation in the community.
1
@Jesse Stiller
I drove a cab in the seventies. They gave us a test and answers to the questions. Everybody passed. No, I'm not kidding.
1
Because they are cheap?
Cap on Supply is never good economics.
Demand will remain constant, thus Wages/Price of Uber/Lyft rides will go up. This will increase the op.margins for Lyft and Uber and their fellow drivers and the wait times for consumers.
I fail to see how this will help the average Taxi driver.
While WV is trying to put people back in coal mines, deBlasio is trying to put New Yorkers back into the Taxi driving seats.
DeBlasionomics scares me. The Proposal to change education in NYC and now this. People need to adapt to changing economics. I'd prefer a debt-forgiving plan or a medallion buy-back program over interventionism.
In LA, you do not often see taxi's around.
NYTimes plans to taking away my beloved Cooking sections for a cost. Having the mayor intervene is not the answer.
2
Uber/Lyft is a much more pleasant and reliable experience. Maybe the city government should review why these ride hailing services have been so successful and implement some practices to the yellow cabs. Regardless of this outcome, I still won't be taking a yellow cab (mainly because it's so hard to hail one in the first place).
1
“And this action will stop the influx of cars contributing to the congestion grinding our streets to a halt.”
A lot of this congestion is caused by the failure of the city to issue tickets to drivers who block intersections.
Issue tickets of $50 to any driver who blocks an intersection, or who blocks a pedestrian crossing.
New York pedestrians seem to be amazingly patient and they often walk into danger to cross the street - merely because the legal access has been blocked by a car.
New Yorkers are not a patient group but in THIS matter they seem to act like sheep.
1
"The taxi industry has also been decimated by Uber's rise. The price of a taxi medallion, . . ., has plunged from more than $1 million to less than $200,000."
That a taxi medallion might ever sell for as much as a $1 million is sign of how burdensome NYC policies are on it's residents. How ironic that a city government that imposes "rent controls" should also limit taxi medallions to the point where the price was a high as $1 million.
The idea that it is good policy to avoid congestion is simply absurd, especially now that technology provides a way to provide real time congestion pricing in Manhattan.
Meanwhile the limit on Uber licenses as well as on taxi medallions means that residents in the poorer sections of NYC will suffer from high prices and lack a availability of transportation.
Once again, the supposed champion of the poor serve only the special interests.
The reporter states that many UBER drivers work full-time. She does not state her source. I suspect someone at UBER or the TLC told her so.
My sources tell me that turnover at UBER measures in huge percentages, with few earning a livable income short of sixty hours a week.
Also, the reporter perpetuates the mischaracterization of this minimum wage business: only if UBER drivers are classified as employees, half of their Social Security and Medicare payments made by UBER, will they be receiving a minimum wage.
Otherwise, they're on their own!
Thirty years ago, independent contractors looked for $20 per hour for ten hours to know they were making their nut.
I've heard the TLC is considering an amount materially less than that.
Some things never change.
1
In otherwords, looks like we are in another cycle to regulate. This same scenario probably happened years ago to regulate the current taxi system in New York that Uber simply circumvents. Uber just took drivers back to the days before there were regulations.
3
Wise move. These companies are basically con games where the real money comes from enrolling more and more drivers who will eventually saturate the markets and fail to make livings while the company owners accumulate a lot of wealth. The business model is basically the same as was slash a burn agriculture practiced when the world was covered with primeval forests. When the land was exhausted the people just moved on. New York is a city that depends upon transport that is shared and both taxis and these shared ride services can only exist in a balanced kind of harmony to exist at all. Without local regulation, the shared ride services will drive the taxis out of business and then drive themselves out of business.
5
Did someone point a gun at the Uber driver’s head to drive for them? Are Uber’s drivers driving for free?
Would you rather that the jobs Uber and Lyft created disappear?
1
Uber is, really, a bust. When it started, the first drivers were making big bucks which lured behind the wheel many more drivers. Now, no one can make any money. I've always found NYC to be a great walking city, dodging blocks by catching the subway.
2
How much you want to bet that Uber will use this as an excuse, with some PR to soften, to ultimately raise prices? I'd be just fine with that, if they lessened their cut of the raise and let the drivers have more. But I'm not holding my breath.
3
The new pay rules will in essence give drivers a minimum wage. If you believe in having a minimum wage for other occupations, I'm having a hard time understanding why you would be against it for this occupation.
2
This is a good thing. Our streets are way too congested.
3
Let's recap. NYC transportation was safe, well organized and never crowded and it was always easy to move around the city. Whenever you wanted a cab you just walked out on the street and they arrived whether you live in Manhattan, Queens, or any other boro. The Subways were clean, never crowded and never had delays. Busses showed up on time and moved efficiently through the streets. And if you wanted to ride a bike, just like Holland it was perfectly safe and acceptable. And then Uber, Lyft, & Juno came along and all of a sudden the streets became congested and everything got messed up. Ok, I get it now.
17
The gig economy in all it's forms is a disaster for a livable wage. Airbnb may be the only decent one. If fact, in many parts of the world renting out a room or rooms is still pretty common.
Licensed taxi drivers got the rugged pulled out from under them. ALL drive services should have fixed payment rates for driver.
Uber and Lyft took over because they didn't have the inconvenience of licensing and medallions in addition to municipalities being slow to license this new form of car hire.
4
Completey agree. Also, Uber drivers should be considered employees with full benefits and a minimum wage of $15 per hour, after car expenses. Uber riders who merely consider their convenience disregard the damage done to society from the race-to-the-bottom cost approach Uber uses.
6
What makes the most sense is to require anyone without a taxi medallion to use an electric vehicle. Charging stations can be strategically placed. Make it a win win win.
3
I was flown recently to NYC to do consulting for a company which flew in about 10 total consultants for the same session. At the end of the session, each of us was given our own black cars to go to our respective airports. Each car was a gas-guzzling 7-seater utility vehicle, no less. I tried to share a car with a fellow consultant going to the same airport, but I was told that each individual car was waiting outside and couldn't be sent back.
This was a relatively small biotech company, and I imagine this kind of wasteful black car usage happens routinely in NYC.
I appreciate that the company was trying to treat the consultants nicely but it seems that a widespread change in entitlement mindset might help with the overall congestion and waste of passenger space.
7
I have nothing against businesses turning a profit or successful entrepeneurship, but it is a simple fact that one sure way businesses can increase their profitability is to cut labor costs. American workers, who individually can’t negotiate on equal footing with large employers, need to utilize the power of our elected government to push back and establish a balance. That means laws ensuring the right to collective bargaining. That means regulations like the ones being proposed.
4
Relieving traffic congestion and setting minimum pay standards for ride-share drivers are legitimate issues for regulation by the Council. At the same time, subway service needs to be improved or at least maintained. I don't live in the city so take residents' comments as superior to mine. On the other side of the river, we are working on New Jersey Transit's problems (at long last).
4
Finally, the city does something right. Less cars, less congestion, less noise and less air pollution. We can all breath a little easier. And yes, fewer cars makes for safer streets.
6
How about this: since Uber suddenly seems so concerned about outer borough riders, how about designating a large number of their drivers to operate exclusively in the outer boroughs? That way people in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island are served, while concurrently decreasing the congestion in Manhattan.
3
@Betty Boop Unlike yellow cabs -- which to this day operate almost exclusively in Manhattan -- Uber has been offering rides in the outer boroughs since day one. Further, they've done so in places where even green taxis didn't go; before Uber came along, residents of the city's many "transportation deserts" -- places at least 15 minutes away via foot from the nearest bus or subway stop -- usually had no choice but to use gypsy cabs that charged extortionate-level fares.
In any event, Uber's "concern for outer borough riders" is not a new thing.
4
I am so glad I left NYC and can enjoy my retirement in Florida, No income tax and sun 300 days a year...and I will probably die before global warming allows the ocean to take my home.
2
no sun for 300 days? sounds more like the Arctic Circle.
Will yellow cabs be mandated to travel to the outer-boroughs?
3
@Concerned Citizen They already are. How about some enforcement of that rule instead of new rules.
1
...and pump-up Manafort's medallion business just when he need some honest income....hmmm.
True story.
A few years ago I was in midtown and needed to get to a business meeting so I took a yellow cab. It was a very cold day. Within seconds of getting in the cab I had to open the window. The cab smelled and the driver hadn't been near water in days.
Fast forward to today. I can take a clean air conditioned ride in Uber to where ever I want to go in the city. The driver takes his cue from you the passenger and will talk or not talk according to your lead. The drivers use GPS to get you where you need to go in the least amount of time. Recently I've had to attend funerals in both Queens and Brooklyn. I've also traveled to Brooklyn for personal reasons. No argument.
This all sounds to me as if the yellow cab industry realizes that the people who live in the outer boroughs are not all thugs and murderers and that they're scrambling to catch up. Their market share in Manhattan has also shrunk because many of the worker bees live in the outer boroughs and need to get home after work or after dark.
I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and plan to take Uber into Manhattan.
11
@Madeleine215
There are already far too many cars in Manhattan, which is a huge problem primarily caused by Uber/Lyft; how about taking the subway instead?
5
@Betty Boop
And get to my appointment an hour late due to "signal problems?"
No thank you.
2
@Betty Boop are you new to nyc or live in the city? It’s well documented now that trains are not on time. There comes a point where taking a car where you see your approx arrival time is more accurate than the 30min plus window outer borough people budget to “hopefully” arrive on time
So let me get this straight. NYC creates an artificial scarcity of taxi licenses, causing medallion tokens to skyrocket in price over several decades.
Cab drivers are then forced to pay exorbitant prices to obtain medallions, often times taking out loans large enough to purchase a house.
Then as technology evolves and Uber/Lyft enter the space to compete with taxis, prices for Medallions crater and taxi drivers protest.
So after setting arbitrary and artificial limits on taxis, NYC politicians want to create further artificial limits but imposing restrictions on the Ubers.
How about they try to leave the industry alone for a change. Uber and Lyft are very popular because they are better. They are better as customer service, accountability, prices, and convenience. Thats why people choose to use them over taxis.
17
Congestion pricing was the answer. Placing elevators at subway stations making the subways more usable for so many of the
seniors who are dependent on Uber/Lyft. Definitely NOT limiting car services that are user friendly, go anywhere at anytime for a reasonable fee.
7
There's no chance that NYC can improve it's transit to the benefit of the users.
None.
The paying public and the taxpayers exist only to feed the greed of the transit agencies and their political protectors.
So New Yorkers, don't complain; pay and suffer.
12
If the mayor is truly concerned about congestion, why has he:
- supported issuing an additional 60,000 parking placards;
- continued to do nothing about the hundreds of thousands of issued (and fake) parking placards available today; and
- continued to do nothing about the rampant abuse of parking placards (e.g. blocking bus and bike lanes)?
The widespread availability and abuse of placards is a significant contributor to the city's congestion, and an obvious area to address.
7
Guessing this is the latest example of pay to play. The goal is help medallion owners, who basically oversee legalized serfdom with their drivers.
The other day, a Queens councilwoman gets published, in this paper, falsely claiming that the Uber, etc., destroy the "middle class" lives of yellow cab drivers. But, the actual bill is concerned about the welfare of medallion owners.
Let's not forget that yellow cabs discriminate against people who they consider to be visually undesirable and refuse to go to certain neighborhoods.
The yellow cab industry once prompted certain gypsy cabs to Don the sticker, "We're not yellow. We go to Harlem."
9
Wonderful news, especially on the minimum pay rate. However,
"The price of a taxi medallion, which is required to operate a taxi in New York, has plunged from more than $1 million to less than $200,000."
Now, City Council, investigate the Taxi & Limousine Commission regarding medallion fees. Most of the taxi operators who took their lives couldn't afford the payments - some in the mid or upper 6 figures! All for driving a cab in NYC? Clearly, this is corruption.
2
@Charlie:
"Most of the taxi operators who took their lives couldn't afford the payments - some in the mid or upper 6 figures! "
Well, most of the suicides have been by Uber/limo drivers.
And in fact the City sold medallions for a couple of hundred thousand dollars do drivers only about 15 years ago. So driving a taxi would cover payments in many cases.
Then some drivers took on debt, say for a new car, as the medallions increased vastly in price, and they were allowed to borrow against them at the "market" rate.
So there's a good bit you're missing, though you do note how much Uber drove down wages, so that's good.
I live in Brooklyn, NY, and I use Uber and Lyft. More so Uber, because they offer ride pass. Even though I live near train lines and bus lines, both within walking distance of my home I choose to use ride share apps for transportation. Yellow cabs are rarely seen in my neighborhood, unless someone is coming from the airport. Yellow cabs don’t want to come to outer boroughs. The bus service is horrible, sometimes there are waits of up to an hour for a bus. The livery cab industry saw what was happening and they apparently decided to be reactive after the fact instead of being proactive. I’m a retired transit employee and I ride for free, but I’m choosing to use uber and Lyft. That says something right there.
4
Congratulations on covering NYC news, and not just obsessing on Trump. It's almost time to take "New York" off the masthead.
5
I hope others city follow suit, especially San Francisco. The streets are so clogged here and many of the drivers are not from SF so they don’t know the etiquette of city driving which causes many accidents and countless dangerous situations. This with the homelessness makes me want to leave some days.
2
Chalk up a major victory for the special interests over regular New Yorkers. Enjoy waiting in the sweltering heat and humidity for a yellow taxi that - when you can finally hail one - will tell you he is "off duty" once he hears you want a ride outside Manhattan. Let's go back to the horse and buggy while we are at it. Cars pollute the environment and they have had an adverse impact on the economic welfare of horse breeders and buggy manufacturers. Let's turn back the clock to the bad old days when no one could count on getting a ride when you needed it.
8
Time for the drone taxis.
lol. when fdr used wage and price controls to increase salaries and stop deflation, he even went so far as to destroy food... while the country starved. the hubris and idiocy of the govt that thinks it can do better than the free market just amazes me and never abates. the smart way here is price congestion. let people pay for the privilege of driving in midtown during rush hour, and beef up the subway. rent control in nyc also is so, so smart. so smart...that you can count on one hand the number of cities that do it. thousands of 2-3 bedroom apartments in nyc now occupied by one or two people. uh huh. brilliant. how about public housing? also fantastic govt intervention in the market. also works GREAT!!
2
It is disheartening to hear opponents to the Uber cap claim that app services are a solution to the subway mess (how many Uber/Lyft rides are $2.75?), or that it's just the way capitalism goes (true capitalism creates true opportunity for workers; it does not rake in millions on the backs of exploited drivers). I expect more from my fellow New Yorkers than "I want my ride right now!" I expect them to oppose exploitative practices, be appalled that such practices have led workers to take their own lives in despair, and demand solutions to problems of underserved neighborhoods and mass transportation that benefit New York -- not just themselves. In the meantime, I'll continue to raise my hand, jump in a yellow cab, and speed away while Uberers stare into their phones and look around for their rides.
5
@DM "It is disheartening to hear opponents to the Uber cap claim that app services are a solution to the subway mess (how many Uber/Lyft rides are $2.75?), or that it's just the way capitalism goes (true capitalism creates true opportunity for workers; it does not rake in millions on the backs of exploited drivers)."
I would strongly suggest doing some reading about the NYC taxi industry if you're under the false impression that *Uber* is the party most guilty of exploiting drivers. Even before Uber came along, NYC cabbies -- aside from the tiny number who managed to purchase their own medallions -- were required by fleet owners to "sublease" a medallion and fleet vehicle to the tune of $175 a day (upfront). Even back then it typically took a taxi driver a full eight hours to recoup his initial outlay and daily fuel costs -- which is how they ended up working over 55 hours a week on average and taking home less than $25K a year.
Uber's practically a paragon of virtue in comparison.
5
@DM You clearly have no concept of how yellow taxis and medallions worked. Most of the drivers were employees of the medallion owners and had to work a normal work week just to pay off the lease on the medallion, before being able to net a penny. Yellow cabs are now more plentiful than previously because of the Ubers of the world. Prior to their entry into the market, you got into a cab that seemed to be held together with scotch tape and stank to high heaven while being driven at 90 miles an hour through red lights. If you don't remember this, you are not a real New Yorker.
@Jeff DM was an NYC cabbie in the 1980s (I am Mrs. DM), so we are well aware of how the taxi industry works.
NYC has survived with an unregulated Uber up to now. However, rent seekers intend to increase profits through anti-competitive government coercion. Of course, the least profitable riders (read: the poor in outlying areas) will be harmed the most.
2
I work in Midtown and it used to be impossible to get a cab after work to go to Lincoln Center or anyplace else. And they used to all go off duty at the same time when I needed to get somewhere. What a horror show. I never could understand why New York didn't have more cabs. What is the purpose of a medallion except to make someone rich. I think the price of a medallion went over a million dollars. why limit middle class New Yorkers access to the transportation that works for us.
8
@Maxstar212
"why limit middle class New Yorkers access to the transportation that works for us."
I'm sorry, Uber is not being banned, but you seem to think the drivers should work for free.
Also you should be able to use the subway easily to get from anywhere in mid-town to Lincoln Center quickly after 5PM.
1
I've got an idea: Decide how many cars are needed and sell only one permit for each vehicle. Or, better yet, something nice and permanent, like a medallion. Oh, wait...
Next let's cap the number of seats in restaurants, since there are already way too many of them and the pay is low.
8
So they say they want to freeze new Uber/Lyft cards for a year until they can do a study.
Since DeBlasio's failed attempt at limiting Uber/Lyft over a year ago (or longer), has any study been done? What's preventing them from allowing more licenses and studying the issue?
I recognize there'll be new entrants to the market but that shouldn't make it impossible to study the market.
This reminds me of Trump early on trying to shut down immigrants until they further "study the issue." Only, they never studied the issue.
5
Fix the subway system. It needs to be reliable and safe.
12
The city created an artificial shortage of taxi medallions driving their market price up and those who overpaid are now suffering.
Medallion owners should sue the city, and city authorities should learn that artificially limiting markets is rarely a good idea.
7
@Mark Marks’s I wasn't aware the City promised them it would only increase in value.
I believe Uber gives opinions to riders, taxi drivers in the past had monopoly and attitude. In big cities like Buenos Aires, taxi drivers reacted violently towards Uber drivers, burning, destroying Uber cars. In many cases physical violence, sending Uber drivers to ER. Uber has provided safety and reasonable prices to riders.
3
Somewhere, typewriter manufacturers are killing themselves over not getting New York to stop the sale of computers 30 years ago.
17
I am all for fairness in the marketplace. I am also for competition in the marketplace and freedom for technological progress. Without all the facts, I think this is muscle from the established elite to squash a fresh idea. Similar to AirBnB and the Hotels. The cab industry has been extremely exploitive to the drivers and patrons. The model is outdated and little investment has been applied for improvement. Instead of competing, they choose to strangle instead. This is Un-American.
7
Next agenda items: 1. Stop new construction in NYC so the Kurshners will be able to increase the price of their developement projects to save them from their crushing debt load! 2. Close down a few hotels so that Trump hotels will make more money. 3. Tax Netflix, Hulu, Youtube so protect Time/Warner cable. NYC created the problem by restricting taxi medallions, which created the crushing debt to buy these, which cause drivers to pay high rents to medallion owners to service debts, which lowers take-home pay.
6
@tomp
Exactly!
2
New York City should also check up on the regular cab industry. It's "nice' to dump on Uber, but there are lots and lots of people who do like Uber and use it. New York should check to see why so many people have changed to Uber, and see how this can improve the taxi-cab industry overall!
3
@Majortrout Perhaps in Montreal you can count on City government to do the right thing but the only thing you can count on in NYC is that the highest payer gets what he/she wants.
The main problem with the cap is that it will have no effect on the primary cause of the current crisis: NYC's woefully inequitable taxi medallion system, which still exists primarily due to the abject greed (and considerable influence) of the "corporate" medallion owners that control most of them.
Prior to Uber's arrival, medallion prices peaked at $1.2 million. Considering the fact that the annual taxi permits used by nearly every other major U.S. city cost around $500 (at the high end), NYC's medallion system is, well, nuts. In a bitter irony, medallion prices skyrocketed primarily due to the cap set by the TLC on the total number available; the city has fewer today than it did 80 years ago.
This cap resulted in a pricing bubble - between 2004-2014 medallion prices increased by over 400% - and like all such bubbles, it popped, in this case due to the elimination of NYC's 75-year taxi monopoly. While Uber may have popped said bubble, it played no role whatsoever in its creation.
The ONLY feasible long-term solution for the taxi industry's woes is for the city to abolish the medallion system entirely and compensate individual owners for their losses -- which Uber & Lyft already offered to do, in the form of a $100 million bailout fund. The mayor and city council rejected the offer, however, with nary a second thought, possibly because of a group explicitly denied part of this bailout money: the "corporate" medallion owners to whom the TLC remains unconscionably beholden.
6
I think this is bad policy -- a fixed cap is just too blunt a tool to serve the public interest.
First, I don't think our public policy should be designed to ensure that cab drivers and owners make a good return on their speculative investment in inflated medallions.
Smells like regulatory capture (where the regulators serve the interests of the industry rather than the public at large).
It's unfortunately that some cabbies have taken their own lives, but times change and the people have voted with their feet--they like mobile hailing ridesharing to replace a lot of cab rides. I'm sure the horse and buggy industry had a hard time adjusting to the automobile too.
Second, I think the concept of congestion pricing is a much more sensible and tailored way to try to reduce midtown traffic while letting Ubers roam freely in the outer boroughs.
1
Government involvement never makes things better, only worse
5
I am generally pro-regulation (pro- good regulation that has a strong economic justification), but I'm very skeptical of this. The solution to congested streets is congestion pricing. Any economist will tell you that if you want to decrease something, you tax it and then let price signaling sort out the most efficient solution. There are too many private vehicles on NYC streets, as well. There are too many delivery vehicles during mid-day. Design a functioning market and let it work, don't try central planning.
Minimum wages might be beneficial overall, I've seen conflicting research, but I don't think a minimum wage targeting a single industry is a good idea. Taxi medallions are a terrible, stupid system. They create an artificial monopoly and a class of rent-seekers who are not actually involved in the business, like Michael Cohen.
2
I am amazed how gullible folks really are. No one sets up a business to give monies to workers. They do it to make big bucks. Greed don't you know. To think these drivers thought they would get "rich" is almost a laugh, while being pathetic. Why do you think "real" cab drivers are so tight.
1
Unchecked growth =
1. more people who need more stuff, that's moredelivery trucks.
2. people who have to move need more transpo options.
3. increase demand on pubic infrastructure
We need better city planing and a limit to occupiable floor space.
And why dosen't the UN meet in August instead of September when school's are back and the streets are at their busiest? They can free run of the town while many are away. We can do this one right away!
3
Pretty sure London 'took the lead in crackdown' not NYC..!
2
Everyone is freaking out about losing their access to Uber/Lyft. It's not as if they won't exist anymore.
I agree with this move on NYC's part. I always use taxis unless it's impossible to get one during their changeover.
38
@L yea.the govt knows better how to manage supply and demand. what kind of work you do, sir? lets have the govt regulate how many of you are allowed to work, and too bad if you dont make the cut. after all, the govt knows better than you.
3
I switched to Uber because of the taxi changeover. Such an ancient problem that shouldn’t exist anymore. Only use taxis if they’re on a rank now. Uber is much cheaper too. Keep your changeover taxis if you must. I’ve gone to Uber.
In almost every city that Uber and Lyft operate in, there is an oversupply of drivers, as well as a decimation of traditional taxi services. Regulation is necessary: needs to be adopted in the Bay Area ASAP. On Friday and Saturday nights one of the most common sights on Valencia, Chestnut, Polk and other nightlife areas of SF is Lyft and Uber drivers, without passengers, waiting for business. At any point in the day there are hundreds of drivers in queue at SFO waiting for rides. The city of SF estimated that at any time almost 20% of street traffic is ride sharing vehicles. Regulation is necessary and cannot come soon enough.
7
ALL workers deserve to know how much they can reliably be paid. I applaud NY City Council for making this a priority.
We CANNOT expect companies to regulate themselves when their sole objective is to grow profits and dominate their industry; so I again, I applaud NY City Council for even attempting to do so.
Most cities bend over backwards to corporate interests in the name of innovation and convenience at the expense of the middle class and increasing number of independent contractors.
If this forces more New Yorkers to take public transportation, I can only see that as a positive. We need those who can afford to ride in taxis to be involved in civic action, so that we can finally produce policies that address:
- lack of climate change initiatives/education
- good air quality for all
- constant, steady, equitable allocation of private and public capital investment in public works
2
Concerned these companies require background checks only going back 7 years, not for their drivers' entire records as Taxi drivers are required to be checked.
A busy city's mass transit needs to be the focus of planning and funding to move growing numbers of passengers safely, respectfully and on time.
3
I live in Boston, a city that has always pretended to be walkable but in reality is not. Neighborhoods are spread out and transportation has always been an issue. Uber / Lyft became massively popular here early on, and have wreaked havoc. I understand why it’s a popular service, it’s cheap, fast and reliable. My girlfriend doesn’t drive, and she enjoys the freedom of not having to walk home or try to find a taxi at night. It may seem like a wonderful service with few downsides for the individual rider, however, Uber is not the answer to a cities transportation needs. The roads here have become extremely congested by fast moving, distracted drivers, mounted cell phone next to them at all times, constantly weaving in and out of bike lanes, and believe it or not have made gentrification worse - I work in real estate and talk to landlords in neighborhoods like Dorchester and Roxbury that say they now rent apartments all the time to white college students and young professionals who don’t worry about crime at all - they can take work / go to school / hang out in the neighborhood that they can’t afford and then Uber home later. They don’t have to walk to the local bus or subway stop or even interact with the neighborhood that they actually live in. And this doesn’t even get into the issues of fair pay / working conditions for the drivers. Big Tech has no long term plans for our cities, they want to market convenience to us and make lots of money doing it.
9
The cap is good but these unlicensed, illegal taxis should be completely banned from all streets.
2
NYC is trying the shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. Yellow cabs with their anticompetive medallion system are a dying breed.
4
Yet another reason NEVER to live in NYC. What a dump.
3
Can we please stop calling it "sharing"? Like amazon, Uber is simply a company that is offering a service for less than it costs to deliver, with the end goal of wiping out all competition and becoming a price-fixing monopoly. As Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism has been pointing out for years, this is an unsustainable business model. Despite strategically underpaying the majority of its drivers, Uber has burned through its start-up capital at a rate of $2.5 billion in 2015, $4 billion in 2016, and $4.5 billion in 2017. Here in Los Angeles, I have friends who, if invited to dinner at 6:30pm, will ask if we can make it 8:30 instead, so they can avoid paying the "surge" price for their Uber. (Simply drinking less at dinner, it appears, is not an option.) How will these cost-conscious ride-"sharing" consumers behave if and when Uber achieves its goal of being the only ride service left standing and has 24-hour price-gouging power?
10
The good news is that "dumping" goods or services into a market will only shut out competitors if there are significant barriers to entry. Cabs can be retired and started up again fairly quickly, and drivers will show up if there is money to be made.
These tactics work much better when there are huge fixed costs and knowledge required to start a business. If a foreign country was subsidizing, for example, steel exports to force competitors to close and render another nation dependent on their imports, this would likely and reasonably lead to high tariffs. It would take years and a huge investment to open new mills, and the expertise of the engineers and other workers could be hard (and possibly dangerous) to replace.
If Uber wants to subsidize taxi rides for a few years until they run out of cash and/or willing drivers, the overall social cost is not so severe. The drivers might suffer, but they are free to find other work. The medallion system adds unique pain in NYC, but there are remedies for this also, and speculators do not get much sympathy from anyone. The consumers benefit for a while (ignoring the pollution, which is too often ignored) and life goes on. The U. S. economy is, after all, consumer-focused, and rightfully so.
Let's choke any transit competition so New Yorkers can continue to pay the $600/hour subway tunnel workers* and the dozens of union cartels that prevent billions of tax dollars from having any real impact on MTA service.
*As documented in NYT expose 12/28/17."The Most Expensive
Mile of Subway Track on Earth" How excessive staffing, little
competition, generous contracts and archaic rules dramatically inflate capital costs for transit in New York."
11
Yes, Rick from VT, good idea. Let’s flood our finite number of streets with an endless number of automobiles, because of the admittedly outrageous cost associated with the construction of additional subway lines.
1
And for all those people who think that we don't need to regulate industries: what happens when someone invents an "Uber" for plumbers, for example. Guys with a bunch of tools can come to your house quickly, aren't licensed; and do mediocre work but for a much cheaper price than professional plumbers. How will that work out for you when the sub-par repair turns into an even bigger issue and then cost more to repair.
There's a reason we have regulations, restrictions and licenses of certain industries. Not just for protectionism of a given industry, but to ensure safe and professional standards. Yes, it costs more for a master plumber than some guy with a toolbox claiming he can fix your plumbing issue. But you'll have a guarantee it was fixed right the first time.
99
If there were an Uber for plumbers you would very easily rate the bad plumber who did the work in your house as sub-par and no one would hire him again. Uber has a rating system by which drivers are policed daily.
The benefit of the internet economy is we now have substantially more information on vendors than we once did — perhaps the most critical point you should take from Econ 101 is that as long as the buyer is informed I don’t need a nanny state policy to protect me.
3
@Rob Feiner Bravo. Someone finally has recognized that regulations have a purpose and it's to serve the public interest.
@Rob Feiner unfortunately, hail services do not offer inferior services. What they offer is cleaner, often faster, safer and cheaper. This is one of those instances when the market is actually working. I love it when politicians move to break something that works. Brilliant!
1
I'm reminded of the old saying, "Let's organize this thing and take all the fun out of it".
This is how it works, though. First, it's the wild West, where anything goes, and then the school marm and the churches come, and the next thing you know, you can't get a drink on Sunday- if at all.
I confidently predict that in a year or two, a license to drive a ride sharing vehicle in New York will cost as much as a taxi license does now. Disruption can only last so long, after all.
4
Uber meets a demand.
Unlike NY taxis, at least Uber provides consistent service to the city's minority community.
11
For all of those who claim that the market is what is making Uber so successful - you're wrong. It is the company subsidizing your fares to the detriment of drivers, and the environment, and losing billions of dollars while doing so. When Uber charges the market value of your ride - that is, without subsidies - you'll stop taking it. That is, if there are any taxis left.
76
@Sam
Driving is just not a unique enough skill to justify the rates charged by yellow taxis. If we need higher-skilled drivers, then they should have to take a training course with a specific justification. They shouldn't just demand more money because they used to have an artificial monopoly. Evidently, there are hundreds of thousands of other people out there who know how to drive and need money. Uber's aggressive strategy for taking market share by putting off profits is a separate issue. Its the same strategy used by Amazon and countless other companies. Shall we require that all companies must make a profit at least every other year?
2
@Sam Purely undercutting the competition out of business then raising prices when the rest are gone.
@Sam "When Uber charges the market value of your ride - that is, without subsidies - you'll stop taking it."
Actually, the economist Steven Levitt (of "Freakonomics" fame) proved this notion false in a study he did two years ago. He analyzed the ridership data from 50 million rides in four major cities and discovered that Uber was charging much *less* than people would be willing to pay for it. (In wonky economic circles, this concept is known as "consumer surplus.) In 2015 alone, Uber left over $6 billion "on the table," as it were, a figure that's surely increased since then (and btw that's just in the U.S. alone).
The real question is why Uber didn't subsequently raise its prices in response to Levitt's study. While it's admittedly reduced the amount of ride subsidies it offers (for both passengers and drivers), it's still hemorrhaging money, albeit in large part due to its attempts to expand internationally and its undoubtedly huge R&D expenses for the autonomous vehicle program that resulted in disaster earlier this year when a pedestrian crossing the street was struck and killed by an Uber test vehicle.
Anyway, it's a given that both Uber and Lyft alike will have no choice but to raise fares if they have any plans to go public. The data suggests, however, that you're assumption of them losing riders as a result is most likely erroneous.
1
The existing oligarchs, who own hundreds of Yellow Cab Medallions, have been paying off for a very long time.
The "pause" was a signal to the newcomers, that they need to "wise up" and contribute to The Machine. Why should they be any different than anyone else? Their mode of operating is a little bit different, but in NYC the same rules apply to everyone.
Oligarchy is an English term based on the Greek word ὀλιγαρχία. It is not a practice reserved for Russians, and it is not something, that one achieves without paying a price.
6
The capping is a sensible move which must be part of a package including congestion charging, massive investment in the subway and a re modelling of the bus network to speed it up and make it reliable. No measure like this is or should be a stand alone. Any big city has to have a mobility solution based around public transport. It’s the only option given the available space and the only option affordable to all.
56
@Michael "massive investment in the subway and a re modelling of the bus network to speed it up and make it reliable"
The "massive investment" doesn't realize into better mass transit for years. What do people do in the meantime? I used to live in Brooklyn. Half the yellow refused rides going into Brooklyn. The Subways barely work nights/evenings/weekends.
I applaud NY and wish more communities would take on the modern robber barons out to destroy established sectors in our economy for their convenience not ours. Medallions were instituted during the Great Depression when millions of unemployed American let their cars out for hire, ensuring no one made any money. Uber is losing money and survives off venture capital, so the deck is stacked against established taxis out the gate. Large bakers killed off local bakeries in the 1950s the same way Uber and Lyft are killing public transportation, including taxis.
64
@Keith Why is it the job of government to make sure your industry makes "any money." The market will take care of it, your logic is very flawed and sad.
6
@Keith Right this is reminiscent of any business coming in to a community, lowering prices to run the competition out of business, operating at a loss until competition is gone...next step is raising the prices as the last man standing.
1
@Keith, I'm not sure if you live in NYC but MTA ( More Problems Ahead) has major issues. On the weekends you can forget it, you'll spend have of your day on the subway. Although medallions were instituted during the Great Depression, Blacks were left out of that narrative. I like Uber's inclusiveness. The medallion industry is corrupt, greedy and racist. At least Uber takes
me to the hood.
1
We love Uber in Chicago. And in the suburbs there is a huge positive that no one seems to mention — the Uber transportation alternative helps keep drivers who have had a drink off the roads. Try to get a taxi to and fro at night in the burbs vs an Uber that shows up in minutes. My generation drove to parties, bars, and the like. My kids take an Uber. I’ll that model any day.
18
The entire system needs to be revamped. Yellow cab owners purchased the taxi medallions with the implicit guarantee that they had the exclusive for street hail rides. This deal has been broken by the City.
My thoughts on what should happen: Essentially blow up the whole system for street hail rides.
-Medallion (individual) owners should be refunded what they paid for their medallions, or paid some kind of par value, as their exclusive contract was broken. Fleet owners should negotiate a settlement with both the City and their banks.
-Uber, Lyft and Via and any other street hail car companies should then bid for a new medallion and yellow cabs should also bid for new medallions to drive cabs--maybe a separate type of medallion class. This will provide revenue for the City to use to keep roads repaired and money for mass transit.
-Both yellow cabs and Uber/Lyft/Via cars should have a numeric cap to prevent too many cars on the road. And all street hail vehicles should pay the same fees to the City.
-Congestion pricing should be put in place in mid-town Manhattan.
-Yellow cabs should be mandated to have clean, new cars every few years or after a certain amount of mileage as should Uber/Lyft/Via. If they fail at this, their medallions are revoked.
-All drivers should earn a minimum livable wage. If this means higher prices, so be it.
-No excessive surge pricing allowed.
While not the be-all-end-all of ideas, it would be a start.
1
@Rob Feiner Who gave anybody an "implicit" guarantee? There is absolutely no such thing, it is almost an oxymoron. Either you are guaranteed that the medallions will always be the sole method of getting around or you are not. Don't believe the nonsense put out by the medallion owners and their minions and paid flaks.
@skeptic That was indeed the reason behind medallions. You're payiing a lot of money for an exclusive right to pick up a fare on the street. That money paid by the medallion owners went into City coffers. Maybe you don't remember the term "gypsy cabs" basically what Uber is today and were illegal.
Why do you think our roads are in such bad shape? Less funds from the sale or resale of taxi mediallions. Why do you think the MTA is in the hole? Among other things, its the loss of revenue from taxi receipts. I'm not saying the taxi industry is perfect, far from it. But putting 100,000 more cars on the streets is not the answer.
1
So Taxi Companies, after being beaten up by Uber and Lyft, both of which provided a better service for a lower price, decided that the way the best way for them to stay viable was not to improve their own services and capabilities, but instead was to march to city hall to demand the Government stifle their competitors, and to pay off the city council.
Anti-free market, anti-consumer, and anti-American.
20
To reduce congestion, it would make more sense to charge taxis and rideshare vehicles a dynamic per-mile congestion fee in the most congested areas at the most congested times, inversely based on number of passengers. Taxis with no passengers should pay the highest fee to discourage cruising around and around the block looking for street hails. Vehicles with all seats occupied should pay the lowest fees. There should be no congestion fee and no cap on vehicles at times and places where there is no congestion. Some revenues from congestion fees can be used to reduce drunk driving by subsidizing rides away from bars. Remainder can improve subways, cyclist infrastructure, and transportation for the disabled.
1
Last night I took a taxi home because, I guess with yesterday's vote in mind, I decided to give it a try for the first time in a long time. I am a Lyft user and I am against the cap. The cab fare *started* at $3.80 the minute I got in. (!!!) The brakes barely worked. I was confronted by a video screen that was difficult to turn off. Ride-share cars have none of these issues, they are clean and comfortable, safer (think - working seat belts...), not to mention there is no uncertainty about whether or not one can even FIND a ride. I was angry that I paid good/a lot of money for an inadequate service.
I do feel bad for the taxi drivers but it is not we, the riders, who should bear the brunt of this problem! The city is going about this the wrong way. Frankly, I really thought that Corey Johnson was more in touch than this.
11
@LisaA "Frankly, I really thought that Corey Johnson was more in touch than this" -I did too! We may have to put the brakes on his ascension to Mayor
1
Of course Manhattanites want this, but what about those in the outer boroughs. This will adversely affect those of us who cannot afford to live in the city.
6
Two words: congestion pricing
1
The City leadership is to blame for this mess. It limited taxi medallions years ago, forcing cabbies to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the privilege of driving a taxi. No wonder they can't make a living. The city has messed up already be interfering in the free market. Knock it off, Mayor.
6
Yes, Yes, Yes! Thank you NYC.
2
Why does individual convenience - I want to get from point A to point B - trump concerns about congestion, environmental concerns, and fair wages? Why do all those concerns, and how your actions affect in a positive or negative way, disappear from our minds when we are standing on a corner running late? We must try to understand more deeply that all of our choices have consequences, especially when it becomes a trend and expectation, not a "in rare cases."
We should be demanding that any company, small or large, established or start-up, be evaluated on how their business practices contribute or detract from the health of the overall economy, the social fabric, the environmental health of an area, not just on whether or not they are making money.
The marketplace, as currently constructed, does not care about quality of life, or air quality. This kind of requirement IS part of making the marketplace able to respond to people and their needs, and not just pocketbooks. We should do more -- invest in better public transportation, raise wages, universal access to good health care, affordable housing, because all of these things ARE related -- but this is a start.
6
The word "Crackdown" in the headline gives an impression that the ride sharing companies were indulging in some illegal activity. If it's a crackdown, it is a crackdown on the free market competition and consumer preferences. It's like capping how much Amazon can sell online to help say Walmart or Bestbuy. Or more appropriately, capping the number of flights private airlines could operate between DC and New York and raising their fares so that Amtrak (Public) would benefit.
13
In the article "New York City Caps Uber and Lyft Vehicles in a Crackdown," Emma Fitzsimmons argues that this crackdown will help out cab-drivers, while simultaneously help unclog city streets. In this article the author cites the falling price of Taxi medallions as an example of how these ride sharing services are hurting cab drivers. She then goes on to cite Mayor de Blasio as saying that these restrictions will help over 100,000 workers, as well as saying it will lessen the congestion on city streets. What the author seems to be ignoring is the obvious benefits of Uber. One of the biggest problems with taxis is that unless you re at a major hub: airport, park, train station, etc. it is much easier to order an uber than to try and attempt to hail a cab. A second obvious benefit of uber is the ability to order a larger vehicle. Though some taxis can fit more than three people it is much harder to find a larger cab when you consider the relative ease that comes with ordering an uber XL. Thirdly, though this restriction may help some cab drivers it simultaneously hurts perspective Uber drivers by either stopping them from making some extra cash and stopping some being able to have a full time job, which is what Uber has become for some drivers. This type of legislation can be seen as another example of government attempting to limiting competition, the most important aspect of capitalism. This legislation will not only make it harder to find a ride but also drive up the price.
5
What we need are more and wider bicycle lanes, more and safer walking paths, more mom-and-pop stores and businesses, fewer double-decker cars and big box stores choking every available space, and to regulate SUVs as trucks, since, essentially that's what SUVs are.
Uber represents the cookie-cutter, me-first nation we have become: who cares if Uber drivers have to work an additional job? I'm saving a buck-fifty, and that's what matters above all else. Sure, I'm not handicapped and could walk or bike to the grocery store that doubles as a hair salon and restaurant, but nah...taking Uber is just sexier.
If only we valued the wisdom that comes with age, instead of insisting on barreling toward the libertarian fantasy of having the "right" to do whatever we want, whenever we want, however way we want, no matter who or what else is affected, and no matter how adversely.
I'd say "Good move, de Blasio," but as seen in this forum, any shred of common sense, anything remotely intellectual and informed, is drowned out by the idolatry of "free market" - the world's biggest lie unto itself - so what's the use?
It's like we aren't happy unless we can mow over all things reasonable.
8
Ironic that ultra-liberal New York City would take measures to protect a dated industry obviously condemned to die by market forces when so many of its denizens decry Trump doing the same thing for those earning a livelihood in sectors like manufacturing whose time has also supposedly come and gone.
5
Wringing my hands for New Yorkers because I am 100% not confident that your deteriorating subways are going to be extended or fixed. Good luck, friends.
1
@Olivia think positive for us. If this is a disaster I may bail on NYC after 20 years of living here and coming to PDX. I have no confidence left =(
I live in a Baltimore suburb with no public transportation anywhere nearby. I'm retired and I don't drive. Taxis are simply too expensive for me to afford. Uber and Lyft make it possible to me to go places, it's that simple. That's huge. Most of my drivers are just picking up extra cash - it's a second job or they're students/retired and they say they like it very much. A much needed service - in this case let the market decide. And stop giving Dems a bad name, NY. Yeesh.
11
So I use VIA and it works well for me. It is my opinion that double parked trucks are a much bigger problem then more affordable care services.
NYC MTA is a mess and the taxis are expensive and virtually unsupervised.(try making a complaint with the TLC).
So who are the Council members supporting ....not the public.
9
In London the mayor also tried to shut down Uber in order to favor the cab industry. One million people signed a petition against this blatantly anti competitive and anti consumer approach. The mayor has retreated since, realising that he would be a one term mayor if he didn't. Perhaps it is time to launch an online petition in New York?
8
Have the traditional cab companies (and those who profit from the old system) considered it's time to re-think how they operate? They need to look at the meteoric rise of Lyft and Uber and ask, "WHY?" ! And start making adjustments.
6
The next thing they need to do is control and restrict apartment construction. That will teach everyone a lesson.
Haha, I love reading these comments. The typically, very liberal commenters of the NYT don't like a union-backed/state backed systems when it directly affects them. Just goes to show you, every liberal is a hypocrite, e.g., they always want higher taxes on "the rich" but they dock their yacht in other states/countries to avoid luxury taxes.
I thought all liberals loved BIG GOVERNMENT. Uber/Lyft, the things these liberals seem to love, are free market solutions and I thought that didn't work...
You want progressive politics then you have to live with the crony capitalism your liberal leaders want - backroom union support, monopolies, and control over the basics of your life - like how you are allowed to get from point a to point b.
7
Anyone who has driven (or walked or waited on a bus delayed by car congestion) in NYC over the last few years can attest to the skyrocketing vehicular traffic, most black limos with TLC plates. And these guys drive dangerously too: tail-gating, honking, changing lanes with no signals or warning and stopping at the drop of a hat in search of a fare. In what way is this trend good for NYC?
1
A recent report came out on the number of trafffic citations given out in San Francisco. Almost 70% nod citations were given out
To TNCs.
@Peter Greenberg In New York City our police do not write very many traffic citations as they are too busy illegally driving on our sidewalks and then illegally parking their personal SUVs there.
This isn’t the answer to NYC’s mobility crisis. What’s needed is more and better subways, true Bus Rapid Transit, Trams on dedicated rights of way, a repeal of the law giving the MTA exclusive domain to providing surface mass transport, the encouragement of private competitors such as Uber and “dollar vans”, and, for crying out loud, congestion pricing!
63
@Al D:
Congestion pricing assumes middle class types don't have a good reason to drive into Manhattan. Plenty who have jobs that don't start until 4PM do. Hotel managers (who in some cases would be given parking at least) building services types, stage hands, restaurant workers.
"competition" for mass transit has been tried. Didn't you ever note how close together subway stations are south of 14th street in Manhattan?
Competition is one of thing things that caused the mess--shallow trench laid "tunnels" being a big problem for the BMT and IRT lines.
True the subway and bus service could be restored to 1995 levels, and the 20 billion dollars (in 1995 terms) that George Pataki stole from the system can be returned.
But instead will get distractions about the MTA giving White Face mountain a few million dollars once to cover a single year's deficit. And this newspaper will repeatedly claim that broken old signs and switches are the problem, as if in the last 45 years the MTA hadn't worked out repair and rebuilding processes for these older parts.
@Al D My wife was on a crowded subway in NYC recently. Guy had his hand in my wife's pocket looking around for something. She stuck her hand in there and found his, screamed, and he moves several people over and goes about his work. No one is willing to scream at the guy, fearing he could be a nutjob with a weapon or something. So everybody nearby, while knowing what just happened, totally ignores it. I'll pass riding on NYC subways.
@Al D
You forgot to add: create more streets.
On a related topic, the vast expansion of online commerce has caused a huge increase in the number of delivery trucks clogging city streets. In SF it's hard to drive a block without encountering a delivery van double parked and blocking traffic. I've never seen any of them get ticketed. Not only do Amazon et al hurt a city's local brick and mortar merchants, but they then proceed to clog city streets with their delivery vans.
4
@David
If you shop online there's no need to drive around in San Francisco, dodging potholes, panhandlers, tourists, and jaywalkers trying to park and being concerned about a delivery truck blocking traffic.
Brick and mortar is becoming passe as evidenced by the many empty malls scattered throughout America, having been replaced by the likes of Amazon.
Both taxi drivers and Uber/Lyft drivers work hard for very little. I am sad for the taxi drivers who lost money on their medallion investments. And I understand the frustration Uber/Lyft drivers have concerning their extreme low pay and lack of benefits. Other people are affected too. The hotel workers who used to get tips for hailing cabs now just open doors and watch people look at their smartphones. But the ability to stand on a random corner in Brooklyn and request a car that arrives in minutes is nearly miraculous. Added to that is the added safety layer (not foolproof, but pretty darn good) that the driver and the journey is recorded. I hope a solution is found that preserves this convenience.
2
I am disappointed that New York is taking this line of action. For too long, the taxi system has functioned as a whites-only transportation option, With cab drivers Refusing to stop for black people and often refusing to drive to black neighborhoods. Uber and Lyft are examples of the sharing economy actually opening up options for people of African dissent and others who taxi drivers, so often themselves people of color, preferred to overlook. By cracking down on Uber, New York seems to be saying that the historic and legendary racism of New York cabbies is the kind of business as usual that the city prefers.
5
NYC is providing a model, though not a positive one. It is a model illustrating one of the many ways not to do something.
4
Could it be...NYC is dying. Gotta happen sometime.
4
Yellow Cab was a nightmare in my city. I recall crossing my fingers and hoping they would show up to take me to the airport. The last time I took one from the airport, the driver asked me directions the entire way and drove like it was his very first time in a car.
Last night, I stepped into an modern air-conditioned Uber with a cheery driver and paid $25 for a 3 mile drive, tipping $3 on top of that. It works.
7
@Paulo Same here.
I was back in the states after seven years this last May, and there was was no Uber seven years ago. When I got to Portland and Frisco, Uber and Portland's bus system worked so well that I was simply dazzled, especially after seeing how there were no taxi stands to use from taking Amtrak.
I am shocked and disgusted by how Uber has been acting in this whole situation. Uber is at the intersection of a whole bunch of serious problems but they behave like children when their role is pointed out or someone suggests they need to play a part in finding solutions. “Why don’t you fix your subway” is not a mature or useful response.
2
This headline should read “New York Hits Uber with Cap, Taking Lead In Crackdown on Entrepreneurship, Initiative, and Free Market Capitalism”.
11
For people of color, Blacks and Latinx in particular, Uber offers reliable transportation to people and neighborhoods that 'traditiona' taxi drivers didn't service. I'll never forget the now legendary story of Denzel Washington having numerous NYC taxis pass him by to pick up a white person. This is what the City of NY is taking us back to.
6
What a terrible and cynical decision by the corrupt City Council passing the buck to ride sharing companies when their own studies have shown that the primary causes of congestion are construction, foot traffic (which impedes turning drivers), and vehicles making deliveries.
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/operations/downloads/pdf/For-Hire-Vehicle-Tr...
Ironically this will probably make things worse for everyone. As rides become more expensive, consumers will ride less. This means Ubers will be waiting longer for fares and will have fewer fares. In response, many drivers will choose to work even longer hours to recoup fares, and Ubers will likely be empty for for even more than the 40% they currently are.
Speaker Johnson is comprised of equal parts stupidity and corruption.
9
Granted that customer satisfaction is higher with Uber and Lyft than with the medallion cabs and the current subway service. Nevertheless, it is not unreasonabe that the city, which limited yellow cab medallions to 13,000+, should now want to study the issue when there are an estimated 100,000 for hire vehicles on the city streets.
Even for Uber fans, at what point would service become less appealing when you have thousands more vehicles cruising the streets, clogging traffic while waiting for a fare? I don't think the city gov't is looking to squelch these services, but is seeking a balance.
7
Taxi and ride-hailing drivers are human beings.
It may be radical to assert that in the context of this comments page, where absolute consumer sovereignty is being defended as if it were divine law.
2
Most of those who write in protest of the cap on Uber and Lyft don't drive in the City. For those of us who do drive in Midtown (generally on the weekends), the amount of traffic is simply horrendous. Maybe not as bad as Los Angeles, Atlanta and DC, but pretty doggone awful. If the cap on ride-hail service will reduce some of the traffic, I'm in favor of the cap.
5
@Odehyah
Maybe NYC should expand the cap to all drivers/vehicles. Why are you driving in Midtown ? Can't you take public transport or a ride-hail ?
2
@SSS - I live in Brooklyn and often I like to travel to midtown AND farther north (Harlem). I prefer to drive when I can. I ride the God-awful subways Monday through Friday. Please don't ask me to ride them any more than I absolutely have to. They can be awful.
What about those of us who live in the outer boroughs? I live in Riverdale and Uber and the like have changed the way we live. What about learning from London and introducing congestion pricing in Manhattan instead?
6
@Marc All of Riverdale and surrounds is served by the BX7, BX10, and BX9 buses, which have connections to the 1 train (and even the A train at 207th in Inwood) as well as Metro North at Spuyten Duyvil and Riverdale stations (~25 minutes into Grand Central). Riverdale and Kingsbridge are far from "transit deserts."
1
New York City is supposed to be the crowning achievement of free market capitalism. The very principle of "anyone can make it without restriction" was what attracted immigrants and dream-seekers alike throughout the 20th century. Moreover, this attitude is what drove, and continues to drive, the local economy and is what makes it the powerhouse that it is.
This measure is downright counter to the very ideals that makes New York such a great place. The fact that the yellow cabs are being replaced is nothing more than a market determination, and the drivers will be forced to adjust in the same way that blacksmiths were forced to adjust with the drop in demand for horseshoes 120 years ago.
Shame on these councilmen and councilwomen for this piece of legislation.
8
There is an issue with the argument for an unregulated market and just letting the market decide - it doesn't work except for the owners of the business. Government steps inand regulates markets all the time to ensure fairness and to prevent the markets from eating themselves alive.
If you like your residential neighborhood, thank government limits on developers to keep that factory from building next door to your home. The list goes on.
5
Uber is just a scapegoat for a much larger problem. If we start with the assumption that traffic is worse b/c of UBER’s rise, we have to see what else has changed over the period of UBER’s rise.
1. NYC population has grown.
2. Dedciated bikes lanes and Citbike stands have eliminated a number of driving lanes
3. The increased amount of bikes have slowed down traffic
4. New pedestrian squares have elmited routes that cars could previously use
5. Dedicated bus lanes have also redcued driving lanes
6. The re-zonong laws that have permitted the vast amount of new construction has lead to a number of streets having driving lanes being fully blocked
7. Online shopping has increased the number of vans/trucks etc on the road and when stopped those same vans/trucks block traffic lanes.
8. Online shopping has increased the amount of cardboard waste, thus slowing down garbage trucks who also block traffic lanes.
9. Subways remain crowded and unreliable
10. Uber type services have added capacity
10
Read article touting the economic benefits of Uber, Lyft.. Really, I think it's a loss... How about the poverty wages (probably have to be supplemented by food stamps, healthcare by Medicaid: think billion $$ Walmart whose workers have to take advantage of these programs because they don't make a "living wage"), increased air pollution (think lung cancer, asthma), traffic congestion think more road repairs, maintenance, vehicle accidents) with all these extra vehicles on the road... The only winners are the billion owners/shareholders of these bro Silicon Valley companies... Their drivers, the rest of us pay dearly for their "ride sharing" services; let's just say "taxis'"...
1
Remember kids, government regulation is good!
What were you saying about "voting against your own interest" again?
8
Uhhh... Uber and other ride sharing companies do not have force laborers. And you don't sign a binding employment contract. If you're unhappy or realize that you're not making enough money, stop working for them. Turn off the app. Done. Forcing better working conditions and pay is ludicrous when there is nothing to stop a driver from seeking other employment opportunities.
4
@I Heart
Perhaps you are unaware of the unscrupulous recruiting practices the would-be drivers are subject to. As I'm writing this comment there are two ads accompanying this article from Lyft, offering new drivers "$1700 in the first month". No mention of how many hours you will have to work for that $1700. No mention of the costs you will incur for your vehicle, its maintenance, and its insurance. No mention that you may stuck with a car loan you can't afford if you quit. Just the lure of what appears to be easy money.
In fact, a large percentage of Uber and Lyft drivers do quit. No problem to the corporation execs as long as they have an endless supply of new drivers always signing up who don't understand what they're getting themselves into. That's why this cap is problematic for them and is needed. It is the correction their business model has been begging for. The drivers are going to have to be paid a living wage or, if not, they will continue to quit and will not be replaced. On the other hand, if they are making decent money, why would anyone quit? Your move, corporation executives.
2
People: Lighten up! And inject a tiny bit of knowledge into your opinions. Uber got to where it is because they (funded by Goldman Sachs in specific and Wall Street in general) subsidize your rides to the tune of 40-50%! Would you be using Uber is they cost double their current rates?
Learn to use the subway and buses, or else return home to Mommy in Hicksville, USA.
Real New Yorkers don't like having our streets cluttered up with "entrepreneurs" who offer their slave labor to Uber.
15
@red sox 9
LOL. "Real New Yorkers."
Yeah, Real New Yorkers are communists, who think that a state controlled, filthy, second rate business, should retain its monopoly.
And also, Real New Yorkers think deBlasio is not corrupt at all.
4
@red sox 9 We're supposed to listen to someone named "Red Sox 9" tell us what real New Yorkers want? Get outta here with that Fenway stuff. :-)
6
This reporter failed to note another aspect of the legislation: NYC has also capped Netflix subscriptions and set up a fund to help the struggling owners of Blockbuster video stores.
13
@LJ Molière
LOL. Ah this comment is the best. True perspective.
3
As a handicapped person , I find uber to be a great help to me . I don’t have to sit in my wheelchair on a snowy day competing with other people who stand in front of me while I’m waiting, so the drivers can’t see me even if I was there first .. My experience with uber drivers is that they are helpful and accommodating. And have been known to bilk foreigners with excessive fares .My experiences with NYC taxis driver is that many are nasty and not helpful. And many don’t speak English. And they drive like maniacs speeding and disobeying traffic laws otherwise.Uber also helps save lives when it comes to drunk driving.
The taxi drivers union could have come up with a ride hailing service but they never bothered because they had a monopoly. The public should not have to pay for their mistakes.Diblasio and the council don’t give a damn about New York City travelers, or street congestion they just want the union votes .
These minimum rates will make it unaffordable for me to visit New York
I
live in central New Jersey and I’m not far from Philadelphia, so I’ll be spending time there rather than in Nyc . It’s really a nice town with plenty of arts culture, history.
Good luck New York. Thanks for the memories.
5
@Barbara Lax
You can always come back. We miss you already.
There is a new restaurant which just opened up a few blocks away. And some artist painted a second rate mural on a street nearby. Wish Hektad painted it instead.
Sorry I meant taxi drivers bilked foreign travelers , not uber drivers
Taxi drivers and companies will have to adapt to new technology or end up on the dusty shelves of history.
Uber and Lyft are better meeting the needs of the consumer. Taxis must change their outdated business model to survive. This is how the free market works.
It seems the taxi industry want to depend on central government planners to sustain them rather than improving customer service and value. This may work in a city like New York which is run by far left socialist wannabes, but not in most of American.
The number of Uber and Lyft drivers are increasing rapidly every year. This tells me that it is a very desirable way to make some extra money.
7
I know Uber is exploitative of its drivers because they are driving their own vehicles into the ground which I hope can be fixed.
But Uber has set my NY experience free, allowing me to travel freely and easily by hired car between Manhattan and the Brox because a driver wlling to venture to the feared badlands accepts the fare upfront. Yellow cabs routinely refused me service with more than one ordering me out of their cab upon hearing my destination. Also having the transaction taken care of in advance is incredibly convenient.
I hope the City works out the proper regulatory approach.
9
Social justice in the works. Similar to the urgent need for a capitalistic system to have sensible regulation...for it's own survival. The problem is the gross inequality in it's wealth. A more equitable agreement is the way to go, understanding that it is a delicate proposition on the ropes, as we seek more cooperation and less unfair competition...to avoid the 'starving' for some, while a feast for others. How about resuscitating public light street rail? Unfair competition even if better service?
1
Things change and sometimes rapidly, disrupting markets that became all too comfortable with their monopoly. Uber and its competitors are a great example of what all taxi companies should have done a decade ago.
Consider the taxi. Here you have a system in which the more the fare to the customer, the better for the driver. This promotes price gouging, dishonesty and literally being taken for a ride. I know there are honest taxi drivers but sadly, there are also a sea of dishonest drivers that will elaborate their routes to rake in higher fairs. They don't use traffic technology which is a game changer and they often discriminate. Great model.
Along comes Uber who flips the taxi model upside down. Uber is based completely on trust. First there is the trust of the driver who knows based on other driver reviews, what to possibly expect from their next fair. While not exactly infallible, this system is far better at determining how dangerous you next fare might be as compared to any other alternative in the taxi world. Typically, an Uber driver selecting to pick up a fare knows in advance if they have a clean track record, including if their car will be messed up.
Similarly for the customer, trust is an essential aspect of the contract in that the Uber driver has no real advantage in diverting the ride to increase the fare. I have had taxi rides in which they didn't know me and where I was taken for an expensive ride. That hasn't been the case with Uber.
6
All you need to see in Manhattan streets is the huge amount of for hire cars (Uber, Lyft) with no passengers cruising. Traffic is horrible. The trains are not really a better option either. We can't address traffic congestion without a reasonable plan to address mass transit. As long as the MTA and traffic rules do not fall under the same governance - MTA under the governor, traffic rules under the mayor- having discordant actions will not resolve congestion problems.
4
I live in one of the suburbs and we welcomed Uber/Lyft with open arms for several reasons:
1. Our local car service is staffed by guys who look like they came out of prison yesterday and there have been a couple of cases when the drivers caused accidents because they were on oxycodone.
2. Our local car service prices rides per person and pools people together so when I call for a car 20 minutes before I am due to catch the train and I know the ride takes 7 minutes, it does not mean that I have plenty of time, in fact, I missed a train more than once because there were other pick-ups and drop-offs en route. So I am paying 7 bucks for a shared ride when Uber is cheaper and private.
3. The local car service cars are old, dingy, and reek of smoke and beer. The Uber cars are new, smell nice and the drivers re very nice and rated.
4. Uber has been a God-send for parents with teens. My daughter uses my account so no longer do I have to worry about who will give her a ride when we are not around. Also, she and her friends are able to go to places in town by chipping for a ride.
4
Unless you are handicapped in some way, you should be taking public transportation, because you live in a city. Have you noticed that the air is not clean? That's because there are too many vehicles.
If you want to drive around in a car, move to the suburbs.
I've been here 15 years. I have taken a cab exactly twice: on the way home from surgical procedures.
5
If it’s late at night and you don’t want to get mugged take uber . If you’re carrying heavy packages take uber . If you’re drunk take uber . If you say everyone should travel by subway then eliminate yellow cabs altogether. The drive like maniacs and make the roads unsafe for everyone
2
I have lived and worked in Manhattan for 40 years. The influx of 50,000 more vehicles into my city over the past 5 years has absolutely caused a deterioration in the quality of life here. Travel times by buses, taxis and ride share vehicles has doubled commute times or more. There is traffic on all roads and highways day and night. Ride share drivers spend 40% of there time drivers around without passengers or waiting, double parked anywhere. They completely ignore traffic rules and treat each other like tribal enemies. The air quality on the streets has noticeably deteriorated. Just like social media, dockless scooters, these privateering companies represent the worst of unbridled capitalism and greed. Their owners do not take any responsibility for the negative impact of their “inventions” and want thanks from r revolutionizing society and rationalize their greed by trying to convince us that we can’t live without them. They need to be regulated. Period.
17
Those who use ride-sharing apps might be interested in the following MIT study from earlier this year ("The Economics of Ride Hailing: Driver Revenue, Expenses and Taxes"). Here is the study's abstract:
"We perform a detailed analysis of Uber and Lyft ride-hailing driver economics by pairing results from a survey of over 1100 drivers with detailed vehicle cost information. Results show that per hour worked, median profit from driving is $3.37/hour before taxes, and 74% of drivers earn less than the minimum wage in their state. 30% of drivers are actually losing money once vehicle expenses are included. On a per-mile basis, median gross driver revenue is $0.59/mile but vehicle operating expenses reduce real driver profit to a median of $0.29/mile. For tax purposes the $0.54/mile standard mileage deduction in 2016 means that nearly half of drivers can declare a loss on their taxes. If drivers are fully able to capitalize on these losses for tax purposes, 73.5% of an estimated U.S. market $4.8B in annual ride-hailing driver profit is untaxed."
The full study can be read here:
https://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/PDFs/Zoepf_The%20Eco...
12
And nobody else writes off losses ?
"Councilman Eric Ulrich, a Republican from Queens, said he opposed the cap, arguing that limiting Uber to help yellow taxis was similar to regulating Netflix, the streaming service, to help Blockbuster, the video rental chain."- Actually, yes, I think we should have both Blockbuster and Netflix. It is quicker for me to walk to a local Blockbuster and get a video than sit on my tush and wait for it to arrive by mail!
I come from a third world country, and am familiar with how "disruption" in the name of convenience and innovation can have devastating consequences for old-school workers. This has to be a gradual process and one that transitions without (or the least amount of) calamities.
1
Yes, ride sharing services hurt traditional taxi service, and for good reason.
The taxi service in Chicago had become dominated by poorly maintained cars, high prices and surely drivers. I’ve experienced much worse in Washington DC and only slightly better in New York.
5
I am actually glad that this bill was passed. Road congestion is at an all time high and coincides with the bloat of Uber and Lyft vehicles. While it is not the sole reason, certainly these services are a significant contributor. These companies also provide false hope for individuals, thinking that they can make a comfortable living and have flexible hours, when in reality, these companies skim so much that the drivers have to work 12+ hours a day, 6-7 days a week to barely make ends meet. Let's not even mention the yellow/green cabbies, whose entire livelihood (even lives, as evidenced by the rash of suicides) is placed at risk because of the glut of for-hire vehicles. Sure, Uber and Lyft are convenient for consumers, but must it come at the expense of the dignity of their workforce?
14
As an out-of-towner, my observation has been that unless you're a VIP with a limo, rideshares are the best way in NY City. Cabs always cost a bit more and tend to be dirtier on average. The subway is plain disgusting (not to offend, but it's the truth for most stations/trains). Don't even speak to me about buses. In other words, a lack of investment in your public transit systems has made rideshare the only good way to get around town.
I love to compare NY with Tokyo in this regard. Light-filled, immaculate train stations with trains that actually run on time. White gloved cab drivers in spotlessly clean cars. Even the buses are tolerable. There's simply no need for rideshare in Tokyo; it would be a major downgrade.
7
Who will benefit & who will be damaged ?
Democrats somehow manage to make you not want to vote for them no matter how bad the alternatives
4
Our subway system is decrepit, filthy, unsafe and compared to the underground transit systems in Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur, is an utter dehumanizing disgrace.
Naturally, its ridership is way down hitting the MTA's bottom line...so creative "solutions" are arrived at in tandem with the taxi lobbyists and the other leeches...aka the donors to this mayor and his sycophants.
I once rode with an Uber driver to Newark airport, and realized I had forgotten an item home so we had to u-turn around 1/3 of the way to retrieve it. He did so without complaining, and when he took a wrong turn on the way back, turned off his app so I wouldn't get charged for his minor error. I made my flight in ample time.
7
I don't know why NO ONE in these comments seems to know that NYC taxis have an app that works exactly the same as Uber's: credit card charge, tip already on there, you can hail it form anywhere on your phone. It's called Curb.
Admit it. You just like saying Uber.
16
@myasara
They have an app because Uber and Lyft forced them to change with the times.
5
@Russian Bot And change they did. So your point is what? That because of that we should a) have ridiculously congested streets and b) not provide any drivers, NYC or Uber/Lyft, with sustainable income?
i stand by my original post.
Don’t forget Uber and Lyft created job opportunities out of nothing. The government capped yellow taxis to the detriment of job seekers and consumers. And the mayor and city council want to go back in time?
3
Good to see that New York City has the guts to take on what is basically a source of urban pollution for one thing and shameless exploitation for another.
6
Somebody didn't get their bribe.
3
Buggy whip manufacturers all over the city are ecstatic today.
3
Completely understand the need for fair, livable wages, but this is the wrong approach. As a woman living in Chicago, Uber has been life changing. Whether leaving work at 10pm or leaving a bar at 2am, Uber has made me feel much safer being out at night. Knowing that I can call someone to pick me up where and when I need them has dramatically decreased my levels of anxiety. Please don't send us back to the dark ages and make it more difficult for women to live normal, healthy lives devoid of harassment.
6
Good for NYC. Hope other cities around the world follow.
Uber increases congestion, as both taxi and ride share drivers are starving to death. The gig economy offers no protections for labor. It's the wrong way to go.
6
Watch them do their study and decide that they will increase the licenses over time withe some sort of fee that will resemble the medallion system. This will create a new false economy with a high-cost of entry, corruption and poor service, with City Council members benefiting from contributions from the likes of Michael Cohen who were the real beneficiaries of the Taxi system.
Regarding the pay floor, I would like someone on the Council to logically explain how there is a threat of more and more cars flooding the streets at the same time that the companies are not paying the drivers enough. If the pay was too low, there would be fewer of these vehicles, not more. What the Council is doing paves the way for worse service, higher prices and fewer jobs. It's a lose-lose-lose.
Here is the real problem. Uber, Lyft, Via, etc. are providing a service that customers want and paying wages that drivers seem eager for. Their systems balance supply and demand while their algorithms and incentives minimize the number of cars driving the streets looking for fares (how many taxis a driving the streets with no passengers?). These are services with far more supporters than detractors and this ruling represents a failure of democracy. The City Council members behind this should all be voted out...if only we had an educated/thoughtful electorate.
5
@EmmaFitzsimmons
You don't mention with a single word the recent protest by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, and you mention the word "union" only in passing. But they played a crucial part in this struggle. They demand a cap, a wage floor, and benefits such as as health insurance for all drivers, regardless whether Taxi, limousine, Uber, or other. This is a fight for all drivers.
Uber would like to frame the debate as one of pitting drivers against each other, or drivers against passengers. But that is not what this is about.
6
We need a major investment in mass transit, something that is working in every city where it prioritized. The street-level congestion in lower Manhattan is a nightmare, I've seen it explode all around me; you can barely get home at night. Uber is definitely a part of the problem, as is the influx of party-goers from outside Manhattan in private vehicles, many with only 1 or 2 passengers. You can also see this in the increasingly desperate behavior of yellow cab drivers, who get increasingly reckless in pursuit of fewer customers, pulling up in the middle of the streets. Some kind of cap has to be imposed on all the private vehicles in general, maybe through the use of tolls. It's going to require a lot of political courage to institute this, but it is simply a necessity, they are paralyzing lower Manhattan. Again, virtually EVERY civilized city in the western world is solving this problem, NYC will have to sooner of later, why not now?
6
While I cannot speak to the transportation challenges of those who live outside of Manhattan, as a resident of Greenwich Village (who relies primarily on my feet, my bicycle and the subway for the vast majority of my transportation needs) I know that the current level of ride hailing app vehicles throughout most of this borough is untenable.
The number of taxi medallions has remained more or less static for 80+ years while the recent explosion of 100K+ Uber/Lyft vehicles has literally choked many Manhattan streets with standing traffic. Not to mention the absurdity of multiple double-parked vehicles, sometimes positioned nearly directly across the street from one another, waiting for their customers. All the while causing bottlenecks if not altogether street blockages. I've biked up 6th Av through Chelsea and Midtown repeatedly and seen the exact same able-bodied person entering and exiting their Uber vehicles multiple times over the course of my commute. Sixth Ave. A thoroughfare already choked with traffic.
What on earth did the majority of the population of this city do for transportation before it became so easy to simply tap on a phone screen and have someone magically whisk them away?
Introducing more and more vehicles to the streets of a city that is never going to have more space in which to accommodate them is the opposite of progress.
11
At the end of the day, if the drivers are making more money, I’m happy. They do a great job and are barely scraping by.
1
As a minority, Uber has been my saving grace. For the past couple of years, I was no longer subject to profiling by yellow cabs who would drive right past me while their "empty passenger" light was on. I once asked a cab driver about this behavior, and he apologized and admitted that he himself often ignored black passengers because he had cases where they refused to pay. While that is obviously unacceptable, profiling a passenger based on race is utterly abhorrent and it is humiliating to have a driver zoom past you to pick up another passenger of a more "acceptable" race. For all its faults, and it sure has faults, Uber has provided breathing room for someone like me.
8
@Liz M
I'm a white female and have had drivers speed away when I tell them I wanted to get to Brooklyn. It's happened on several occasions. You are not alone.
6
The sooner and more they regulate Uber and Lyft the better.
My wife and I had the misfortune of getting into an Uber cab on a cold and rainy holiday. After our luggage was packed in and we were seated we were told that a $20.00 holiday fee was going to be charged for the short trip we were making.
Sure, we could have unloaded everything and looked for a yellow cab but that doesn't work when you are trying to make a train.
I'll never get in an Uber again.
5
@tombo Have done both cabs and Uber in various large cities, and for a while deliberately didn't do Uber as I felt it disadvantaged taxi drivers and resisted sensible regulations such as background checks for drivers. Then I sat down and evaluated bad Uber experiences versus bad taxi experiences. Cabs won by a mile (excuse the pun) -- cheated on fares, refused to help me out of the taxi (needed door opened following a surgical procedure), in one case charged my disabled son double for a short ride, chose not to show up at all when called for an early airport ride, etc., etc. Bad uber experiences? one or two. Agree some regulation is needed (at Chicago airports, for instance, Uber drivers are unfairly able to dodge the costly entrance fees charged cabs) and heartily agree that NYC transit system needs a costly overhaul, but question reinforcing the current system in this way.
Basically a subsidy for Medallion owners because their own practices and shortages severely drove down their business.
6
You can't stop progress with a new law. An existing industry needs to adapt and compete. Remember IBM, JC Penny, Sears, Blackberry. Polaroid. The list goes on.
Cab rides are often unpleasant and expensive...think about sitting in traffic and watching the meter relentlessly running.
Who wouldn't rather be in a nice car, with a pleasant driver, and a fee you'll know before you go?
8
@Joan1009 Not all those cars are so nice.
2
Just another example of democrats curtailing the prospects of people that want to work and contribute to their community.
5
Thank goodness, De Blasio’s limo will be able to get to the gym faster.
8
@berkeleyhunt this is the greatest comment ever! Ha!
YEEESSSS! I am 100% in support of this. Uber needs a check on its business model (as well as its attitude) and drivers that were working in NYC long before Uber arrived need to have their careers sustained. And incidentally, there is a yellow taxi app (Curb) if you want to hail a ride the same way you do with Uber.
4
Time for a conspiracy theory. Will De Blasio get ensnared in the Michael Cohen investigation? Cohen is in financial trouble, owning a lot of taxi medallions. What is the quid pro quo for increasing the value of the medallions?
2
Did almost no one actually read the article? They didn't ban or reduce Uber and Lyft. They capped the licenses to present levels.
3
There are a lot of people with influence and questionable ethics (e. g. Michael Cohen) who own taxi medallions. They don't want competition. Liberals support taxi drivers'union. So this rear circumstance is driving the narrative and actions by the City.
Simple solution would be to issue more licenses and allow the city or state government to issue loans to current taxi drivers to buy their own taxis. Everyone would be happy except charlatan medallion owners.
5
This is unfortunate. Another example of NY government cramming lame ideals down the people's throats. Stop telling us what is and isn't good for us.
8
Seems an awful lot like a tariff...
1
Based on my experience with Uber in a number of European countries for the last three months, and in California, it's superior to taxis on all accounts.
Based on my conversations with Uber drivers, and I like to talk to all of them, they consider the compensation to be good if not very good.
An Uber driver in Paris recently told me that he nets — not grosses — 2,000 euros a month, which is about $2,400.
"I've got one of the best paying jobs in Paris," he said.
People in the U.S. have no idea what a pittance people have to work for in France.
But I'm not surprised at the decision of New York politicians. For when it comes for acting in favor of people who give you money, meaning the taxi industry, to acting in favor of those who provide a popular, reliable, and less inexpensive transportation solution to the masses, those offering the better option and service will lose.
While I'm no social justice warrior, the people who are really going to suffer are immigrants and people of color. The immigrants will have one less good employment option, and the people in color won't be able to get rides because of . . . well, we all know, don't we?
4
Uber isn’t the problem. The broken subways are the problem. Fix the subways and congestion will get better.
6
Similar to the type of regulation in communist countries and the type of government advocated by liberal democrats here.
There is obviously a demand for Uber and Lyft with drivers who are willing to work for them. Let the marketplace decide.
58
@Don Oh please.
3
@Don Please. Flea markets are only place a free market prevails. Uber is losing money and survives off venture capital, and their business model is reminiscent of robber barons instead of independent business owners who earn their money the old fashioned way, they work for it.
1
@Don I'm a liberal. Totally agree on this one.
People use Uber/Lyft because it is more reliable and efficient than a taxi. When visiting NYC before them, I would stand for a long time frustrated as taxis would whiz past. Calling a taxi company was a waste of time. Frankly the taxis are often dirty and smelly. Uber drivers are more accountable to their passengers due to feedback. Once I left something in an Uber car. He returned it quickly when I contacted him. I've lost things in taxis, and of course never got them back. Taxi companies are cold and could care less. Uber has IMPROVED things for out-of-towners.
8
I support the cap. Uber drivers have become a scourge on our streets. Uber drivers outnumber all other drivers on the road by a wide margin causing congestion and pollution. Side streets are littered with idle Uber drivers running engines and fouling our environment. These types of vehicles need to be regulated, as we see when left to their own devices they are more a burden than service.
3
Why aren’t you complaining about street parking which blocks two out of the three lanes in Manhattan cross streets? These have been blocking traffic since before FHVs.
All car services and buses want to move. They serve a real need.
Tell the mayor and governor to fix and expand subways and bus service. Let private bus companies serve our city.
1
I’m seldom in NYC and seldom ride in taxis. I’m also middle-aged and don’t have a smartphone. On my last trip to New York in February, it did take me quite a while to “manually” hail a taxicab. When I got in and requested “Guggenheim Museum”, the driver didn’t know what I was talking about and I had to find the street address via his smartphone. So I understand that there is a formerly-unfulfilled need now being serviced by the rideshare companies.
The article that I read indicated that there would be a halt in new licenses for services such as Uber or Lyft. From the tenor of the comments and from the statements issued by the ridesharing services (“will threaten one of the few reliable transportation options”, “will bring New Yorkers back to an era of struggling to get a ride”), one would think that the city was shutting down these services entirely. How are the rideshare services being threatened by a freeze? They already have plenty of drivers not making money because they're not getting requests.
I understand that there is “growing demand” but I don’t understand why the companies have such a problem with a one-year timeout to allow the City to examine where they can make improvements, similar to what was done in SF with the rampant scooters.
1
I applaud taking a hard look at these “gig” economy companies and their propensity to make executives rich, while holding workers in a prison of legalized servitude. That said, I’d also caution NY state democratic leaders about simultaneously implementing congestion pricing. Radically driving up commenting costs and complexity for the average citizen while mass transit is still a mess isn’t just, nor is it politically wise. Congestion pricing only hurts the average person. Fix NY transit by making the richest individuals and businesses pay for it. After all, they are the ones who benefit the most from the laborers it supplies them with. Whether with some type of bond deal or a direct tax, get it done now.
3
I for one, am pleased with this cap. Not only has Uber and Lyft put too many cars on the streets in a very short amount of time without the infrastructure to support it, but there seemed to be no end in sight. Most of the time I rely on public transportation, but sometimes I have to drive and the traffic in the last few years has gone from bad to outrageously horrible...and most of those excess cars on the road have the "T" on their plates. A cap is not going to hurt anyone's ability to get a ride, there are plenty enough vehicles roaming the city looking for a fare as it is. Taxis, green taxis, and car services along with Uber are in plentiful supply. A little regulation on the pool of drivers and their qualifications (and pay), as well as number of these cars flooding the roadways is definitely welcome.
8
This will only negatively impact outer borough residents, many of whom do not have yellow cabs readily available in their neighborhoods. Subways outside of Manhattan are often unreliable, especially during rush hour. Yellow cabs have yet to find a way to offer cheaper ride sharing (uberpool, lyftline, via, chariot, etc).
I'll support this legislation when yellow cabs end their discriminatory practices and become more prominent outside of Manhattan.
3
I'm surprised that the medallion-based taxi industry isn't suing NYC and Uber/Lyft/etc. for what amounts to an uncompensated taking/devaluation of their medallions' value.
The city has changed the rules to favor a parallel driving service that doesn't pay anywhere near the cost that taxi owners do and puts them at a disadvantage -- as if a totally new business concept has been invented that deserves some sort of preferential treatment
Government did the same thing when laws were originally created that let online retailers got away with not paying state/local sales taxes -- as if they were a special, exotic animal. The Sears Catalog provided the same retail function through mail order and I don't recall those sales being given special treatment tax-wise.
Let's stop these digital self-deceptions and set up the same rules for everyone. Which is to say, compensate the taxi owners for the lost value of their medallions.
4
This will only strengthen my resolve to take Uber whenever possible. Support efficiency and competition, not protectionism and pumped up prices for mediocre services.
19
@CT Resident The more cars they add the less efficient they will be as traffic becomes more and more congested...
1
This decision smacks of utter corruption. Why should the city insert its hands into the lives of New Yorkers who have found the best method for travel especially in the outer boroughs.
I have been using Uber for several years now and it is clean, comfortable, efficient, and dependable. Contrast that with yellow cab’s rude and nasty drivers, high prices, and dirty taxis. I avoid them at all cost. Also, why should a yellow cab from JFK to Brooklyn cost me $80 when an uber is nearly half that? Of course consumers will choose the cheaper and more efficient option.
Times change and industries change. Why the city is kowtowing to the union is obvious. They are lining their pockets with union cash. Much like the way the transit union dictates what happens with the MTA instead of the other way around.
New York government (State & Local) only govern in the interest of lobbyists and don’t care about the comfort and convenience lacking from New Yorker’s lives.
Unions in New York have too much power. They need to be busted.
13
The thing is, you used to be able to make a living as s cab driver. The increase in cars affects the livelihood of all drivers—and also increases congestion and air and noise pollution for all of us. There are plenty of private car services in the boros.
But, please, yellow taxi are not rich and driving is not always safe.
2
America should be building modern rail. A Marshall Plan is needed for high speed, light rail and monorail. Cars are the major cause of Climate Change and if you don't think Climate change is real, just look at what's happening today in Northern California. NY City should have the best subway in the world. Its time to shift our economy from a war economy and war machine economy to an economy that builds for a sustainable future and the best interest of its citizens. 'Built in America' should guide us.
12
re: the convenient Uber app. Yellow cabs also have an app, which is called Curb, I have used it and it works the same way. In Manhattan and where yellow cabs are allowed. Just sayin'.
3
I didn't know about Curb. The taxi commission should advertise it more if they feel Uber is eating into yellow cab profits. Thanks for the info.
1
Because of lower spine disc issues it is very hard for me to take the subway. I occasionally took a yellow cab back in the day but I am sorry to say I have rarely been in one that wasn't filthy so when the ride-hail services came to NYC I was delighted. They offer clean and efficient service and for my usual trips the price is similar. If the number of ride-hail vehicles is going to be capped how about a requirement that cab companies hit the interior of their cabs with a cleaning wipe once in a while.
3
This is Socialism or more appropriately, a plain flat communism. Why force people to take yellow cabs and pay more when they can choose whichever vehicle they want as the ride sharing services enable them for less? As far as the argument about the Taxi union's argument about how Uber drivers are exploited, etc. is concerned, it's pretty phony. The drivers voluntarily sign up to drive Uber or lynx. The companies are not forcing them to drive. As far as companies making tons of money by making their employees work harder and for less, that's pretty much the case with any industry. The city could compensate the cab drivers for their investment on Medallions instead of slapping a carpet regulation. I am surprised that in the quest to promote egalitarianism, the mayor forgot about the lowest rung, i.e. the consumer who supported the ride sharing. May be the he and his party is getting tons of money for the Taxi lobby to finance their election campaigns. So what's next? regulation of pays in private sector, quotas for per capita consumptions, rationing and Government taking control of consumer goods industries? Changing NYC's name to People's Republic of New York?
6
Perhaps there are benefits to considering the needs of the entire community. More cars means more congestion, more pollution—and lower income for all drivers, even Uber drivers.
5
@CT Resident This has absolutely no relationship with socialism or communism. That's just name calling for no reason. There are plenty of cars out there now all in competition with each other... this measure just puts a hold on more coming in without the infrastructure to support it.
1
@Mary,
The "infrastructure" of which you speak, perhaps unwittingly, simply consists of the next generation of government-mandated rent-seeking. It's not as if they're going to build any more streets.
You would think that given how appallingly the taxi medallion system worked - unless you were a medallion holder who got in at the right time - there would be some humility on the part of NYC's government as it tries to reinvent its failed solution to fit modern times. Fat chance.
By the time NYC is done, ride shares will be just as mediocre, inconvenient, and expensive as taxis. That is by design. Over the past several years, ride shares have helped make NYC a more tolerable place to visit (I love it, but your train system is crumbling before your eyes). Rather than welcome visitors coming to spend their money and line the City's coffers, NYC has chosen to take care of its cab drivers instead.
Noted.
Years of TLC regulation resulted in the corrupt medallion system and a taxi industry which ignored the needs of its riders. The plight of yellow cab drivers should be addressed, but the ride share industry should not shoulder all the blame. The City Council and Mayor are responding to organized special interests rather than to the needs of the public at large.
12
NY City should continue to allow Uber and Lyft to operate and reimburse Taxi drivers who paid for a medallion. The city breached it's agreement with medallion holding drivers. The decision by the city to limit people's ability to earn some extra money by driving for Uber or Lyft is just an easy cash grab.
2
@John A cap on additional cars is not the same as cutting the ride share operations off. This is just a temporary cap. And from what I've read it's not an easy way for the Uber drivers to make more than lunch money while the CEO makes billions.
Traditional taxi companies need to transform their business model to become more like Uber and Lyft to compete. Use Apps and reduce overhead of a front office and dispatchers. Go anywhere a rider needs. Offer better, more consistent service by trusted, background checked drivers. The city needs to get rid of the "medallion" and reduce their taxes on traditional companies and drivers. Maintaining a healthy traditional taxi service is a public safety issue. Perhaps the taxi service could become a quasi governmental agency like the US Posal Service, and then compete with Uber and Lyft like they were FedEx and UPS - all are needed. People will be willing to pay a slightly higher fare for a trusted service with similar flexibility, but not outrageously higher. As a quasi governmental service, traditional taxi service could be required to go places Uber and Lyft would avoid.
2
Taxi medallion prices have plummeted with upside down owners committing suicide.
Medallions that had been at peak been sold for 1.3 million are now bringing 170-180K
Ride hailing services now haul more passengers than the yellow cabs.
Does this mean TLC plates will now soar?Will medallion prices recover?
Stupid. After multiple miserable experiences to and from both airports via taxi and town cars, Uber is a gift from heaven.I once had a town car driver refuse to take me to my terminal at JFK because "it's too far". By comparison, 2 wks ago I had an Uber ride that cut through side streets in Queens to get me to Terminal 2 on time for my flight. There might be issues with pay for Uber drivers, somehow I suspect regulation from the city won't fix these problems and make life worse for everyone in the city.
6
Really? I agree with the higher wages for Uber drivers but capping the vehicals is ridiculous. People want to get from point A to point B quickly, and clearly Uber/Lyft is the best way to do so, given their popularity.
I hope Boston doesn't follow suit
65
@A Programmer They have already added something like 60,000 to 80,000 cars to the roads in a very short time frame. Without a cap that could double by next year. There's enough cars out there now.
2
@A Programmer
How will you get from point A to Point B quickly when your stuck in traffic jams because of all the cabs, car service, uber, lyft, personal cars and buses on the street. It's already a known fact that because of Uber there way too many cars in the city driving around contributing to traffic delays. It's obvious you don't live around here.
3
@A Programmer With the traffic all these cars create, it's actually quicker to just walk. No one is getting anywhere quickly in a car.
The thing that sold me on Uber was not having to worry about paying and tipping. That is automatically calculated and charged.
5
Eric ullrich said it all: taxis are to uber/lyft/juno as blockbuster is to netflix. no one legislated against netflix. Anothrt deBlasio idiocy
6
This seems like another misguided attempt by regulators that will likely backfire. Shouldn’t they separate concerns? If congestion is a problem, that means there are too many vehicles on the road at one time. So why not start charging congestion and surge fees to all drivers. We have technology to do this automatically through either transponders or license plates. This would treat all vehicles equally, though large trucks should probably have a higher fee. A free market is the best way we know to price a scarce resource. Congested roads mean that roads are a scarce resource. An app could alert drivers about the tolls in real time, allowing them to choose when to travel. It would also encourage car pooling. Ride share suicides and pay are separate issues. Why conflate them?
2
I'm with the Uber drivers who say this action by the city council will help them make a living wage. I'm sort of shocked at the selfisness of all the comments here bemoning the City Council's action. 1000,000 extra cars on the street has made NYC traffic a nightmare, but go ahead add another 100,000 cars so you can ride in slow comfort on your way back from Trader Joes and Whole Foods. But with traffic getting worse, all your food will spoil before you get home.
18
@JM Thank you! I am floored at the selfishness in these comments. We've really become a mean city. It's me, me, me all the time, it's disheartening.
6
The medallion taxis have been problematic for many years in NYC. As an African American male ,I have felt the brunt of their discriminatory practices. I have been subjected to having the off duty light turned on as I attempted to hail a medallion taxi ,then subsequently watch them pick up a caucasian passenger down the street.They have made their beds ,now they must lie in it.
Limiting competition is not the best solution, the Mayor and city council need to address these discriminatory practices
as well as fixing the mass transit problem of the greatest city in the world.
6
In the real world, if a company is threatened by a competitor with better tech, the threatened company needs even better tech. So, where's the NY Cabbie Hail App?? Legislation rarely works because there are always loopholes and folks just break the rules anyway.
1
@Tom Rose There are two apps for that actually, Arro and Curb.
It's becoming a truism that anything proposed by Democrats is almost certainly a bad idea. This is one more example.
3
About 2 years ago I wanted to book a taxi to the airport from Bayside, Queens (outer borough?). It was late at night and I wanted the cab for the next morning.
I consider myself a socialist/leftist (!) and had stayed off ride-hailing companies till that point. I had reckoned, this is New York, how difficult could it be to book a cab?
I was SO wrong. First off, how does one know which taxi company to contact in a city one does not know too well (I am not from NY)? Well, you could google and/or use google maps for something like "taxi near me"...I called all the contact numbers of the taxi companies that popped up in my search. Either no one picked up the phone or they simply did not offer service the next day. Tired and frazzled, I finally gave up my "leftiness" and downloaded the ride-hailing app...the rest is history, as they say...next morning I requested a cab through the app...and of course, in abiout 10 mins I had a cab at my doorstep.
I do not think this is reason enough to condemn and tar all cabbies/cab-companies. I fault the ciites in the first place for their connivance and oversight in allowing these alternate forms of services (uber/airbnb) to set up shop without proper investigation and regulation. Now they all want to act after-the-fact.
That said, there can be no excuse for sloppy service - be it public transport or cabs - and if there are better alternatives, then they will win out.
2
There’re more than enough Lyfts and Ubers out there. So much so that traffic has slowed to a crawl. These drivers don’t get any benefits or any kind of insurance. Lyft and Uber are just getting rich on the backs of desperate, hard working Americans. We can’t just let capitalism run free, remember what VW did or Enron or BP or Uber?
6
I guess all the money they spent on lying, misleading commercials didn't fool smart and savvy New Yorkers.
Uber has no concern for no one and nothing other than their bottom line.
They're a monster that needs to put in a cage.
3
For decades the politicians have allowed the transit system to fall apart while we built high rises for the rich. The majority of people want to get to work on time and get home safely without the transit system failing them. When it rains you cant find a yellow cab . In Queens outside of the airports you had to use gypsy cabs because there were no other car services you could call to pick you up or deliver you to your home where public transit didn't stop at your location.
We want everyone to make a good wage for their services, we want people not to have to stress about public transit everyday. Is it so hard in 2018 to work out a solution for everyone. Isn't that why you are elected to public office.
3
@Tony Yes, let's go back to taxing the developers of high rise unaffordable housing and earmark it for mass transit. I think it's a great idea. The developers have had a free ride for too long.
1
People keep making this comment. Does not NY City know how to assess property for property taxes? Maybe NY City was not at the meeting with the other cities when they got the memo. As values increase, taxes rise. If you missed it, I am sure someone at Dallas City Hall could advise. Disregarding the many things Dallas City Hall does wrong, the one thing they do is collect taxes. Big time.
Let's take away the placards that allow our local politicians to park where they wish along any city cars and drivers that are assigned to them. If they are forced to ride the filthy, crowded, and perpetually late subways that serve as shelters for emotionally ill homeless people on the brink of a psychotic break, maybe they won't be beholden to the taxi lobby and its money.
13
The Uber -v- Yellow Cabs fight is simply politics mixed with business. This has always been the way. Nobody is entirely right or wrong here. Let the market decide, say Uber's supporters. No, help the Yellow Cabs, say others, but they both have a dog in this fight, so their opinions are disingenuous, at best. I do feel sorry for the taxi drivers, but they have been their own worst enemies for years now. My experiences in taxis have been, in no particular order - overpriced, dirty old cars, intrusive, offensive advertising & minimally English-speaking disinterested operators with poor driving skills.
To be fair though, Uber drivers have their fair share of bad drivers now. Not at first; they were brilliant. Surge pricing is simply price gouging in its purest form; just like charging $10 for a bottle of water in a heatwave, it's wrongheaded.
In two Uber rides I took recently, one had a male driver who was so morbidly obese that he couldn't get out of his vehicle to help with loading and the other was a female driver who never stopped talking about herself, but the moment we got to our destination, she picked up her phone and acted like we weren't even there, while we got out & unloaded our cases. Neither was tipped.
1
Uber and Lyft have been fantastic for the outer-boroughs and for minorities who have been taken advantage of by the livery taxis who feel they can charge whatever they want and/or often passed up by yellow taxis when in Manhattan. Force yellow taxis to stop discriminating hails by race!!!
6
I can't speak to the issue in NYC, but I hope other cities don't follow this model blindly. Having lived in Boston and Washington, I can't imagine having to rely on local cab companies. Scarce, unreliable, and often filthy, regular cabs have been a last resort for me... even compared to the oft-aflame DC Metro.
3
The Taxi business has worked hard for its own demise. Extra charge for using electronic payment, bad service, verbal treats if the tip is not big enough, and in 2018 still no gps. I would use Uber even if it was twice as expensive.
7
the medallion business sounds like a racket to me, I see no reason why the city should protect it.
6
What a foolish vote this was because it will also affect companies like Via that are trying to come up with solutions that help commuters in a time when mass transit in New York City is falling apart. This is merely the Mayor and City Council scrambling to find a solution to the ever-decreasing ridership levels of the Subway and trying to force people to use the Subway so they can continue to raise fairs and never improve service. Don't be surprised if talented, intelligent people start leaving this city to live in places that are less corrupt and more forward thinking in their approach to infrastructure and transportation needs.
53
@Robert Isaiah Nielsen mass transit is not falling apart, but is 100 years old and needs infrastructure dollars to make repairs. It's still the most efficient way to get around town and more Ubers means you will be stuck in more traffic.
3
@Robert Isaiah Nielsen
Hunh? "Ever-decreasing ridership levels of the subway"? NYT has reported the exact opposite in its articles on the awful MTA. To wit: "The major cause of subway delays is a factor that basically did not exist 15 years ago: overcrowding."
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subway-delays-ov...
@Robert Isaiah Nielsen
Aren’t there enough vehicles clogging the streets and my lungs
Way to go! Just what NYC needs: limiting car services when the subway is breaking down - to almost unprecedented levels.
The disregard for working people is appalling - but not surprising. And, neither is the fact that no one in the city administration has offered an alternative solution to "how to get from and to work" when neither subway nor car services are available.
8
One of the best features of LYFT is the almost instantaneous customer response and support - especially re: poor driver behavior and/or overall service during a ride. Customers can hold drivers accountable. The TLC doesn't care about customer service or how their drivers treat riders. I believe ride sharing companies placed enormous pressure on cabs to be BETTER. And I normally don't agree with GOP perspectives, but Ulrich is right: this is very similar to regulating Netflix to help Blockbuster. Unless it's collusion or anti-competition, complaining that you're losing out to a competitor who's better at the business than you is NOT a thing. Well, apparently it is in New York.
7
It’s amazing how this debate is framed as hapless cab drivers against big, overvalued Uber. In reading lots of coverage of this issue I have never seen mention of the obvious fact that Uber et al are an essential part of the growth of non-Manhattan boroughs. We in Brooklyn rarely see yellow cabs and only slightly less rarely green ones. The apps allow us to get around almost as efficiently as the journalists who are writing these and surely live and work in Manhattan. The apps have largely supplanted the inefficient car services with their grating hold music.
It is even more shocking that smart journalists are lamenting the fall in value of a medallion. The medallion racket is a textbook case of what is wrong with artificially limiting supply and enforcing a monopoly, enriching very few and forcing others into debt while forcing folks not near a subway stop to stand in the rain forever, scanning for a rooftop beacon.
13
Maybe we could have a government regulation that limited riding in automobiles to only the wealthiest people in New York, e.g., those that can afford to hire a full-time chauffeur. Then there wouldn't be as much confusion regarding social class when a person stepped out of a car. Those without funds can ride (or wait for?) the subway or walk (if disabled, simply stay at home).
7
In my opinion, everyone should be respect for all kinds of jobs. People have opportunities to earn money. Therefore, if this job had interrupted other people, this industry might be stopped. However, I think this industry can allow this society to be more convenient. To sum up, Uber should be allowed.
2
I am not involved in the taxi industry. But I do work for a living. Economists keep claiming not to know why wages don't go up. Wages don't go up because businesses keep finding ways to undermine unions and the minimum wage.
Uber and Lyft are a direct attack on unionized taxi and car service drivers. Driving a taxi used to be a career or even a small business. Now it is a "gig."
Studies show that Uber drivers average far below minimum wage. The minimum wage is below what union can drivers make.
This was sold to the public by calling it the "sharing economy." This is not sharing. Sharing is when you let someone use something for free.
This is using below cost prices to steal market share from unionized drivers, while subsidizing that business model by paying workers next to nothing.
This is not sharing. This is market manipulation by internet billionaires who sell buzzwords like "sharing economy," through a corporate media that loves buzzwords and profits taken from the productivity of workers who get paid little of what they make.
Investors have put $17 billion into Uber. Last year the the company had $37 billion in net revenue, and had $7.4 billion left over after paying workers below minimum wage.
But supposedly they are operating at a loss. Why would investors keep investing in a company that consistently operates at a loss?
Stealing markets share with growth of 90% per year, and driving down wages, the main concern of the mega rich, after tax cuts.
Unionize Uber.
8
My worst Uber ride was still better than my best cab ride. I have had Uber drivers offer me water, small candies and a charge for my phone. Cars are clean, drivers are mostly nice. I like the app to see where I am and approximate time of arrival. Cabs have none of that.
14
This was a smart move. The number of Uber and Lyft cars has skyrocketed. In my neighborhood they clog up the streets. Let's support the increased new numbers of Uber drivers by paying the them a living wage and let's use the taxis that are already there.
3
Council vote reminiscent of Democratic protection of unions in '60s. Wake-up to market realities! Protecting outdated, high-cost models is to step back several decades. Embrace change and its obvious benefits! Uber would not be worth $62 billion if it were not providing value to communities served.
4
Whatever happened to free market capitalism? Let the marketplace determine the need for products and the price not the government.
It's what made the United States great.
4
Uber and Lyft have been a disaster for another disruptive model - bicycling. Just as New Yorkers are taking to pedal power in droves, 100,000 new vehicles are added to the mix. I’ve ridden a bike in the city for decades & see the ride hailing services as a menace.
Yellow cabs have cabbies trained to know their way around, who respond to a raised arm. Uber drivers are typically looking at their GPS screens, trying to find their pick up adress. They tend to weave and stop suddenly. I have found them a bigger threat to my safety than other vehicles.
Plus, by driving mostly fat tall SUVs, they block vision and lane width for bicyclists, and are fuel inefficient. Cars should not still be prioritized in NY. Capping the number of ride-hailing vehicles
merely maintains the miserable status quo.
3
The “free market” hasn’t fixed a problem, but rather created countless additional ones, which people seem intent on overlooking in the name of convenience. But that convenience comes at a steep cost. Ride-hail services are built on a model of corporate exploitation that assumes none of the costs but reaps all of the rewards.
Firstly, workers not only sell their labor at exploitative rates, but they (and not their employer) must shoulder all of the costs – phone data plans, a car, insurance, gas, tolls – without any of the benefits – paid sick leave, holidays, health insurance. It's corporate exploitation of the worst kind.
Secondly, private corporations such as Uber take advantage of pre-existing publicly-funded infrastructure (roads, bridges, tunnels), but contribute virtually nothing to their upkeep. 100,000 Uber/Lyft vehicles on NYC roads only stresses our infrastructure. Profits are extracted from the respective cities (and drivers) and directed up the corporate chain.
Then there are the environmental impacts. Car pollution has all sorts of nasty consequences - we should be moving away from cars. 100,000 more cars on NYC’s roads has jammed the city’s streets. I often think about emergency services trying to snake their way through 100,000 more vehicles. A recent study found that Uber/Lyft cars are empty 40% of the time, which means they are just driving around aimlessly – more congestion, more pollution.
Fix public transportation. Ditch corporate exploitation.
4
The interests of the citizens, not the value of the taxi medallions should be the main concern of the mayor. If he wants to cut traffic congestion, ban all auto travel in the areas of concern and use buses or other mass transit...or try fixing the subway system.
This is NOT about traffic congestion.
5
Here's the history of what got things to this point: Medallions got obscenely expensive, subways became more unreliable, and buses remained as slow as ever, while the real estate industry was allowed to get richer building ghost town buildings in Manhattan, thus driving regular folks into other boroughs. There, they found that the subway system was designed to move people in and out of Manhattan, and not so much to travel around the respective outer boroughs. As for yellow cabs, most are in poor condition, many drivers flaunt the law and decline rides far away from Manhattan unless it's to an airport, and late afternoon it's almost impossible to successfully hail one. Yes, uber has its issues, but IF the interests of the traveling public for once had been placed above all else, things wouldn't have progressed to this point. How much of a problem is there? Answer this one question: does the public have better travel options around the entire city now than it did five years ago, as a result of the growth of uber? I suspect most people would say yes.
6
"Mayor Bill de Blasio and Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, said the bills will curtail the worsening traffic on the streets"
These two must be taking lessons for Lying Don; if we truly want to curtail worsening traffic we need to reduce the number of private automobiles in the city.
1)congestion pricing,
2)regulate overnight parking by limiting it to neighborhood residents who must have their car registered in NYC, must be licensed, must be insured (there go 50% of the cars immediately).
3)fix the subway, more trains more often.
4)eliminate placards 100%. Why on earth should public employees be allowed to park illegally wherever and whenever they feel like it?
5)cut the number of city owned vehicles by 90%. Why on earth are transportation (and any other) employees driving around New York City?
11
As a lifelong New Yorker, who started out in the boroughs and now lives in Manhattan, I find the comments defending ride-sharing, or taxis for that matter, absurd. What makes New York New York is 1) sidewalks, for walking and 2) terrific public transportation. Yes, with all its problems, the subway still moves millions of people every day, for the most part efficiently, and in Manhattan at least far faster than any car can do, especially now that the streets are jam-packed with cars with T license plates.
New York is not a city to be driven around in. If you want to be here, walk or take the subway, like most New Yorkers do. If you like to be taken door to door in a car, move elsewhere. Yes, there should be alternatives for people who are infirm or who live in parts of the boroughs with no public transportation, but that does not require the unfettered growth of the private cars that now clog the streets. The best solution would be a limit on cars of all types (less congestion, cleaner air, exercise by walking) and investment in improving public transportation.
13
The subways were designed to get passengers in and out of Manhattan. Taking the subway from Brooklyn to Queens requires going into Manhattan. Fixing the existing subway system does not fix the underlying design. And what public entity can reliably ante up the $20B needed to fix the existing system?
NYC needs to get out of the subway business.
2
I guess you never come home late at night ? Or that your not a woman coming home late to an empty side street trying to get to her apartment without being assaulted ? And you never left a bar drunk , etc etc . The subway isn’t the answer for everything. If you want to fix traffic. Get rid of the yellow cabs whose drivers who drive like maniacs and make the roads unsafe .
2
I am disabled, and I am upset by this move from DeBlasio and City Council. Car services are my only option for getting to-and-from work, and around the city. The prospect that others like me will have to spend even more for basic transportation because of this cap is outrageous! This action only benefits drivers, ordinary New Yorkers will be financially harmed by it. I intend to remember this at the ballot box.
4
Wheelchair-accessible vehicles are exempted from the cap. It's also not in effect in areas that are underserved i.e. not affected by congestion.
1
I'm baffled by the hysteria in these comments. No one is talking about eliminating Uber or Lyft.
Particularly baffling is the insistence that the drivers should remain under paid. Who do you think picks up the slack for underpaid workers when it comes to paying taxes etc.? Who do you think pays for social services for these underpaid workers?
I'm happy to have Uber and Lyft when I travel. I'm also happy to pay a fair price for any service I receive.
6
Follow the money - $$$$$$$!!!!! A report on political contributions to the Mayor and City Council members from the Taxi Medallion business seems to be warranted.
3
Taking an Uber ride a couple of days ago, I was inundated by in-app appeals to contact my representative to oppose then forthcoming cap on Uber and other car-sharing services. Prophecies of the impending doom - higher prices, longer waits, etc - accompanied the appeals. Poor timing on Uber's part as I was quoted a higher price for the same route I took using taxis several times before, the driver took 15 min to show up instead of announced 5, and was using some unknown navigation app that took us back 4 blocks to get on FDR. Oh, and the guy had rudimentary driving skills. That was supposed to be the Paradise new regulations were going to destroy...
Uber in NYC is something of a unique thing. It is more expensive than taxis (in default X version), when in Boston it's cheaper than their overpriced and usually clueless taxi services. The supposed connectivity on the map is often failing, setting up pick up points in inaccessible locations (like FDR) or not displaying location of the driver accurately. The only things going for it are the response times, which can fit both reservation and de facto ride-hailing modes, and the extreme disinterest on the part of (cheaper) car services to innovate, become more user-friendly - anything, actually. Car services in my area in Brooklyn do a great impression of a drunk Russian uncle, who is more interested in discussing last Zenit-CSKA match with his buddies, than giving you a ride to JFK. I survived. Losing Uber doesn't scare me.
3
I've taken probably 10 cab rides in the past 5 years. In Beijing, I was cheated because the subway stops in the early evening and it was raining. The cabby charged me $40 to go about 3 miles. In Ukraine despite many honest Uber drivers, a cabby cheated me and another German tourist. Finally, at LaGuardia, I wanted to go to Brooklyn and the cab driver (against regulations) complained this is a "shorty" fare (quite a long trip but does not cross into Manhattan) so he pretended his meter was broken and dumped me. The cab industry globally has failed to solve these information problems whereas Uber has succeeded. I think rather than punishing Uber, NYC should admit the private market has improved people's lives. NYC should cut taxes and sharply reduce government mafia tactics and abuse in order to allow the city to flourish.
8
So what did the city council raise the minimum wage of taxi drivers to?
3
I have had an handful of experiences using UBER and almost all have been positive. The cars have been clean, and the drivers polite. One car even had water and snacks. I have been able to use UBER to travel and do not need cash or do not feel gouged. You know the far upfront and travelling from the five boroughs to Nassau County has not led to unscrupulous make believe fares. Yellow taxis have always made up some fare that is incomprehensible or refused to go to my town. UBER and LYFT have caused disruption and I feel badly for livery drivers, but they only have themselves to blame.
11
Government has done such a wonderful job with public transportation--they just can't wait to get their hands on the taxi industry--to see if they can mess it up equally well.
Reagan was right: government IS the problem.
10
@Jesse The Conservative - I'd bet money that you'll be the first in line for government funds when you need it.
As a single woman age 64 I can not stress the safety that Uber service provides. No standing alone possibly in an unfamiliar neighborhood waiting to find a cab especially at night. And for those not living in the 5 boroughs but the 'outer' regions such as Nassau County, Uber also provides a service as taxi companies are in extremely short supply.
This is a service that provides exactly what the public needs and wants. Instead of being punitive, work towards the goal of fair, living wage ride services which respond to public needs in a variety of ways.
8
They aren’t removing Lyft and Uber. There will still be plenty of of them not to mention yellow cabs and car services.
A voice of sanity at last. Uber's claim that New Yorkers won't be able to get rides is laughable. I lived in Manhattan for 10 years and I could always get a ride in seconds. It's called a Yellow Cab people and they are to NY what apple pie is to America. Have never been able to stomach what cab drivers had to pay for medallions. Glad someone is finally standing up for these guys.
10
@Western Bonime Guess all of us in the other boroughs don't count? Try getting a yellow cab in Queens or Brooklyn! I use Uber a lot. I also used it when i lived on the UES - when shift change occurs and all the yellow cabs disappear, or when I had to travel to Brooklyn where no yellow cab wants to go.
7
Di Blasio and his fellow dilettantes on the City Council are stealing from the public and handing the proceeds to yellow-cab drivers and medallion owners, while hiding behind every liberal virtue signal they can find. What a con. As usual, NYC gets the "government" it deserves.
14
All you pro uber people are missing at least one thing, and one way to find out what that one thing is .... drive for uber. Uber might be great for you; not so much for the drivers. The real issue is not Medallion cabs vs Uber. It's UBER vs its drivers. When you use uber, you are voting for the corporation, not the people who actually make the money. Someday we will all be working in a "fulfillment warehouse," driving for uber, or working under similar conditions for some other giant $ machine. Good luck, everybody.
12
Suicide rate is confounding. In 2016 US rate was 13.9 per 100,000, in Idaho 21.9/ and NYC 6.3/. I am unsure of the relevance of suicide to capping Drivers for Hire
3
This is a totally unjustified government intervention in the market. Traffic congestion in NYC is not caused by Uber and Lyft vehicles. The city should not be involved in setting prices, which is what the pay rules amount to, nor should it be attempting to save the dinosaur otherwise known as the yellow cab. What the city should do is fix the subway system. But that's a lot harder than passing a piece of nonsense legislation.
14
Maybe people who live in Vermont should move to New York City if they are so passionate about big city mass transportation policy.
1
@FWS: My mother is a native New Yorker. One of the reasons I live where I do now is because I'm almost exactly 200 miles from NYC, Boston, and Montreal. Oh, and by the way, I think I have a right to express my opinion here, even if you don't like it.
I like Uber and Lift. They disrupted a line of service that needed to be disrupted. It is so easy to go from A to B. However, all these drivers have truly created traffic and congested streets. I have to drive to work because public transportation is terrible. What i see every morning and afternoon is all these drivers cut people off, they run stop lights, they stop in the middle of intersections and they clog the streets during rush hour. I do think there should be some type of compromise or a tax that help cities to fund public transportation. Something has to be done. Not banning them but having them follow rules. Right now, it is the jungle.
4
I have to respectfully disagree — from what I’ve seen, it’s people who feel they “have to” drive while the rest of us take the subway and buses who create the most congestion. The same thing is happening in the Bay Area where I’m from. And congestion is blamed on everyone but those who choose to drive themselves, often alone in their vehicle, rather than take an available and more environmentally friendly form of public transportation. In rural areas you do need a car to get to work but here in New York and the surrounding area, you don’t. The MTA is in dire need of improvements in nearly every way but driving yourself is adding to the traffic problem, not solving it.
6
I don’t live in NYC. My only way to get to work is car or 4 buses. I would trade my car in a second if you take decent public transportation and stop paying parking in the city. So NYC is not the only city in the world.
3
@Emily, this perspective is self-serving. Public transportation is neither convenient nor an efficient use of precious rush hour time for many who know they must drive. This opinion that driving within the NYC metro area is a disposable luxury has been wholly (and disingenuously) created for you and many others by the likes of the New York Times. A fair discussion cannot be anchored by the absence of empathy. Trust me, as someone who has commuted between two boroughs and Long Island, before uber and its ilk and afterwards, it is a life drainer, wholly undesirable, and yes, the emergence and ubiquity of taxis and ride hailing services do contribute overwhelmingly to congestion, because of their poor driving etiquette. Every non-commercial driver will attest to this, and most non-drivers (particularly Manhattanites whom I am among) will neglect this.
This is a perfect example of why NYC becomes more and more impossible to live in. An incompetent (and likely corrupt) mayor and an incompetent (and likely corrupt) city council act on behalf of some special interest that hurts the needs of its own citizens. For the outer boroughs bus service moves at a snail's pace, subway service, when it is nearby, is untrustworthy and only Uber provides a convenient alternative.
Wake up New Yorkers and start voting out the bums.
10
Whatever happened to free markets? Trump has killed it with tariffs compensated with subsidies, and now NYC is doing the exact same thing. This is madness.
1
It will be interesting to follow how one of most innefficient, unresponsive and bureaucratically bloated and corrupt civic governments on the planet will proceed with this blatant restraint of free enterprise. That this will be held as an example or prototype for other metropolitan areas to follow is absurd.
13
Typical anti-business left-wing politics--intervening in the free markets to limit business activity--and to interfere with wages by mandating certain pay levels. As with government involvement in everything, nothing good will come of it.
Three things will predictably happen:
--Ride hailing clients will be less well served.
--Prices for services will rise.
--Citizens of NYC will keep voting to keep liberal knot-heads back into office--despite their ill-advised and destructive policies.
14
Leave it to NYC to try to quash an upstart who dares take on a NYC sacred cow. In this case regulated taxi service and poor subways.
Like so many mediocre and just plain horrible services that continue to survive because there is demand and no alternatives, taxi’s and subway now shielded from the free market because the city needs to ‘study’ the situation. Read: must figure out how to get their cut of the pie.
6
Three words - get a bike.
2
If only New York was as cycle friendly as Amsterdam or Copenhagen...
I wish our Mayor had the guts to crack down on Uber and Lyft. The traffic problems they cause are horrendous. They stop in the middle of a narrow street and take their time leaving. They also stop anywhere to check their call requests. Regulation is long overdue.
5
this is really shortsighted. Uber and Lyft are great. I recently had surgery and in a giant leg immobilizer that keeps me from bending my leg. I am using Uber to get around while I recuperate. Instead of trying to hobble out on the street and battle it out with other people to get a cab, I just hail an uber from my phone. I've had yellow cabs not pick me up because they don't want to deal with the inconvenience. Never mind getting a cab in the outer boroughs. If yellow cabs are losing business because of Uber they should have banded and worked with a developer to have an app created. This goes completely against what people (i.e. customers) really want.
1
Bad move, sorry if you aren't making what you think you deserve.
After all, you drive a cab, right?
This is nothing more than a subsidy to the cab cartel, nothing more. Someone was paid to push this through, what a shame.
8
This is clearly motivated by keeping business for medallion owners who are some of the influential businessesmen that lease out medallion to cab drivers. If anyone thought politicians cared about general public they are under delusion. Truth is uber has made lives of thousands of people, especially those living in non-manhattan boroughs easier. Mayr deblasio is one of the most pathetic mayors in the recent times.
7
Give me Uber. Taxi makes my brain think Michael Cohen, which makes me think Donald Trump, which makes me feel sad for New York because both make me think the word corrupt, which makes me wonder about coming back and not wanting to spend my money there.
5
De Blasio rides around in nice taxpayer provided car. Take it away and let him use taxis.
17
So the mayor and city council want to control traffic and congestion by capping ride hail services, when he is really protecting a cartel, by creating another cartel (Uber and Lyft)? What will be the entry barrier for Uber and Lyft divers; a ride hail medallion?
The always brilliant mayor, strikes again....
63
@Phil You wanted Big Government (by voting for it)?
Here's big government. The thing that made NYC popular again were the unpopular decisions that Giuliani, Koch and Bloomberg made in the face of Social Justice Warriors who have no literal skin the game when it comes to the overall growth or decline of NYC.
This should be a sign to any large firm thinking of growing their operations in NYC to look in NJ and maybe even CT.
Republicany mayors and governors in progressive cities are a nice counter balance to each other. What you end up with is pretty good governance and policies that meet the needs of most of the population.
With DeBlasio and Cuomo in charge...NYC is in a state of decline...and denial..about that decline.
3
It's disingenuous of the ride-hailing companies to suggest that cars are even close to a meaningful alternative to the subway on a grand scale.
If the passengers on a single E train crowded to full capacity were to instead take shared Ubers - let's assume Honda Civics, 4 people to a car - the line of cars, bumper-to-bumper, would stretch from 59th Street to 26th Street.
While ride-hailing certainly deserves its place in the larger transportation system (especially in the outer boroughs), anyone with a basic grasp of geometry should realize that they're not going to replace the subway anytime soon.
3
Uber/(Lyft) has a better business model for getting a ride and customer payment, but not for paying its workers, or paying taxes. Also transporting many people in the 21st century is still a mess and the wild west. I think we need something better than sometime buses, especially for those not in Manhattan. Why doesn't the public system take advantage of the tech that Uber uses?
4
The world needs to embrace technology and be prepared to change when it works for the masses. Uber represents a better platform for commuters, than the previous status quo. NYC's legislative intervention into ride hailing services is misguided and myopic. The TLC had a broken paradigm with medallions and is now limiting progress to maintain it's market share.
2
Fifth Ave, near Rockefeller center, gets very crowded in December. The city council should limit the number of tourists allowed to arrive and walk around.
7
As a New Yorker, I take both yellow cabs and Lyft. These services serve different purposes.
Particularly as a young woman, when riding alone at night in unfamiliar neighborhoods or if in an outer borough (or even in upper manhattan, where I lived for some time), standing alone on the street looking for a cab that might not come or might be occupied when it does is a gamble against safety. Knowing exactly what car you’re meeting, when, and where is important in ensuring safety in these situations. This is especially true for newcomers to the city, who may not know where they are and need to see the in-app map to know exactly where they’re going (I speak from experience).
Now that I have lived in New York for a good amount of time, I will hail a cab if in a well-populated area, going to any of New York’s airport (cabs offer a flat rate), or traveling areas I know. I am able to offer directions if needed — yellow cab drivers are no longer required to pass an English language or city map test as they once were, meaning they don’t always know where to go. I would not have been able to do this after just a few months here.
One additional point— my 70 year old father recently visited. He has a serious knee injury and it’s hard for him to walk to the nearest avenue to hail a cab. I noticed he needed the door to door service of Lyfts while visiting.
I’m all for raising wages and reducing congestion, but let’s remain aware that both services are needed, not just one.
6
I am horrified that New York's short sighted response to these new businesses that benefit everyone except the taxi drivers might be copied by other cities.
I voluntarily stopped driving because of severe vision issues. I could still be out there posing a threat to myself and your family (like many aging people who choose to continue to drive) but instead I have Lyft: fast, reasonable cost, nice drivers, easy pay.
If I didn't have Lyft or Uber, the correct moral choice I made to stop driving would be considerably more difficult: I would have to choose a life of virtual isolation because cabs here are high priced and not easy to get.
That self imposed isolation is a lot to ask of a happy active senior, and there are millions of us reaching an age where physical impairments make Lyft and Uber a better choice for us, and for you.
The cap just initiated by NYC will almost surely result in fatalities of innocent people as those who should not drive could have used Lyft/Uber choose instead to take chances and drive themselves.
11
As a New Yorker, I assure you this was not "short-sighted", nor does it solely benefit medallion taxi drivers. The streets are now literally flooded with vehicles bearing "T-C" plates (Uber's/Lyfts), so much so that I make a game picking out the non- T-C plates, as they are fewer. If those riding in the backs of these Ubers would put down their phones for five seconds and paid attention to their environments, they would notice this. They would also notice that traffic has become unusually horrific - better hope you don't need to go crosstown, because it can take more than 1/2 hr to travel one block! For those who are struggling with making the connection, if the streets are too congested, your Uber may not be able to timely get you where you need to go. So actually, it's about time this was enacted, for the benefit of all New Yorkers, and yes, even these rideshare services, to protect them from being victims of their own success.
2
I really don't see what the big deal is. Has anyone here tried to drive around anyplace in NYC lately? A car, no matter what you call it, is the least effective way to get around, in fact in some places and times of day its just useless. What they should cap is the total number cars and people living here!
3
RE: The move, which would allow a minimum pay rate for drivers, may prompt other cities to follow suit.
Does the NYT mean require?
Leave it the politicians to meddle into a business which provides great service at an affordable price.
5
When I moved back to LA three years ago, I opted to use Uber instead of getting another car. Financially it worked out for me, as I am self-employed and don't have long distances to drive. Once I took a cab to LAX instead of Ubering; besides being twice the price, the car was hot and rickety, the driver spoke no English at all, and got lost. I would have complained, but the system for doing so was complicated, instead of incorporated into the process.
Now I live in a part of Massachusetts where two markets, a UPS store and many restaurants are walking distance away. I will walk to the grocery store, Uber home.
I want Uber drivers to have proper benefits and pay, but trying to force the company out of existence when its service is far more affordable and practical than a cab company's, simply punishes riders who would prefer not to put another car on the road and can't afford to take a cab everywhere.
7
Cory Johnson , Bill de Blasio and the city council took on a political giant. It was not in their political interests to take on Uber. But they did and apparently things may change.
New technology is a mixed bag. We are now adjusting to it on many levels . The road is rocky. But the road should not be filled with more cars .
Uber executives make like the a social activists . Slick and polished they alone invented adjustable surge pricing . Take them on now or it will get worse.
5
The road should not be filled with cab drivers who zoom across lanes to pick up fares endangering everyone else including their own passengers.
1
There is only one reason that this passed overwhelmingly: Money. Connected individuals own taxi medallions and complained to New York officials who are in their pocket. They are upset Their investment didn’t pan out because they finally had to deal with competition.
City officials don’t care about the six taxi drivers who committed suicide. They don’t care about the millions of New Yorkers who prefer the new services to the old taxis. They don’t care that prices for Lyft, Via and Uber will probably now go up. No one cared about taxi drivers before. They were used by rich medallion owners like sharecroppers and no one said a word.
14
Thanks for the help NYC (not). Thanks for stranding people who have no close access to cabs or public transportation. Thanks for making people who need to get to their jobs rely on lousy bus and subway service. Nice work. What a joke. It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.
9
I've driven into Manhattan infrequently for many years. Usually to a parking garage and then back out after a few hours. The traffic getting thru town has become nearly unbearable. The number of cars with dashboard mounted phone/maps is amazing. It is clear these are for hire drivers and their numbers as well as driving behavior is clearly making traffic worse. They sit at green lights, make turns from the opposite side of streets, drive 5 miles an hour while looking for a place to double park. It has become awful. The solution is not congestion pricing. Restrict the number of for hire vehicles.
7
Apps like Uber and AirBnB are relatively easy to develop and launch. When local governments over-regulate them, dozens of imitators serving niche markets will pop-up to replace them, many headquartered in foreign countries.
There are already six or seven apps just like AirBnB that don't collect taxes. These began popping up when New York, San Francisco and New Orleans started their registration process. It's extremely difficult to regulate products that people want.
5
I have zero faith in NYC to successfully regulate the industry. Everything else they regulate just gets more expensive, complicated and immune to further change down the line. It will ruin exactly what made all the residents of NYC love ride-share to begin with
Look at how well they've done with everything else:
MTA
The previous taxi industry
Public employee unions
Construction
Public Housing
Giving a bailout to the Taxi industry is exactly the same as giving a bailout to the coal industry: Both are outdated, provide inferior service and are/were monopolies controlled by wealthy, connected oligarchs.
19
"… an industry that has been allowed to proliferate without any appropriate check or regulation….” Regulation for the sake of regulation is no virtue.
Much as I dislike the excesses of Uber the company, there can be no question that ride-sharing services made possible by ubiquitous digitsl mobile service arose in response to a gross defect created in cities across the country. The very idea of artificial scarcity and quasi-monopoly created by the medallion system for taxis is the rare case of excessive and needless regulation working against consumers and for the financial enrichment of a limited few.
There may well be some need for specific regulations to counter problems created by the new ride-sharing services (treatment of drivers and congestion among them). Protecting a bizarre and counterproductive government-created quasi-monopoly without good reason is not one of them.
4
What happened to free market economics? I have no horse in this race so wether this bill passed or not mattered not to me. What is happening in NYC with the competition between ride share companies and taxis is a classic example of the free market in action. Competition brings increased efficiency, lower cost, and a better deal for consumers. That is exactly what we should want. The only winners here today are the taxi companies. So the bloated NYC government has stepped in to protect those poor cab companies. This is not good for the consumer or the city. Especially those consumers in the outer boroughs and away from mass transit.
12
This has not happened in a vacuum. The not always benevolent “free market” has overloaded limited and finite street space with thousands of Toyota Corollas and other preferred cars of the ride service set. And perhaps on a related note, I saw my first ever air quality alert this week for New York City. Regulations have their place in a well ordered society, and the free market is not to be left unfettered.
4
@Mike L Look at the USA and health care and universities, look at huge tax breaks for the 1% and corporations treated as people as they actively recruit abroad while lobbying in DC using all their profits for more H1B visas therefore fewer decent paying jobs for your kids and yourself - that is what happened to free market economics. It was permitted to become vulture capitalism.
1
Good work NYC. Support a business model that for years has provided, dirty, hot cars, high prices, and unreliable service when it's most needed, over one that provides clean cars, polite drivers, ac that works, and the ability to get one at any time and ride sharing, not to mention for half the price.
I stopped taking yellow cabs years ago, and Lyft provides an alternative to our crumbling unreliable subway service.
Bye by Deblasio. How much money did the yellow cab industry contribute to your campaign? Lots.
18
Some day I will share with my grandchildren the glory days of being able to hail a cab in the rain in NYC.
5
Of course, this is political payback for the taxi union's support of the mayor and the city council. It has nothing to do with helping Uber drivers. The unions in NYC control the politicians - that's the way it's been for years and the way it works with the democrats in charge - they make political, not common sense moves. It's happening with teachers, cops and city workers, whether they are qualified for not, the unions hold sway over the politicians. That's why the subways are failing, the costs in NYC are out of control (union labor adds a third more to the cost of doing anything) and the democrats look the other way, as long as they're getting their pockets lined with union money, they will continue to bow down.
8
Why do we need to go back to the old way of doing things when there is a more efficient and popular way? What’s next, we can’t buy our own milk because milkmen need jobs?
8
I don't know about NY, but many of the Uber and Lyft drivers in Chicago have no idea where they are going half the time. They come in from other cities and think they can depend on their GPS. Very frustrating having to help guide them around. Give me a Chicago cabbie any day of the week. I don't trust having a total stranger drive me around, we have had some bad stuff happen in Chicago with Uber and Lyft drivers. Plus, I used to be able to hail a cab in my downtown neighborhood the second I walked out of my building. There are so many Uber and Lyft drivers in the area cabs are now scarce. Brave to NY for moving to limit the number of drivers for hire vehicles. I hope Chicago does the same.
4
@Lake swimmer I meant to say "bravo" to NY. I hate the way Uber/Lyft drivers stop in the middle of traffic lanes in Chicago. Many of them are horrible drivers who could care less about how they affect the flow of traffic. They create dangerous situations by their hazardous driving. Too many of them in Chicago.
1
@Lake swimmer for many this is their only source of income because they can't deal with e verify as illegals. There's no vision requirement to drive for either uber or lyft and I am sure many of their franchisees have lied about having a valid license. Let the fare beware.
Finally! Logic prevails!
How long were we going to let this insanity continue! A world where people get to choose what they do, and the rate at which they’ll do it for, is a brutal and unfair world to some.
It may be a world with more choice, with wait times and prices that are significantly less, and where quality is significantly higher, but if that’s a world that hurts people like taxi drivers then that’s not a world that I want to live in!
And as the suicides showed us, it’s not a world that 6 particular drivers - out of maybe 250,000 - wanted to live in either.
Say what you will about the logic of forcing millions of people to pay more and wait longer for a vehicle because 6 people couldn’t live without the rent protection inherent in the old system, but it sure is compassionate!
And I think it’s a principle we should apply across the board too. Does that tweet offend? Censor it. Does competition harm someone’s bottom line? Restrict it. Does someone profit at someone else’s expense? Have the government take from the first to give to the second. Do our laws hurt people who break them more than people who don’t? Selectively enforce them.
This is what compassion looks like. And whether it’s the church, the king, or the city council, there have always been some who balked when they used their power to restrict choice in the name of compassion. But they should be ignored. For this is Progress!!!
11
You Sir have won the internet, greatest comment I’ve read in any comment section anywhere,
As a professor (whose name I can’t recall) on a Sam Harris Podcast recently declared “Empathy Kills”
Of Course you realize that your espousing Ayn Rands Philosophy but so be it....
The city should buy back the Medallions at the prices they issued them. Then we can finally be free of their insidious lobbying.
4
@Mike
When they were issued medallions cost $10.
3
Shouldn’t be too expensive then
This is just a play by the Mayor and City Council to knock Uber, Lyft and others down to size, and gain control. Right now, these ride-sharing companies are the only antidote to an ailing and mismanaged subway system. Along with overruling local community decisions on bike lanes, de Blasio and the City Council are on right track to keep up their pace of horrible decisions in 2018. They won’t rest until they get rid of all cars in the city.
5
I never understand why, when there are disrupters in an industry, the disrupted industry thinks a solution is to prohibit the disrupters while the disrupted attempts to play catch up. This reminds me of the music industry back when it was trying to prevent downloading music. There is a reason Uber is so successful and that is because it is an easier, better user experience where you aren’t getting ripped off by a ny cabbie—and we have all had that experience. The consumer is being punished here and it’s not right. If they want a better experience they should be allowed to have it.
10
As a person of color, I remember planning my life around how far south I should walk (definitely below 110th street) and on what side of the street I should stand (definitely NOT the uptown side) if I wanted to hail a yellow cab in Manhattan, regardless of the directions of my ultimate destination.
With the arrival of Uber, my shoulders went down, my anxiety level fell, and I (as a now out-of-towner suburbanite), actually plan more outings to the city and enjoy them more.
40
@Jane Petrick This post should have been a NYT Pick.
I am in the subway & bus every single day, using my Metrocard an average 6-8 times a day, it is absolutely a disaster, all those Uber, Lyft, Via and others are needed since that we cannot count on public transportation, week end subway is even worth, making almost impossible to go to Brooklyn from Harlem in less than 90 minutes, I won't even start talking about the state of cleanness of our station , starting my day at 103rd street station is so depressing, so mayor & governor when you are over your ego game and become big enough to talk about the 6M daily riders , I may agree on the reduction of taxis.
8
"In Seattle, the City Council approved a bill allowing Uber drivers to form unions, but the measure has faced a legal challenge. "
Apparently only about 20% of Uber drivers work "full time". A majority work fewer than 10 hours per week. However, that should not prevent them from forming a union to get their fair share of the profits.
I remember when this all started, with "People Express" airlines. People would get jobs working the desks at PE 10-12 hours/day for a month or so and then get fired. The company called these "part time" workers so they didn't have to pay workers comp, SS taxes, etc.
Companies found this major loophole in exploiting workers. It needs to be addressed.
2
If ya wanna solve the congestion problem in Manhattan limit the truck deliveries to 8:00PM through 6:00AM. Truck deliveries literally use up 40% of the active lanes on Manhattan avenues. Give the drivers access to their delivery stores or hire someone at night to accept the deliveries. It CAN be figured out. Limiting Uber/Lyft drivers won’t solve the problem.
15
Uber and Lyft were a market disrupters. Unfortunately, it created a system where the traditional taxi cabs were well-regulated and the new services were not. What the whole system needs is an even playing field. Maybe the cabs have to adapt their way of doing business. Maybe someone should look at the whole transportation system. more as infrastructure, not just a service. The regulations, taxes, etc. for cabs and other ride-hailing services should be the same. As for private cars, good luck with that issue.
4
There is probably some good logic behind this, I've been skeptical of Uber from the start but I'm also skeptical about the fairness of the taxicab medallion system. If this turns out to be about protecting the likes of Michael Cohen I'm not on board.
Let's get real here and drop the panic mode at the capping of Uber and Lyft. For decades before the ride hail companies there were only about 15,000 yellow cabs. Now there are also at least 60,000 ride hail cars. Do the math. It's hard to believe that capping the ride hail licenses at the current level will significantly impair ones ability to call a ride hail car.
11
How many of the privately owned cars don't park regularly in a private place but rely on parking on the streets whenever they are not being driven? What would the situation be if registering a private car also required providing proof of off street parking?
1
@Kay
Not a useful suggestion - there is not enough off street parking to begin with. High rises in other cities (Chicago) regularly include enough garage space in new construction, priced as a one-time option without ridiculous monthly fees.
New York doesn't have that. High rises are built without garage space. Garage entrances are prohibited on many streets. The boroughs do not have parking spots for single or multifamily row housing. Garages and parking lots that used to be abundant have been razed for new development. Large stretches of avenues have lost parking lanes already to bike and bus.
Where street parking is still available, take a look at the license plates. Many are for-hire vehicles taking up urban parking spots to idle while waiting to go on call. I've seen black car drivers "hold" entire stretches of spots for their buddies to rotate in and out of, including in metered spots and "no standing" zones.
There's not one bad guy in this problem but there is a lack of rational urban planning.
When medallion taxis provide service in my neighborhood, I will be more sympathetic to them. I took lyft from LaGuardia and Uber in Houston and some local rides here in the Bronx. The drivers were prompt, courteous, cars were clean, I could use the app easily (I am an older woman). I felt safe and price was known in advance of my ride. I can get airline miles for these rides, also. I have had many bad experiences with medallion drivers as well as other car services. This is a godsend for me and facilitates my ability to retain my independence and enjoy what this city has to offer. I do use public transportation very frequently, but, when there is track work for weekends on end, no A/C and delays, I need alternatives. I agree drivers need a living wage as do other service employees. I'm not bashing the employee; I believe corporate and political interests are being put ahead of consumers and drivers are in the middle. Capping these services and better service to outer boroughs years ago pre Uber and Lyft should have been priority of our elected officials and medallion owners. Nobody provided relief to the consumer. Other writers are correct in criticizing the way elected officials have handled real estate lobby. Medallion cab drivers should never have been allowed to choke Manhattan's streets and discriminate against residents of other boroughs.
7
The traffic in Manhattan has gotten worse and worse in the last couple of years. It is impossible to move anywhere and a lot of the problem lies with car services. There are too many cars on the streets. While the outer boroughs need more Uber, Manhattan does not. Going from the far UES to midtown takes at least a half hour in a car - a ride of two miles!
5
Subway ridership is down, and so is the income for the subways.
Ya think this move was in part to help increase subway ridership?
3
In Boston years ago, the public outcry of complaints spurred the taxi companies to take action. They cleaned up their cars and the drivers wore tuxedos. I don't remember when the tuxedo thing stopped. My point is why don't the taxi companies take a lesson from Uber - clean up the cars, have the drivers dress better and stay off their cell phones. When I am in a NY taxi, I always feel as if I am an inconvience instead of a customer.
20
I guess 100 years ago, the city would have "cracked down" on automobiles so the horse & buggy people wouldn't lose out. This is not the way to modernize since it limits competitiveness and choice, basic tenets of a market economy.
Favoring old-style medallion taxis means having to pay higher prices for an increasingly uncompetitive business. Riders should not tip at all as a way to protest being forced to pay these higher prices as a result of the city's limit on lower-priced and superior alternatives.
7
As someone who lived in NYC for a year or so, I think this great, in fact, make it permanent. Modern cities have proper public transport, NYC does not, that is the problem. Uber is not the solution, they are, just like most modern tech industries, scammers, using the digital era to by-pass regulations that effect taxi companies today.
5
@Sky This protectionist legislation will hurt NYC
1
@Kevin Uber is a US company based in San Fransisco. Protectionism is when you shield your countries from foreign products.
I remember when the pedicabs arrived. Interesting, reduced pollution and greenhouse gases, and immediately improperly regulated to become just another tourist trap.
Most yellow cabs are cramped, filthy, have almost useless air conditioning, and are driven by people with no clue about the best way to get around the city. Oh, and don't forget yellow are generally the most expensive way to travel.
Prices of medallions have been dropping quickly so owners of fleets have become like slumlords, as their cabs fall apart.
I never forgot when one taxi commissioner indicated that providing basic training to drivers about city streets was unnecessary given the advent of GPS. Well hail service drivers know how to use GPS apps well. With yellow drivers it is almost never the case.
Hail services are one of the best thing to happy to the city in years.
Congestion pricing, reduce yellows and the city just just might recover a bit.
12
Does anyone else remember the scene in the smash hit from 1984 "Ghostbusters", the one where the cabdriver turns around to show he's a ghoul? That's my impression of Lyft and Uber. Because here in Chicago we know a man who has a dead right eye, and 25% vision remaining in the left eye. He's prone to go into diabetic coma without warning, weighs almost 400 pounds. He also has felony child abuse convictions. And there he is, driving the family minivan for hire so that he has more money to slake his insatiable thirst to engage in compulsive gambling. I will never get into a Lyft or Uber vehicle and almost never hire a medallion cab but would choose them. Can't wait till this great regulatory idea infects Chicago.
4
I’d be more inclined to take a taxi if I was confident they weren’t going to cheat me on the fare. Case in point: a $30 taxi ride from my hotel to a restaurant in Las Vegas was $15 via Uber on the return trip. Thanks, I’ll stick with Uber.
11
Apparently, in New York success must be punished. Although it would seem obvious that innovation has made life better for the public in so many areas, government cannot seem to resist using its power to regulate the businesses that put innovation into practice. What a shame that the people who live and work in New York must suffer as a result. The people celebrate Uber and Lyft. The government slaps them down.
21
@richard.sypher the best example today of tyranny where government is defying the will of the people. NYC getting the results they elected
2
@richard.sypher
On the bright side, people who live and work in New York are accustomed to suffering.
A sweeping majority of the council voted to further limit and regulate a private enterprise.... that will result in higher costs for residents / consumers. Typical NYC politics. This is why folks continue to move out of NYC in droves... the cost of living is unsustainable.
12
Why is normal city regulation framed as a "crackdown"? If the city sanitation dept. didn't collect trash for 3 years and let mountains of filth just piles up in the streets and then for God knows what reason the city said, "Hey, you know, we could actually do something about this, and I'm not even sure anyone else has the power to. It's almost like government has a real purpose in society." And then they started clearing the towering piles of refuse, would that be a "crackdown" on garbage?
3
@Robert
"Crackdown" implies a crime has been committed. In this case, the crime is free enterprise in NYC. The bosses discovered their error and have promised to "study" it so free enterprise never happens again without the proper bribes and kickbacks, artificially higher wages and restricted work hours.
7
@Ed L., Excuse my interrupting your libertarian delirium. Free enterprise is always subject to regulation. It's why free enterprise parents can't prostitute their children to buy drugs.
If Uber was really about innovation, it would improve the earnings and working conditions of cab drivers. And if it doesn't, what law of nature demands we embrace regression? None.
When the NYC central government chooses to act like a socialist state (too often) and define what is good for consumers, they created and maintained the cab, bus and subways system that has plagued this city. Prior to Uber, the physical condition of cabs was horrible, the drivers (unlike London or Tokyo) incapable of communications, hurdling down streets for another desperate fare, cabs unavailable and in many neighborhoods, times of days, during rain, and ignoring minorities who might take them to undesirable locals, and charging the obscene $ premium imposed by a medallion system that burdened every car with financial returns to the russian/Ukrainian owners. Now that we have a system that is working, the deBlasio/City Council under pressure from their own failed cab system wants to reimpose their "judgement" on what is good for us. Argh!
24
It's high time this Uber/Lyfft thing were stopped. The proceeds from taxi services should stay entirely within a city, drivers should expect stable work conditions and income, while users should expect decent, safe service and fixed prices. Of course, in many cities there are distortions, especially the capitalization of permits (plates), but policies can be brought in to gradually correct them without pauperizing people unexpectedly. The so-called tech companies need to be brought under the same rules everybody lives by, especially regarding taxation, and strictly local sevices must remain local. There is no need whatsoever for a global corporation to control an entirely local service.
4
But why? So the many (people living in New York) can prop up the few (failing cabbies)? Doesn’t seem right to me
2
America is a fascinating country.
It has a very unique culture.
Individual freedom is valued above everything else....even when that individual freedom impinges on the rights of the community.
The more obvious solution is not to restrict Uber but is to improve public transport so that hundreds of thousands of people can use it to get into and out of the city quickly and efficiently and at a reasonable price. Note...this public transport service will lose lots of money.....the Hong Kong MTR (subway) is one of the only profitable public transport services in the world.....most are not. But, of course, there are additional benefits....
Note to Americans. This is the solution identified and used by the majority of other developed nations.....
Given your current political gridlock this will not happen but when you wish to demonstrate “American Exceptionalism” please feel free to implement it.
15
There should be a union for Uber drivers.
4
There is obviously a strong need for Uber. Lyft type services. What might come next? How about, hop in, I'll give you a ride? All cash transactions.
1
That happens in the low income areas. Black cars illegally cruise the streets looking for hails. it is an accepted system. every fare is negotiated and everyone knows what the fares should be. all cash. the police accept it as well bc always look the other way. but it had to be that way before the apps bc yellow cabs served only a fraction of the need.
1
Things change. I don't have the app so I know nothing about Uber or Lyft. I know taxis are expensive …. I am looking forward to the next disruption - the self-driving car which can simply be programmed to go wherever. I am also looking forward to subway trains that are automated. Yes, lots of disruption and a need to rethink the entire economy. Personally, I think it's immoral altho entirely legal to buy a 60 million $$ painting a auction and pay NO TAX! (The federal luxury tax was most recently done in by WJC -- and it's legal to put a piece of art on public display for six months and not pay tax. This in response as to where do we get the money for whatever. Congestion in a city is to be expected. And taxes should not always mostly impact the little guy. The MTA is a mismanaged and IMO corrupt agency Too much $$ spent on granite floors, completely unnecessary redoes-- hanging ceilings: new stations not kept clean -no.1, 168th St. ??? Public comments? No one cares!!!
2
New York is a disgusting city where all semblance of a decent quality of life is impossible (unless you have 10 million dollars or more). Anytime something in the free market comes along to equal the playing field for the average person in New York City, the city makes sure to destroy it so only the rich can live there, while inconveniencing everybody else.
20
I drove medallion cabs which I leased in the 1980's. I always worked night shifts, because during the day traffic was so congested there was no money to be made. It was demanding and dangerous work, with no benefits. I usually was rolling for 11 hours each shift. All these free market advocates seem to overlook the fact that there is only so much capacity on NYC streets. When traffic does not move, neither drivers or riders benefit, and the environment takes a hit. A cap is long overdue.
20
The streets will be filled regardless. Congestion pricing is the only way to alleviate traffic or at least get the right cars (ride share, not personal vehicles) on the road
5
Balance. We need properly regulated industries and products to function as a civil society. Questions of economics are not merely the dictums we learned in college. On the ground, it is much messier, especially when tradition meets technology.
5
How can Uber be worsening traffic worse than private cars or taxis?
And why would New Yorkers have to rely on a limited number of licensed taxis, when the need for ten of thousand more is evident
Cap for one year to see what happens is OK, but the situation should be re examined in its entirerty.
Also those licenses should always be personal and never assignable leasable or for any kind of sale...
2
I booked Uber leaving Tarzana hospital after 4 days in bed. Then I get a message to meet the driver at an address down the Street
Turns out the driver was afraid of a charge to go in and didn’t know that medical centers have a grace period for pickups. Los Angeles. Stupid. I. hope Uber sinks.
2
I used UBER in NYC in May - could not have been more pleased.
4
@Neil You hope Uber sinks because of a mildly bad experience with one driver??
12
Uber is just an unregulated underpaid taxi service booked through an app. Its not a "revolution"
If you want your drivers well paid, insured and regulated, dont use it.
19
If you want to do something about low pay for drivers, just give a huge tip. In cash.
@scientella In NYC Uber drivers are licensed commercial TLC drivers, not just any old person with a car. The City does regulate all for hire vehicle drivers.
I grew up in a country with no competition and it was horrible. Everything low quality and expensive. Same here?
One of the beauties of this country is that, ultimately, the most intelligent and consumer-based option succeeds with the customer. Unless of course (as I lived it myself) government intervenes to enrich their coffers.
This is typical big government Democrat New York, what else. The consumer, who pays taxes out of his paycheck, is NOT that important in decision making. It is not even about fairness, if you asked me.
Adapt or close shop, because it is normal working people who should benefit.
5
Uber is a fantastic service. Fiddling around the edges to stop the inevitable is ridiculous. Uber is simply a sensible and efficient improvement in service. At the very least, taxis will, or should, lift their game as a result.
11
If I call a car and the driver takes me somewhere and I pay money for it, it's a taxi. Period. Sure, I could undercut McDonald's pricing if I simply ignore regulations like food prep standards, sanitation laws, minimum wage laws, payroll tax laws, etc. That's not innovation, that's ignoring regulations. What's happening now is what drove NYC to start the medallion system in the first place.
13
So, you have to just go ahead and disrupt the stagnant incumbents, whether or not they are tithing to the local government. You would never get permission, so all you can do is try for forgiveness if you happen to succeed.
The time required for city hall to ask after its piece of the action shows their lack of urgency compared to the innovators'.
1
The main reason for slower traffic is DeBlasio's Vision Zero policy whose stated goal is to slow down traffic to save lives.
It is utterly cynical implement Vision Zero (slowing traffic) and then use the slower traffic as an excuse to implement congestion pricing, tolls on the bridges, etc.
2
@XY Shouldn't the policy rightly be called Zero Vision?
5
It is still not widely known that several apps are available for hailing yellow taxis, like Arro and MyTaxi. I find them to be similarly convenient to Uber in most circumstances, and passengers enjoy the protection of metered rates. They are particularly good when it is raining and Uber has “surge” pricing in force.
7
Whether it is Uber, Airbnb, or Bird scooters what is becoming evident is that these new "tech disrupters" are making their profits by circumventing regulations, avoiding taxes or jeopardizing customer safety by cutting corners. With a licensed taxi, you are assured the driver and vehicle meet certain standards, with Uber you have no idea what you are getting into. Same with Airbnb. Then when things go wrong, the tech company throws up their hands and points to their "terms and conditions."
Make tech companies accountable and make them follow the same rules as the industry they are "disrupting," and their advantage quickly disappears.
6
Meet standards? Are you kidding? You have obviously never been in a NYC yellow cab!
13
I am not a Uber fan and rarely use the service in NYC even though I get a $10 credit a month from my credit card. Yes, the cars are cleaner than cabs, the drivers fiendlier. But every time I open the app I get a 15-20 minute waiting time even in midtown Manhattan. Sorry, wrong number. I'll take the subway.
4
The subway is great but it's not the whole answer! we need good surface transportation too.
2
So many comments here that strike me as so selfish... There is a reason why Uber is outright banned in so many countries in Europe - because people there have understood that turbo capitalism comes at the expense of people - ALL people, ultimately. Oh what a big deal if you can't get your "more comfortable ride" - take a cab, the subway, bike or walk ... and maybe re-consider the really important things in life, and the things that sustain it.
33
"Turbo-capitalism"?? it's a taxi by another name! A better one. The issue of low wage jobs has nothing to do with this service. That is a national issue. If you eat at a restaurant, you are complicit bc you can be sure that Mexicans making sub minimum wage are preparing your food. Should we freeze all new restaurant openings until there is complete economic justice? This is all silly hype.
2
All I can say is, it’s about time! I live and work in Manhattan and am tired of suburban-style for-hire vehicles (many of them actually Suburbans and nearly all driven by non-resident men) clogging our streets, riding and stopping in our bus and bike lanes, turning on red, and honking at pedestrians who dare cross on a “walk” signal. All the while, our taxis that know the streets and the driving rules remain heavily regulated. Granted, transportation in NYC is far from perfect, as it remains uneven and inaccessible to far too many, but it’s about time the city took steps to end the preferential, unchecked treatment given to ride-hailing apps.
10
@Mary K Unfortunately, your rant offers no solutions to the deplorable transportation issues that exist in Manhattan. The transportation infrastructure is a complete mess, and this ban will merely accentuate that mess. Good luck to NYC!
7
@Mary K Yellow cab drivers seldom "know the streets" they try and cheat you at every opportunity. Never had this happen with Uber. Yellow cab drivers are just as bad at following traffic regulations as Uber drivers - yellows also stop anywhere, dart across three lanes of traffic to get a fare, the yellow cars themselves are badly maintained and it's not like the drivers are well paid.
1
@Vgg ".... yellows also stop anywhere, dart across three lanes of traffic to get a fare".
I was once on 8th Ave trying to get a taxi. I saw an empty taxi approaching in the lane nearest to me, when suddenly another empty taxi in a lane Beyond that, cut across to try and reach me first. Clearly understanding what this other driver tried to do, I ignored him and instead got into the other taxi.
The taxi that had tried to muscle his way in front of the other one was 'mad' that I'd not gotten into his taxi. As we passed him, he reached across the front seat and threw coffee at our taxi, and a bit made it into my open window. I was furious that he had the audacity to behave in such a manner, but as quickly as that he sped off.
I have nothing against Uber and similar companies, but the N.Y.C. government destroyed the financial well being of thousands of Taxi Medallion owners. The city government heavily regulates the taxi industry and did not impose similar regulations on Uber and other such companies.
Further, the city government to a large extent controls the price and value of taxi medallions. New York City charged enormous prices for taxi medallions, and took in many millions of dollars. After taking in a fortune, New York City then allowed the quick rise of uber, Lyft and similar companies. People who drive for Uber and Lyft do not pay for medallions.
As a result, the government destroyed the finances and lives of many taxi owners. In my opinion since the government allowed this situation to develop, the government must take steps to compensate those unfortunate individuals who purchased Taxi medallions at inflated prices.
10
@Fatso Those "unfortunate individuals" were, in many cases, privately-held entities that behaved like cartels, provided terrible service, and extorted consumers. The only reason the medallions were worth $1mm were because of the predatory monopolist prices their monopoly commanded. All things being equal, supporting extortionist cartels that provide terrible service over the downtrodden consumer is a highly socialist ideal. Perhaps the cartels should have priced this dynamic
into their business model when evaluating future risk.
6
No regulations were needed for Uber bc it was a good service. Taxis are a lousy service. And the City did not control the price, the market did. The market made a wrong bet on the price of medallions.
2
The city should not interfere with setting a pay floor for Uber drivers and others makes no sense at all. In fact it's unfair to all other workers in the city because their minimum wage is much lower.
Based upon the fall in the value of medalian, one can clearly see that the cab fares were too high to begin with (and cabbies too few) because the investor who bought the medallion needed a risk adjusted return on his investment of about 15%. With competition, the medallion should be worth nothing.
With no barriers to entry to being a Uber driver, the wage should be allowed to fall to where there is the opportunity cost is zero. That is, the driver is indifferent between working in a different job.
With that being said, there is a fundamental problem with what is a fair wage for NYC all workers. The NYTimes article does not say how the minimum floor was arrived at. Also some cab workers willing to work in far excess of the normal 40 hour work week. This drives down the average revenue per worker as each competes to out-do each other. "i.e. dog eat dog".
Congestion pricing is a farce. Consider a person who needs to be at work at 9:00 has little alternative.(For example a retail sales person.) If they leave an hour earlier to avoid the congestion pricing fee, ditto when leaving work as well, then effectively they have a 10 hour day. For them to be indifferent between paying the congestion fee or changing times, the fee would equal an hour's wage rate, which is absurd.
1
Question for nyc residents. Since the introduction of uber/lyft have you seen an increase in quality in taxis? Have you noticed traffic in the city worsen?
2
Taxis have always been a joke and the streets always packed. the difference is that now you can ACTUALLY get places in a private or shared car in a reasonable amount of time. It has DRAMATICALLY improved mobility in the city and set the stage for a future in which car ownership will be a thing of the past.
2
There are a variety of ways that the city could have addressed this in a better way. Uber is killing the cab industry not only because of cost. To be blunt, their cars are nicer. And the service is more predictably available - especially outside of the airport and midtown.
It's not clear to me why we need cabs anymore outside of keeping Uber honest with pricing.
A more interesting approach would have been to enforce competition between private services. For example forcing Uber/lift/cabs to open their apis up such that an app could be created that hails any of them based on price and proximity. Ubers real power is in that mobile app. Customers are used to going there first when they need a ride.
As an aside as well. Please kill the bus system in Manhattan for busses going north and south. They're just redundant with the subway. And they're slower and add to traffic.
And lastly, the subway generally remains an embarrassment. If the city needs revenue to fund updates, look at Ubers variable pricing. Charge more at rush hour and for longer distances.
6
The Taxi Industry is very powerful in NYC, like the hotel industry. They want to quash all the upstarts. Uber, Lyft, Via and such serve a very important service that the subway and taxis can't offer. Uber tells you when the ride will come, tells you where it will be picking you up and typically is cheaper than a cab. It gets you to places that would still be a walk from your local subway stop and the drivers and cars and clean and professional. Sometimes cabs are pretty beat up and yuk. No heat, no air conditioning, no shocks! Often others' garbage in the back.
As long as the big corporations contribute to the coffers of the people who make policy or laws, you can expect the convenience of mere citizens to take second place.
9
Uber has forced me back to public transportation during the weekday. I take the ferry and a bus to work. I used to drive to work, but thousands of cars on the road have become too much. The Bay Area is full of Uber and Lyft drivers that have no clue how to get to SFO or navigate around San Francisco. During rainy season, say your prayers when driving on 880.
Hope San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and other cities follow New York City's lead. Then invest in public transportation.
3
You are a case study in what's right about these services. I want you not to feel like you can drive to work, unless you want to pay a big fee for it.
1
I’m very glad to see New York take a lead on this. Establishing an adequate minimum wage for taxi drivers is critical. So is ensuring that all drivers are properly licensed and that there is sufficient insurance. It may be municipal governments that have to do the work of reining in large, free-wheeling corporations like Uber and Air b&b.
8
@garibaldi In NYC all for hire vehicles drivers are licensed by the TLC - Uber, Lyft and Yellow cabs. That is done. The City could simply have established a minimum wage for all drivers not just app based, but no they are in the yellow medallion owners' pocket so they chose to favor these fat cats over us outer borough customers.
Will anyone admit to the possibility that the progressive tactic of "road diets" (e.g., lessening the amount of traffic lanes available to traffic) has made any contribution to the "congestion" phenomena?
If not (here comes the "snark"), I suppose we'll have to rely on the other tried and true solutions to modern urban problems (price/rent controls; criminalization; government monopoly ownership).
3
Those who think that Uber is a good thing, need to inform themselves about the conditions Uber drivers agree to.
In my book, Uber drivers are the lowest form of contract labor without benefits or protections of any kind.
I have never used Uber and never will. If the car is not yellow with a light on the roof, I am not getting in.
9
@Juquin Whatever the conditions, they are as you admit, the conditions that Uber drivers "agree" to.
1
@Juquin - I've never used Uber. I use Lyft about once a month. The drivers all seem to be happy to be doing their work. We always have great chats. They're usually doing interesting and good things with their lives, something artistic, or building up their finances.
2
That’s how it is supposed to work, by individual choice. Not by government fiat.
2
Ugh, this is taxi medallions all over again. The Cohens of the world will own the limited entitlements and get all the money, while the drivers fight over scraps. What foolishness. Congestion pricing could have solved this easily and far more fairly.
9
how about updating subway/train systems in SF and NYC?
This traffic will not go away until mass transit is updated
It is fine that they dont make a great wage because they will be encouraged to get into other industries since they will become obsolete in just a few years anyway. I think UBER is a great way for a new immigrant to pick up some money while learning the language or for someone combining a few hours of Uber work with another job. Driving as a career is over. DiB can stop competition but not innovation.
2
"You can resist an invading army but you cannot resist an idea whose time has come." Victor Hugo.
4
Hey, Uber, your market share plan of attracting new customers through price reductions to the bottom has now backfired. Your lies to drivers that they would make more money after fare decreases has been exposed as bogus. Drivers who created sound business plans based on projected revenue only to be bait-and-switched with lower fares can tonight breathe a slight sigh of relief.
You put yourself in this corner with your unmitigated greed of wanting to have every customer in NYC, driver be damned.
Drivers begged you to do something. You folks at Uber did nothing and then in a feeble attempt to counter the cap you (FINALLY!) acknowledged driver pay. Too little, too late.
5
This isnt taking the lead this is regressive politics at its best. How many city councillors have taken money from the taxi/livery owners?
7
The TLC and politicians artificially restricted yellow taxi supply and created the distorted medallion market. They have blood on their hands. They failed to improve and expand mass transit and allowed speculators and unsavory characters like Michael Cohen to bid up medallion prices.
Poor taxi drivers kept less and less of earnings after renting taxis with expensive medallions to drive. Some enterprising drivers figured out that the way to "beat the system" was to spend their life savings (and perhaps money from family and friends) to buy their own medallion and drive their own yellow taxi. For a time, their investment increased in value while commuters suffered.
Uber disrupted the artificially suppressed yellow taxi industry with seemingly no barrier to the number of cars and drivers to meet demand. And there was demand. It allowed people to make a living driving beyond the limitations imposed on yellow taxis. Uber and their like benefited commuters in many ways.
However for medallion owners and especially those who were also drivers, their once soaring investment plummeted in value.
The supply of taxis should never have been artificially suppressed by the TLC. We would have avoided the tragedies from drivers who speculated on medallions. The TLC and the city need to make whole those who lost their life savings and lives on medallion speculation.
Artificial shortages lead to unintended consequences. Let's not repeat the same mistakes of the past.
15
@Father Of Two, excellent comments.
This isn't about supporting the taxi industry. It's about allowing ride-hail drivers the ability to make a living wage, and about reducing the number of cars in already-congested areas of the city. Those cheap Uber rides are cheap at the expense of the drivers. The people making the money are Uber management and stockholders, not the drivers. The extra 100,000 ride-share drivers already in the city should be able to take the edge off of waiting for taxis.
12
Oddly, this article was delivered with an ad for Lyft!
4
The yellow taxis have had a hand in bringing this on themselves. During times of the day when they are changing shifts you cannot get one. They could stagger the times. In addition, they will not go into parts of the city where the ride hailing services will. They are supposed to go anywhere and they don't. I have been passed by too many times by empty yellow cabs.
17
What can you do in NY? Seems to me like you have little to no freedom other than giving all your money to the government so they can strip away all your rights.
9
The Taxi medallion industry won. After years of not going north of 96 street or going to the outer boroughs Uber was a God Send to the underserved communities. People of color were accustomed to not be able to hail Yellow cabs. Uber changed all of that but to save the investors in Taxi Meddallions the City Council has proved once again that money still talks in NYC. Could anybody please tell me what is the minuimun wage for Yellow Cab Drivers? What a Sham!
22
Those of us who live in the outer boroughs got really used to being able to rely on Uber, Lyft, etc. This could really be a setback for us.
We obviously don't have access to yellow cabs like Manhattanites, and Green Taxis here aren't all that plentiful. MTA buses travel at a snail's pace, with the one-by-one-by-one board & pay process at every bus stop is an exercise in torture. Bus-only lanes are few and far between; I'm not even sure if any exist in the outer boroughs. Private car owners on the other hand, think that they and all their family members have a 'right' to each own their own vehicles, complete with parking spaces being available for each of their cars. Private car owners typically operate their cars with just one passenger, i.e., themselves, or otherwise one other passenger at most. These people start their cars up to go to McDonalds five blocks away, to buy a few things at the neighborhood market, etc. They clog our streets with their self-centered, entitled, lazy attitudes. They double-park on outer borough streets with reckless abandon (the DoT is apparently 'blind' to double-parkers). It's not uncommon to even see private cars double-parked in Bus Stops and Bike Lanes. Heck, I even regularly see cars parked in front of private houses in Astoria, Across the Sidewalk!
What are we doing to cut down on the number of cars owned by NYers as a whole.... on the number of cars out on our streets, be they cars for hire or not?
170
@Lisa: Capping them at 100,000 Ubers is going to be a "setback" for you? Would you like there to be one per person?
Your generalizations about the behavior of private car owners completely undercut any point you are trying to make.
People use Uber to deliver take-out food to their door; how is that different from private car owners going to Mcdonald's? Should those people stay home & pay extra just so a DIFFERENT private car (an Uber) can bring them their food?
Further, if nobody had a private car, you wouldn't have ANY Ubers, b/c they're ALL privately-owned cars.
Maybe you should buy yourself a car, and then you too can cash in and get rich driving for Uber!
@Lisa If people are committing suicide because of loss of work because of Uber, we have to pause. And it is a fact that congestion has increased because of them. I'm in Harlem so not an outer borough, but I know day or night where the green cars are.
@Lisa Yesterday, after the news about the City Council's Uber decision broke, I read a comment on social media bemoaning how this city has become "Unlivable" and likening the decision to some fascistic dictum. The writer, so far as I know, is someone who's old enough and well-off enough to have remembered taking Yellow Cabs or private car services. Sorry you have to live all the way out in the outer boroughs, but this isn't about righteous New Yorker vs. "self-centered, lazy" New Yorker, it's about unmitigated greed and exploitation on behalf of a modern industry cloaking itself in the guise of "youth and disruption". I grew up in Brooklyn, in the 70s, and my family and I often visited relatives in the furthest reaches of Queens, using <gasp!> public transportation, and for the life of me, don't remember feeling like we were traversing the Oregon Trail in dilapidated Conestoga wagons.
2
Ride services are proliferating because Cuomo's subways are in such sad shape. Where has Cuomo been for the last 7 years?
He doesn't care about regular people. In Andrew Cuomo's New York Cuomo gets driven around in police vehicles with sirens blaring to cut him through the traffic. The last time he was in a subway was at the ribbon cutting for the 2d Avenue Subway, all of 3 stations, which he had nothing to do with.
8
Good. Uber and Lyft survive by ripping off drivers that are too stupid to realize they aren't making enough to survive.
When your employees are expendable, you can afford to 'disrupt' an industry.
5
I have lived mostly in the City (including now) on and off since 1990 and have mixed feelings about the situation. I feel very bad for the many yellow cab drivers and owners whose income has been under pressure and whose medallions have lost huge amounts of value. On the other hand, the service provided by yellow cabs in general has, in my view, declined dramatically over the years. For example, starting at 2 PM or so and lasting to 7 PM each day, massive numbers of yellow cabs seem go off duty at approximately the same time making it almost impossible to catch a cab. My only choice is to take Uber at these times. As a related example, while the yellow cabs are going off duty, if you try to hail one, they stop and ask you where you want to go and if they don't like it, they refuse to pick you up. My understanding is that this is just a blatant disregard of the rules (not to mention they make you miss a cab behind them that might have picked you up). Finally, I'd say that, on balance, Uber drivers seems to have a better knowledge of the streets than yellow cab drivers. So I'd say the current poor level of service of yellow cabs provided a ripe situation for exploitation by Uber and if the yellow cabs could correct some of these issues, they'd have a better chance against Uber because they provide a cheaper alternative.
9
@Tom "As a related example, while the yellow cabs are going off duty, if you try to hail one, they stop and ask you where you want to go and if they don't like it, they refuse to pick you up."
One time in the dead of holiday season, near Rock Center, I had two taxis in a row refuse to take me to Glendale, Queens. I got in the third taxi, told him where I wanted to go, but I don't think he fully understood. ;-) He gets a phone call...I hear him telling the person he's en route to Glendale... next thing I know his call ends, and he's telling me he can no longer take me there...that his boss told him he needs to get the taxi back to the garage. I told him he had to take me to Glendale...that I'd already been refused by two other drivers...that I was not getting out. He had the audacity to pull over when he saw a cop nearby, told the cop the situation, and the cop actually sided with the driver! So I had to get out, with all my bundles, on 5th Ave, during the height of holiday season, to ....try and find a fourth taxi willing to take me to Glendale??!! Boy, was I a raving lunatic by that point, trying to flag another taxi. But thankfully, I did finally find a 'willing' taxi driver.
Good move -- traffic has never been worse, and there are so many Uber cars available now that neither Uber drivers or Taxi drivers are making any money. The market is simply flooded.
5
How is a competitive market supposed to work in everything but cab driving? Lots of types of jobs and skills are becoming obsolete but people have to retrain.
4
Good for New York. Some people (me & my kids) still want to walk across the street without elbowing uber/lyft cars out of the crosswalk. Without the government imposing a cap the public space is filling here in San Francisco with an ever-increasing number of so-called market solutions to transportation problems that only exist when older well-established ways if yrban living are pushed out of the way, like walking or pedaling a not-electric bicycle. Venture-cap yuckness.
2
@Evan "Walking" or "pedaling"? You're kidding me, right? Have you ever tried that in NYC in freezing cold or rain?
Worldwide, I've never experienced a business remotely as dishonest as the taxi business. For decades drivers have relied on an asymmetry of information to cheat me. I have to assume it does the same to millions of people daily. It can't go out of business soon enough. It's not just a dinosaur, it's a plague.
Examples: in Rio de Janeiro in the 1980s, the taxi's meter jumped several notches almost instantly when I wasn't looking. In Portugal a few years ago, the driver said there was road construction and took me on a long detour to get to my airport hotel. There was no road construction. In Cape Verde, a taxi driver grabbed our suitcases, put them in the car, and then essentially ransomed the hapless Dutch who were in the cab with me to take them a short distance from my hotel (at an agreed price) to their hotel (at an absurd price not agreed on). In Curitiba, Brazil, the driver claimed that the fare was double from the airport to downtown because it crossed a jurisdictional line. This turned out to be true, perhaps thanks to industry lobbying, but he didn't alert me to it when I got in the cab; I found out when he doubled the Rs 22.50 metered fare to Rs 45. I speak Portuguese and was able to face down the crooks in Brazil and Cape Verde, but it made no difference.
No thanks, New York, for postponing for the industry's inevitable global demise by a few months or years.
8
Very well done.
Amazon should be next, before we lose all our retail businesses to a company that doesn't pay New York City taxes and leaves us garbage on the streets daily.
7
Uber succeeded because it met the demand for services not supplied by mass transit and existing medallion cabs. The answer is not to squelch Uber and other car services but recognize the need for ride services. For elderly, or infirm or for those who cannot stand out in bad weather or for those who might have reason to fear being out on the street late at night, Uber is godsend. Why not let medallion cabs respond to phone or web based hails? How about letting green "borough" cabs pick up passengers in Manhattan. How about mandating cabs that you can actually get in or out of gracefully. How about cabs where you can actually find the seat belt catch. How about being able to identify the driver or removing the ridiculous video screen that blocks your view.
512
@Jake: There ARE several apps for hailing medallion cabs in NYC, and they've been around for a few years now. You'd need to get out of your Uber to find out about that, though.
Green cabs CAN and DO pick up passengers in Manhattan every single day! You seem out of the loop.
BTW, how about mandating that ALL cabs including Ubers must be handicapped-accessible? ALL of them!
2
@Jake only medallion cabs can pick up street hails in Manhattan. That's why the medallion was priced at $1 million. The green cabs pay a small fee that they can make back within a few months.
Uber succeeded because it rips off drivers and passengers and pays off politicians.
1
Something drastic must be done for the Yellow Cab drivers. They are losing their value in a city where it was not expected. Why did the city council and diBlaz wait so long to act? Why should cab drivers be part of a scheme to pay for fixing and maintenance of the subways? Politicians all up the line to governor misspent money intended for subway upkeep.
You know what we need in Manhattan? Dollar vans, like in the boroughs.
5
Uber and Lyfy provide great service-unlike a taxi: fast, clean, reliable, nice drivers, the tip is included, everything seamless and charged to your card directly, and you can see where the car is and how it is making its way to you and how long it will take to get to you. It is simply a better service for the 21st century. The medallion taxi business was beaten down by Uber with better service and better price. They have no one to blame but themselves.
The City Council and the Mayor are beholden to the Taxi Medalion Business and don't give a fig about New Yorkers who need to get somewhere. The City Council and Mayor are protecting that business that gives them money so they can be re-elected. They could take a lesson on customer service from Uber.
400
Wrong: the tip is NOT included in the fare and this has already been ruled in courts. That’s why there is a tipping option within the app.
1
@Tom
The tip is included??? I drive for Uber, and there ain't no tip unless you give it to me.
Uber and Lyft run the most underhanded and sleazy operation in the free market. But as long as your happy, the hell with the drivers.
You are clueless
6
@zigful26 So don't drive for Uber if you don't like it. There are other services. Other industries.
2
Great news! Thanks to Mayor Deblasio and the City Council for having the courage to institute this cap. Shame on Al Sharpton for accepting money from Uber to push their agenda.
4
Markets clear. Something our mayor can't - won't - understand.
Limiting supply will raise prices. On us. The people who live here and transit all over the city. Prices will signal there is excess supply and the number of providers will decline.
This is basic, simple, stuff. Not so for the Bolsheviks in city council.
This is a politically motivated bailout of medallion owners by NYC residents. No more, no less.
Hilarious if it weren't so pathetic and utterly predictable.
13
@KMH:
This, from the crowd that doesn't utter a peep as its POTUS seeks to personally control the steel industry and sign EOs favoring the real estate industry.
But then, consistency in principle never was a strong point of the conservatives and their "Bolsheviks" screeches.
1
So much for free enterprise! Uber cars are cleaner, nicer and in my experience the drivers actually speak English!
11
And this will benefit who exactly?
8
Uber and their ilk is a menace to hard working folks who drive taxis for a living not just something to do to make some spare change. Uber et al. are Union busters and using a gullible public as its accomplice to undermine professional drivers. Uber is nothing but the rich taking advantage of the poor and the ill-informed who use their services because they're too lazy to demand more taxis available throughout NYC's boroughs.
DD
Manhattan
4
@Dennis D. The taxi monopolies are also nothing more than the rich cartels taking from the poor, the downtrodden drivers, to line the pockets of the rich monopolists. All while artificially choking-off supply from most boroughs. See, your side is not much better than Uber or Lyft, so the 800-pound gorilla usually wins in this battle of abusers.
2
@Mannyar
Dear Sir or Madam:
Of course I am very well aware of the taxi monopolies in NYC (See: Michael Cohen). They are notorious. Medallions costs start at a quarter of a million dollars.
But that is NOT what I am referring to. I am talking about the drivers who have invested their entire existence into driving cabs, limos, and car services. They are the professionals who do not do this as a side job to make some "spare" change. It is they who are being hurt. Yes, they do have to put up with the "owners" (again: eg. Michael Cohen types). In NYC we also have the Mob involved. All that being said, I still would pick the "worse" of two evils. Uber treats it workers worse than taxi monopolies treat their drivers. Uber must be regulated as strict as cab companies. The simple fact is only so many cars can fit into Manhattan and the Outer Boroughs. Let Uber et al. at least be forced to play on the same field.
DD
Manhattan
I remember very little concern, or calls for a minimum wage, on the part of politicians while medallion fleet owners exploit drivers.
Now a freeze on Uber while the Council does a study? What a joke! What will they study? What do they want to know that they do not already know? What can they study with a freeze that they cannot study without one.
Finally, with natural attrition the availability of Uber cars will diminish and some of us will be forced into the inadequate subway or the dirty ugly cabs.
Thank you City Council.
12
If you really believe that a ride from the Upper East Side to FiDi should really be $5 and the driver should be content with $1.50 after expenses, fees, and taxes I have a bridge along the FDR I’d like to sell you.
3
@Ralph Ralphie boy...supply and demand. supply and demand. If enough Uber drivers get fed up with the money and leave and Uber can't fill the orders, they'll pay more.
2
@Piotr I disagree. They may get fed up and leave, but there’s another less fortunate person, who Uber tends to target in their campaign for attracting new drivers, who will fill the spot for another short while.
Next time you’re in an Uber, ask how long they’ve been driving for Uber. I ask every single time, it’s rare to find someone who says something other than “just started a couple of months ago.”
The turnover is disgusting.
@Ralph You have option to tip the driver. I do it all the time.
So now I won't be able to catch a taxi or an Uber in Brooklyn. Thanks NYC.
12
Let's just have the mayor of New York set the prices for all goods, services, and commodities across the US. And don't forget subsidies for analog computer makers!
15
Don’t blame taxi drivers for being surly and having dirty cars. Blame corporate fleet medallion owners for unforgivable lease arrangements they knew would result in low profits or even losses for drivers. As a former yellow taxi driver, I remember making $16 one night and it cost me $25 in gas to get to and from the Taxi garage. Basically, I paid $9 to drive in NYC traffic for ten hours.
I think that would make most people a tad hot under the collar.
5
@Ralph No, it would make most people find another job.
3
@Piotr Perfectly said. Thank-you.
Backwards decision by the Mayor and his friends.
13
If Cuomo's subways weren't so junky this might be called for but we have no decent, viable alternative.
I was in the subway today. Hot. People sleeping on benches and trains. Beggers. And we're talking about a major station, 34th Street. Right at the Empire State Building.
You know all those State police that you see patrolling City streets at Cuomo's behest so that they can harass motorists and give out tickets? Why are they not patrolling the State-owned subways?
Many cities have sewers but where else do they think to run trains through them.
22
Speaking as someone from out of town who goes to New York several times a year - I absolutely hate the cabs. They won’t pick you up if they see luggage, you can’t get one if it’s raining or rush hour or they just decide to ignore you for whatever reason. Talk about a business ripe for disruption. Uber has been the best thing to happen for getting around NYC. I think NYC should let market forces do their thing.
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@frankie Market forces have made the streets of Manhattan unbearably crowded and ruined the livelihood of thousands of taxi drivers. And ruined the businesses of medallion owners.
Learn how to use the subways.
3
@phil If taxis were providing NY with high quality service, Uber wouldn't be so popular. Maybe if I hadn't been passed by in the rain as I tried to hail a cab so I could get to the airport in time, I'd be more understanding of the plight of taxi drivers. Nor do I want to battle it out for a cab that actually stops. BTW, once a year i'm with my 81 year old mother who has had both hips replaced. Understandably, the subways aren't a good option - and neither are taxis.
@frankie Speaking as someone from out of town who goes to New York several times a year - I absolutely hate the subway. It is hot, dirty, crowded, smelly, full of rats, and an insult to citizens. It cannot be compared to the great subway systems of Europe and elsewhere. I have come to sacrifice the pleasure of eating out at New York's restaurants and spend the money on both cabs and Uber . However, the situations vary. In some situations, you are in the middle of the street and you can easily hail a cab. In other situations, you have peculiar circumstances and an Uber is faster, predictable, visually interactive and nicer. The yellow taxis will be better for some things and the Ubers for another. What must be avoided is the exploitation of the drivers. If they want to improve the overall situation, New York must do something about the unacceptable subway.
3
Uber's tech should enhance our TLC, not create a parallel workforce subject to lower wages and increased risk.
5
Here's what I predict will happen, as I myself have already been planning for/doing on a very limited scale:
People known to be Lyft, Uber etc. drivers are generally enterprising individuals. Most Lyft, Uber etc. passengers realize they are taking their chances when they get in someone's car. (Do any of us really check out the 'profiles' of our drivers before getting in their cars? Is there even a place to see 'reviews' on our Lyft/Uber drivers??)
Ditto for livery cabs/'gypsy' cabs. Many such drivers, while they report to a neighborhood 'car service', will also pick passengers up on the street if hailed. Many of these drivers also have their own 'business cards' they will give to you, for the 'next time you need a ride'.
I predict that such drivers will just start circumventing the system entirely, and that many of us passengers will have a roster of potential drivers' personal cell numbers at our fingertips. And sure, while the chances of any one of them being within a few minutes of our pickup location is slim, it's entirely possibly that one of them may be close by.
6
Should you think that this vote of the City Council to protect the little people read today's New York Times
'City Council Approves Inwood Rezoning, Despite Resident Protests"
Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez tried to allay community concerns about the new zoning changes for Inwood, saying, “This rezoning is not about pushing tenants out,” but about “millions of dollars in investment.”
NYT 8/8/2010
It is all about money.
7
The only part of this that I agree with is the requirement that livery drivers earn at least the minimum wage.
In order for the drivers to earn the minimum wage fares will have to go up. If fares go up more people will opt for the subways and buses. If that happens the number of livery cars on the street will necessarily decline and traffic will improve. Problem solved.
What the City did today by instituting a cap on livery vehicles was over-reaching.
9
Taxi licensing systems have long histories of corruption in many of our major American cities. They'll love this.
Is there any scientific evidence that Uber and other ride shares are the cause of congestion?
A basic principle of traffic engineering would cast doubt on that. The more a vehicle is kept in circulation, moving people, the less time it sits idle in an on-street parking space, the more efficient is the system. One car carrying 15 people a day takes up far less space than 15 cars each carrying one and sitting in parking spaces the rest of the time.
Personally, I don't use Uber. I don't care for the way they run their business. I use Lyft perhaps once a month. But personal preferences are beside the point. I smell the possibility of corruption, or at the very least, policy made on scientifically unsupported opinion. Both are toxic to our society.
11
@J Jencks You smell the possibility. Wakeup. The rest of us know that most of the iceberg is UNDER the water. It's TOTALLY corrupt. It is the definition of corruption.
2
This is nothing more than an anti-competitive action by the taxi cab industry in NYC. Uber and Lyft are a far superior service and any rider using their service knows this.
36
THIS is the business government decides is getting too big and they need to rein in? THiS one? The one that regular people rely heavily on and not the oligopolies In agriculture, telecommunications, meat, etc etc??? Uber offers more of what people want than the current taxi model- easy access, faster service, easy pay. Capitalism is based on those who meet market demands should flourish and everyone else keep up or get out. This is one of the few realms where the market is actually working like it should and THiS is the one they want to regulate??? I do not understand this world
20
@Erin Barnes
spend some time on the city streets and you might begin to understand. just because there is a demand for something doesn't mean that it is good for a city as a whole. imagine that there is a demand for late night outdoor death metal musicians in a neighborhood's public spaces. do we let the market rule or do we let people sleep?
12
@Erin Barnes "That worked out so well when we decided to trust the tech companies" - Said No One.
Tech cannot be trusted. Uber isn't tech, I forget. It's a glorified temp agency. There are tons of competitors already. Travis has cashed out. The scam has been exposed. Bye Uber.
@PowerDomme So you'd rather trust the rich monopolist cartels and mafias that run the hyper-efficient taxi infrastructure in NYC? That worked out swell, Domme.
Good news.
1) Finally someone got up and said enough is enough, there are many taxi drivers in the city that are struggling to make normal income, so they drive like maniacs to get as many rides as they can per a day, then Uber comes and takes off a very big percentage of their money.
2)The public transportation is falling apart a lot of people choose to use Uber their cost rates for the customers are so low that it's not worth it to take the subway or a bus.
4
@Simon Rubin The only reason that the taxi drivers don't make any money is because the monopolist taxi cartels pay them drivel for their efforts. Wake up.
i am astonished at how many people are against this. take a look around, the streets are totally choked with uber vehicles. i get that saturating the streets makes it cheap and easy to buy a ride but this is selfish. the congestion and pollution are bad for everyone and the drivers, yellow or uber are barely eking out a living with all that competition. clear the streets and force our politicians to fix mass transit. our dysfunctional subway system is turning the surface streets into a mad max style derby of cars, bicycles and everything in between.
45
Sorry, the streets are choked with parked cars paying next to nothing to block traffic. Owners of these cars should be heavily taxed or their cars banned from parking on the streets. Buses, taxis, and FHVs all want to move. Parked cars want to stop.
4
Everyone loves the convenience of ride share services and, based on comments, are against NYC's recent actions to reign in the growth of these services. Fair enough. But have any of you thought about the effect that tens of thousands of additional cars has had on traffic and quality of life? The misery of gridlocked streets has increased unabated and these companies have done nothing but double down on growing their businesses. There is a big cost to quality of life in cities when thousands of additional cars are regularly added to already congested streets. Is it really OK to choose convenience over unsustainable increases in traffic? Taxis may be less user friendly but at least the number of cabs allowed on the streets has been limited by government regulation.
2
@Jen - "tens of thousands of additional cars"
I have yet to see scientific proof that there are MORE cars on the road because of Uber and Lyft. The more convenient they make it for people NOT to drive, the fewer cars will be on the road.
If one Uber carries 10 (for example) passengers a day, there is a good chance it has displaced at least a few cars that otherwise would have been on the road. So it is very possible that ride-share systems are a net reducer of congestion.
It's a valid point and until I see scientific evidence, from actual traffic data, that ride-share systems are increasing congestion, I remain skeptical about this cap. It looks to me more like the threat to the owners of taxi medallions is what this is all about.
19
Agree. And the professional drivers also drive more efficiently than a lay person and dont have to putter around looking for a parking space or double park.
2
@J Jencks Your point is indeed very valid. In Chicago, if I can take an Uber, I prefer not to drive. In Brooklyn I took may shared Ubers, because I could afford the time to share the ride with two more people. It was clean, convenient, predictable and friendly. I do not understand why the Yellow Cabs have not developed their own software for easy hailing. The problem is a change in the way we live and our expectations for comfort and expediency. I do not intend to stop using Uber n0 matter what caps may be thrown at us.
An Uber is exactly the same as a taxi. Period. An app’s association with a for-hire car and driver does not change the fundamental nature of what that vehicle and driver are doing. It is much the same as Airbnb claiming that their hosts are different from the proprietors of legitimate bed and breakfasts. Why should Uber driver be exempted from the medallion system? Why should an Airbnb be allowed to set up in neighborhoods where he legitimate B&B could not because of zoning? When a handicapped person goes to use an air B&B shouldn’t each place have to comply with the Americans with disabilities act? The whole idea that being an app driven service exempts the operators from the laws which govern so called traditional businesses is ludicrous. Same type of service same laws same taxes same regulations. Otherwise the government is literally choosing winners and losers in the marketplace by regulating some severely and letting others operate with impunity.
20
Yes. Let’s kill Air BNB because they can’t accommodate a handicapped person. Brilliant idea.
1
@Red Unfortunately, the government already chose the "winners and losers" when they allowed monopolist taxi cartels to dominate the landscape and artificially suppress the number of taxis while paying the taxi drivers drivel. Why would you perpetuate the currently unfair system to allow the current winners and losers to continue gaming the system?
@Red No. Uber/Lyft are not the same as taxis. They can not pick up street hails same as other car services like dial7 and allstate. There are many other ways that they operate differently than taxis.
Is this a City with a pretense to becoming a center for innovation and tech? Good luck with that.
11
By allowing Uber and Lyfy vehicles to operate on the street altogether, the city breached the agreement that gave taxi cab medallions their value.
The breach of this agreement caused the value of medallions to plummet, leading to financial ruin and suicide for those cab drivers who were betrayed by the city.
Limits on new Uber cars won't make a dent in the irreparable harm that the city has done. The only ethical thing is for the city to purchase back all the medallions that buyers were bamboozled into thinking would retain their value by virtue of city legislation.
9
@Middleman MD
Really? So the City should bail out those, like Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen, who bet on the ever-rising value of medallions?
Sorry, when you buy that medallion you're betting that technology won't diminish its value. For decades that was the case in NYC. Now it's not. But to say to many New Yorkers who can't afford cabs that they have to bail out those who bet wrong on a regulation doesn't seem fair.
11
i don’t know if this is the right solution, but clearly something had to be done about uber and other similar companies in new york (i lived in new york 13 years up until less than a year ago, so i know).
ubers might appear to be cheap and convenient, but they impose other costs that are not shouldered by the passengers but by the city as a whole —increased congestion, pollution, and road damage. ubers are also a bike riding nightmare, constantly blocking bike lanes while they wait for their passengers to arrive, and risking biker’s lives by sending them into car traffic.
so, to all the people complaining here about this potentially increasing the cost of riding uber, i would say, fine, you should pay what it really costs. and if you don’t want to, well, then take the subway —it goes almost everywhere, and in spite of its problems and the never ending complaints, it safely transports millions of people every day, for the most part relatively on time.
83
This is a really bad idea. Uber and Lyft cars fill a need that expensive and unavailable yellow and green cabs never did.
18
Cabbies are generally, but not always, interesting people. Cabs are generally, but not always, dirty and ride poorly. An Uber driver shows up in a nice Camry while a yellow cab should have been retired 4 years before it got to you. How does that work when the Uber driver drives a nicer car but can't make a living? Weird.
12
@Ralph
Under the current system and going forward none of them will be making a living. That's progress, right?
2
@Ralph—Uber also helps provide car leases for drivers in some locations. Once I heard that I knew that that it was a behemoth that did need some regulating. While the lease prices are presumably not as inflated as the taxi medallion prices were, i sincerely doubt these leases are out of mere goodwill.
Another example of non forward thinking by this administration. The medallion taxi business was beaten down by companies with better service and better price. They have no one to blame but themselves. Better traffic and mass transportation management will lead to increased use and a decrease in congestion. There are forward thinking people focused on these issues that need to lead these efforts not politicians listening to an old squeaky wheel.
13
Good for you, NYC! May San Francisco follow your lead!
50,000 additional cars have created terrible congestion on our narrow, pothole-riddled streets. Worse, ride-shares feel entitled to double-park wherever they wish or coast along at a crawl, checking their phones and/or looking for their passenger with no regard for other drivers or pedestrians.
If they followed traffic laws and kept moving, I'd have more patience, but no. "Uber" has become a bad word in our car. I yell it every time I drive.
21
I call them “uberidiots”. They drive worse than most yellow cabs. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve nearly been hit by these drivers running red lights in Manhattan.
2
Uber is great when you have a driver that knows how to drive and is not doing part time and totally dependent on GPS. I have great rides and I have had amateur hour. I have seen drivers fiddling with their phone while rolling and slowing everyone else down. I can totally see how this can effect traffic in any city, especially NYC.
One only needs to open their map to see the number of available drivers milling about in a congested area to imagine how this might impact the flow of traffic.
On the other hand, it does get people out of their cars and keeps them from circling the block looking for traffic. But it has had a massive negative impact on taxi drivers. I don't care about the medallion owners, particularly those who buy up several and lease them out - live and die by the sword! But a lot of these drivers cannot survive. Perhaps uber drivers should be going to areas where taxis are not typically found
2
I don't see what makes Uber drivers more deserving of a certain rate of pay than other people. Are e going to let the government dictate pay for everyone? Who will fund the colossal financial shortfall resulting from that type of economy? Is there a benefactor stepping forward to fund the communism?
7
@rjs7777 minimum wage is "the government dictating pay for everyone"
4
Although the motives are complex and sometimes self-contradictory, this is the right move. A temporary halt to expansion will allow all parties to examine their fiscal and environmental situations rationally.
We need to consider what we ALL want, which surely includes: more sustainable traffic in Manhattan, more sustainable livelihood for drivers, a clearer view of how public and private transport can cooperate to provide residents and visitors with decent, and safe, transportation. In an atmosphere of greater calm and deliberation, this might be possible.
Incidentally, I lived in Singapore for nearly 14 years. Transport there is heavily regulated (from busses and trains, to taxis, limos, and even private family cars). The result of that regulation has been an incredibly well-functioning system, with many price points of entry. Congestion pricing works well there, even though people gripe about it. Taxi drivers are treated like professionals. The subway system is pristine. But that state of affairs did not happen by accident or purely because of the market and profit motive.
We need to adopt a more conscious and purposeful MO on transport in this country, and New York could lead the way.
7
@SVB
As I recall, caning of people who commit minor crimes, like vandalism, has been cited as one reason why Singapore is so clean and law abiding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_P._Fay
4
@Middleman MD This is a logical fallacy, because it is comparing apples and oranges. My comment was on Singapore's traffic policy, not on its enforcement of crimes. Traffic policy doesn't work there because of enforcement against individual citizens. The policies are simply built into points of access (car ownership, professional driving, public transport).
Seems a little late - closing the barn door after the horse is out.
Also, how will this be enforced? Police?
I take cabs in Philly. When no cabs are available (as has happened after certain events or at certain locations), I use Uber. Also, in many non-urban areas, there is no taxi service. I couldn’t get from some regional rail stops to suburban or more rural destinations without Uber.
I wanted to be loyal to cab drivers. On more than one occasion, cab drivers were not loyal to me.
21
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having as many Uber (or taxi, or Lyft, or limo) drivers on the road as the market can bear. There are two critical issues that the council seems to be trying to address:
First, that many drivers don’t make a living wage.
Second, that there’s increasing congestion in Manhattan.
The solution to the first would seem to be enforcing minimum wage rules. While Uber drivers are “contractors,” they and many other freelancers working through apps seem to fall in between the contractor/employee dichotomy that labor laws rely upon. Regulating drivers as a third class might shift a significant portion of costs that drivers currently bear onto the app corporations.
The solution to the second would seem to be reducing congestion. That might involve charging higher prices for street parking, aggressively ticketing cars which stop in traveling lanes or otherwise disrupt traffic, increasing rush hour tolls (also an imperfect method, since once you’ve paid the toll it benefits you to stay in Manhattan), and, yes, doubling down on transit investment so that cars are less necessary.
I don’t think that limiting the number of cars for one year will have a very dramatic effect, but it sets a bad precedent— for NYC and others— in that it doesn’t really address either the concerns that people have or the root causes of the problem, which are the changing balance of workers rights in favor of corporations and the increasing population in NYC.
1
Just wait... in about a decade or so all of these people will be out of work due to self-driving cars. I've read that the most common profession for an American male is "driver" in all of its various forms. Imagine the calamity we are in for when the profession begins to become obsolete. Uber and Lyft are just the tip of the iceberg.
15
SERVICE:
The debate is settled among those under 35, Uber and Lyft provide a far superior service. Car pool rides, up front pricing, 24/7 service within minutes are things I can take for granted now.
WORKING CONDITIONS
Should government really be encouraging full time ride for hire drivers by mandating wages and benefits? Driverless cars are right around the corner, likely within this lifetime, maybe these workers should take the hurt now and find a profession as opposed to down the line when they will be fired. If not, start reviewing your coal miner market control examples.
CONGESTION
4 million daytime population in 23 sq miles is the culprit here. Uber and lyft are the scapegoat.
SOLUTION
Let the taxis go out of business. Levy higher taxes on Uber and Lyft to provide services for the elderly, disabled and public transportaion.
12
The reality is the experience of a N.Y. city cab is poor relative to an Uber. You don’t have to find it, if comes to you. The car is typically nicer and cleaner. You don’t stress about either having cash or worrying that your card number will be stolen. The cab industry milked their monopoly. People should have a choice.
27
@Spencer: my credit card number was stolen from Uber and the person really rang up the charges... 5 times on supposed Uber rides of $99 each!!
Ride "sharing" apps are great in the outer boroughs and 'burbs where traditional alternatives are scarce.
However, Uber, Lyft, and the like, should be banned outright from Manhattan where there are already plenty of buses, trains and yellow cabs.
1
I have no particular love for Uber, but I find it very disheartening that the city would pass this bill when the state of the subway system is such a disaster.
For someone living in an outer burough, when the subway melts down (which seems to be the case more often than not) an Uber pool is a much more affordable alternative to get to work than a yellow taxi (and good luck finding one anyways in huge swaths if the buroughs).
And if we’re worried about congestion, shouldn’t we be putting MORE of the kinds of vehicles on the street in which multiple riders are sharing the trip?
If the city offered decent and forward thinking transit options I would have much more sympathy for this bill. As it is, the city has failed us and the free market stepped in. And now the city wants to pull that out from under us too.
15
The main issue is the uber drivers facing economic difficulties to survive in living NYC because it’s expensive and city day to day increasing traffic. More so, companies making more commissions.
1
The real difference that I see between ride-share services and taxi's is that the latter has built in costs that the former does not pay. For example, when I got out of the taxi business my per car insurance was just $18,000 per car, ride-share car owners payed just a fraction of that. My meter rates were set by the state, but ride-share rates are market based. Vehicle inspections, licenses fees, meter certifications added an additional $2,000 per car/yr, while ride-share does not have these extra costs and as a result, they have an unfair competitive advantage from the start. No wonder Taxi owners are screaming about these Uber/Lyft services, they have to convince a state legislature that taxi laws need to be changed, while ride-share companies can ignore these laws because they don't apply to them. Unfair advantage indeed!
25
I'm a huge fan of app-based rides, which I use regularly, but are NYers really afraid to "cap the growth of the services for a year while the city studies the booming industry?" Seriously, you can't pay $2 more or wait 3 minutes longer when app drivers AND taxi drivers are NOT making a living wage, our streets are congested, and the people we elected want to know more before these cars soar well past 100k vehicles?
Yes, fix the subway; yes, get taxis into the 21st century, but don't be foolish enough to think that government doesn't have a role in regulating app based car hailing.
128
Simple fact: if taxis were more affordable, pleasant to ride in, clean, with personable, friendly drivers, Uber would probably not need to exist. They filled a very necessary void. Taxis, up your game and your riders will return.
30
I gave up using Uber after my bank card was cloned in Australia. I don't like their profit margins as well. Although passengers may benefit from their lower prices, they choke their drivers and put them in riskier positions, while they amass huge amounts of money. And they use this money to advertise their alleged advantages. At the same time, they increase the jamming of the traffic since they put many more vehicles on the streets at peak times. It is capitalism with absolute no control with slim advantages to the daily lives of millions. Its free ride makes more damages than benefits.
14
Whatever the outcome, I wish that all taxis had to be at least hybrids. An all mostly non-polluting, quiet fleet of vehicles would make NYC and other places much more pleasant. Then maybe, if only, we could stop the horns from honking. One can only dream, right?
7
@Lee
Horn honking is illegal -- and the law could be enforced??
Source of revenue?? PS ? should patience be taught??
In NYC, do Uber drivers go through a criminal background check similar to cab drivers?
Do Uber cars meet the same safety requirements as taxi cabs? If not, do they need to meet any?
What kind of minimum insurance requirements do Uber drivers need for injury to passengers and liability for other losses?
6
Yes and yes. They share the same exact background checks and the same vehicle inspections. There is nothing different at all.
5
I've never heard a coherent answer this question: what is so special about taxis? Why these endless attempts to constrain supply in that particular industry? It just seems so boring, so like every other sector of the economy where the market works just fine. This government behavior is too consistent across cities to be the product of regulatory capture in any one place though. That suggests there really is something there. The negative externality of road congestion perhaps? If that's really it, congestion pricing or fuel surcharges are the solution, not this. Those would be fair to all road users, and not single out taxis & FHV's just because they're relatively easy to regulate.
Also, what is capped, the number of driver's licenses? The longer this regime remains in place the louder the calls will be to allow the licenses to be transferable, likely with money changing hands. License holders will organize, and lobby to resist issuance of new licenses. It'll be the same ridiculous mess with the medallions all over again. I doubt the voters will forgive city hall if they make exactly the same mistake twice.
12
dbk: "Also, what is capped, the number of driver's licenses?"
The linked Times article says: "The legislation would limit the number of vehicles at the current level by stopping the issuance of new for-hire vehicle licenses ..."
dbk: "The negative externality of road congestion perhaps?"
Read the article. There are lots of rationales, with that being one:
Times: "Mayor Bill de Blasio and Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, said the bills will curtail the worsening traffic on the streets and improve low driver wages."
The problem is that the article doesn't cite any evidence that "for-hire" vehicles account for a significant fraction of the congestion. Indeed, "for-hire" vehicles should REDUCE congestion, because they remove other vehicles from the streets.
Another problem is that the article doesn't say anything definite about prices for PASSENGERS. Indeed, passengers (and riders) are explicitly mentioned only once in the article:
Times: "But Uber has warned its riders that the cap could produce higher prices and longer wait times for passengers if the company cannot keep up with the growing demand."
2
The tech industry use to be about making businesses more efficient and making people's lives better and simpler. Lately, it seems the biggest unicorns are more interested in milking as many constituencies as possible for their billions.
The term is "toll collector".
3
Uber is a good concept. And so is a cookie. Too many of either aren’t good. Clearly 100,000 NYC Ubers are too many cookies.
16
I guess the taxi union threatened to turn off the money flow to nyc politicians.
16
@M
Fact-check. There is no taxi union in NYC. That's why 90% of the drivers are from third-world countries working 12-hour shifts.
1
Traffic started to increase with the use of bike lanes. I’m not arguing for or against them but call a spade a spade. Same with not aggressively ticketing Double parking and people in bike lanes. Uber and lyft put dignity back into hailing a car in Nyc. Yellow cabbies are slaves to the insane pay to play system this city created. It’s part of the left over dying mob that cannot seem to change its ways. The result was rude smelly and frankly offensive cabbies that could not survive in the age of uber. Uber set a standard where drivers can no longer work aka be fired for dangerous or poor performance. While I feel for the yellow cab drivers trapped in the medalian pay to play system, we the consumers, are the ones that now will pay more and deal with yet another situation where getting from any outer bourough to Manhattan will not only be challenging but stressful. Way to go De Blasio. Sometimes I think he needs to give back to Brooklyn with a real Hov trying to get around other parts or Brooklyn or Manhattan. Also way to go for those that needed supplemtal income on their own time.
5
Haven't they just created a medallion system for Uber? It's not as if the yellow cab medallion system delivered good service.
9
Luddites in City Hall
13
Capping the number of Uber drivers may not be good for the company, but will help individual drivers. We are constantly competing for limited passengers and with all the drivers on the road there’s too much dead time.
15
Correction: the vehicles are being capped with some exceptions, wheelchair accessible vehicles for one. Drivers can still apply for TLC licenses. There is NO cap on driver applications.
1
there's no easy answer. look at some of the conditions people who manufacture your iPhones work in. look at the conditions that some of the people who work at Amazon work in not being allowed to use the bathroom so you can get your goods. Maybe when your 401k match gets taken away and your healthcare and you get listed as an independent contractor that you might begin to see what the hard working taxi drivers are going through. I guess it's okay to eat chicken as long as some one else is strangling it, disemboweling it, draining the blood and plucking it.
34
The city powers do not understand today's youth. At all. People younger than 25 will not all of a sudden switch to a taxi. It will never occur to them to try to hail a cab. They are used to the convenience and predictability of the apps, and consider taxis the dinosaurs fit to transport their grandparents. App-based convenience is not something that the younger generation is ready to give up, and artificial propping up of taxi business just slows down the inevitable process.
16
@seEKer: I thought all the young people today are so VERY, VERY worried about climate change & pollution, thus they get around by bike.
And whose money is paying for their Uber rides? They don't have any money of their own, what with high rents and student loans and partying.
"App-based convenience" as applied to "today's youth" = today's youth are lazy & spoiled and will not exert themselves to get on the subway. "Today's youth" will have to figure out how to function in society at large, which is not going to roll over to conform to their demands.
Yeah, Uber can take over when all today's senior citizens are dead - in another 35-40 years. By then, all of "today's youth" will be senior citizens themselves!
2
This is a bad policy and should be illegal and it is sort of a quick fix but not a longterm sustainable solution for both drivers and Uber. The latter in my opinion, is going to continue to make massive investments in self driving cars,and AI which are going to be commercialize in less than a decade.
2
This could have been a Trumpian decision: appealing to the base, supporting a inefficient Taxi system which is under threat from better, innovative models providing much better value for customer and customers like it. There is no way back, only a slower transformation by protecting specific interests. And this happens while New Yorkers fan a broken public transportation system.
10
The so-called "genius" of Uber and the other ride-sharing apps that followed was always exaggerated. While the technology is genuinely neat, what made the services so successful is that they circumvented limits on the number of taxis on the street. The market for "taxi medallions," which once reached $250,000, has largely collapsed.
The collapse of the limits and regulations imposed by the medallion system, however, has put the taxi/ride sharing industry on the same classic "tragedy of the commons" trajectory that characterized the taxi business prior to the introduction of medallions in the 1930s. Too many drivers depress wages, forcing drivers to work longer hours, leading to even more drivers on the road at any given time. Repeat until drivers are starving, bleary-eyed and dangerous.
A return to the medallion system, however, is not the answer. As shown by the once astronomical prices of medallions, as well as the heavy involvement of criminal groups, the medallion system siphoned most profits away from the drivers providing the service.
While a return to medallions (or other strict numerical limits) is not the answer, neither is allowing the taxi/ride share market to spiral toward a destructive -- and literally dangerous -- end. Whoever devises an effective, equitable answer to this looming is the true genius.
33
I think it is good that Uber contributed to the drop in taxi medallion price, and that it brought better coverage to outer borrows, but the cap is just common sense. That's why Uber drivers support it. Uber corporation just cares for the lowest price and shortest wait time. But they forgot that drivers are human beings that need to make enough money to survive, eat, pay bills. And the more vehicles for hire out there the less each driver makes. I support the measure to help people who make their living that way. However, as an anti-congestion measure, I think it is of very little effect. We need far more far faster subway lines, like the ones we should have started building 40 years ago but we didn't and now we struggle to catch up. Congestion pricing would reduce the number of personal cars entering Manhattan, but it would also probably break down the MTA in its current condition.
8
Most Uber and Lyft rides are carpools picking up multiple riders while almost all taxi rides and private vehicles coming into the city are only a single person. It seems like taxis and private vehicles are the problem, not ride sharing.
1
Uber is nice, I use it all the time. One thing I never understood is how it went from a "ride sharing" operation to an employment, and then on to demanding higher wages. To be employed as a driver, one needs a commercial drivers license.
2
Keep in mind that much of the cab drivers' dilemma is due to government interference, not ride-sharing services. By creating false medallion scarcity, NYC grossly inflated medallion pricing. When free market competition entered with a better product, the medallion price naturally fell.
So, I guess the answer is more government caps. Got it.
29
@Jazzerooni
Uber and lyft are vastly inferior to regular cabs. Ride sharing services are illegal operations designed to circumvent the process that keeps riders safe.
That's why you hear about uber drivers killing people, but cab drivers are pretty docile.
The product provided by ride sharing services is cheaper and did a good job of marketing to young people, but you shouldn't fall into the trap of equating that with 'better'.
4
@Jazzerooni: Oh, please, because Uber gives a rat's rear end about the pay and well-being of all its drivers?? Don't make me laugh!
Uber is not the "free market" - it's the highly-manipulated market that Travis K. and his merry band of investors dreamed up. IMO, they're running a racket that should be investigated under RICO laws. They don't care about what's right, what's fair, or what's legal - they have amply shown their scorn for rules or decency of any kind.
If you think Uber is such a great place to be a driver, go work for them and let us know how rich you get as a driver under their rules.
I live in NYC and you don't, and I see every day what Uber has done to wreck traffic here. YES, the answer is a strict cap; that's how NYC can control an illegal business that has no intention of ever doing the right thing. Uber should never have been allowed on the roads here in the first place.
2
There is absolutely nothing that makes an uber car and driver preferable to a professional cab driver. There was a time when being a cab driver was a profession people were proud of and those drivers could take you to any street without a map, or an app. If you were harrassed in any way, you could call the TLC and complain. their licenses were on display right in front of you.
Uber et al. came up with an app and a business model. The app is valuable and has now been mimicked by the taxi services all over the country. The business model, is wholly destructive of all competitors and is driven by profit and not be creating an industry whose drivers are proud of their work. Uber et al, are unnecessary now that the app is out of the bag.
Now the people, through their government can and should demand taxi services that have quick pick ups with professional drivers, and also a known number of cars on the roads at any given time. With that in place it will be much easier to control for: Safety, congestion, and pollution.
the cap for now is a small step, but Uber et al are a race to bottom for workers in an industry that used to be filled with proud workers.
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@rick All your grievances come under the heading 'capitalism.' They came up with a better model than the current medallion game and are outpacing a very ingrown system, likely rigged and connected to some sort of shady dealings somewhere, somehow. How do you know that regular cab drivers are more proud of their work or more professional? Strikes me as a very subjective assessment.
6
I take cabs when I need to, but have never taken an Uber or a Lyft. Anyone else? Am I the only one left?
10
I'm afraid so :-)
@Stephanie Wood
I also take cabs, so you are not alone. I have never used Uber or Lyft.
3
@Stephanie Wood, I gave up using Uber and I am back to cabs.
2
Ubers and Lyfts are made scapegoats for congestion and low driver pay. This "one-year" pause is just a tactic to ultimately kill the innovation and market driven solution that has provided relief to so many New Yorkers and commuters into the city.
If you really want to reduce congestion, charge for road use, ban street parking or at least charge the same price as parking garages and discourage car ownership by improving mass transit.
Improving mass transit isn't just about fixing tracks and upgrading signaling systems. It means extending train lines and building new lines to serve underserved and poor communities. For example, it is shocking that Staten Island to this day doesn't have a direct subway line into Manhattan. Huge areas of Queens and Brooklyn have no subway lines in walking distance.
Drivers do need relief at the same time as commuters. Why have a government body arbitrarily set a "minimum" price? When you do that, it also limits the up-side of how much drivers can make. Why not let drivers make as much as possible when demand is high and supply is low and then allow them to discount when demand is low? This will let the market decide the fair price and give drivers higher earnings.
Do we force airlines to charge discount prices during the peak travel season?
30
@Father Of Two - Great comment! I would just add that people have to stop blocking the grid especially starting at 2:30pm on Ninth Avenue - anybody, cars, limos, buses, trucks who get caught in the grid, $100 fine right there, no questions. That goes for sidlers trying to hone in from the east, also. $100 fine, bang! You'll see more openings going west to the WSH. It's only fair.
3
@Father Of Two
Agree, we need congestion-based pricing as well as better public transit.
1
@Father Of Two: It's basic math: 13,000 medallion cabs, plus 80,000+ Uber vehicles. And extra 80,000 vehicles on the streets is a GUARANTEE of congestion.
Further, medallion cabs are tightly regulated in every aspect by NYC; Uber vehicles are doing an excellent job of skirting every NYC regulation they can get away with.
By your logic, we should discontinue bus service too - then Uber drivers can make even more money on the surge pricing at rush hours and in the rain. Great idea, right?
Don't pretend that Uber has anything to do with the "free market" - Uber only exists to take advantage of everyone all the time: THAT is their business model.
4
I use Uber everywhere I go. The drivers tell me they like it. Other users tell me they like it. It's reliable, safe and economical. It's a vast improvement over yellow cabs; absolutely huge. I don't detect Uber or Lyft-generated congestion. I remember yellow-cabs clogging the streets, especially during shift change when none were available. I also remember rattlebucket, dirty yellow cabs. I remember my yellow cab breaking down on the Cross Bronx Expwy, and being forced to walk off the elevated road...Except for the displaced taxi drivers and medallion owners, some rich investors, I simply don't understand all of this rideshare animosity. I think Uber is kinda nice. I must be naive, blind, an ogre or live in an alternate universe.
21
@MWR: Yes, you are naive and living in an alternate universe: one where ALL yellow cabs are bad and ALL Ubers are good!
You don't "detect" Uber-generated congestion? Maybe that's because you haven't tried to get from Point A to Point B below 110th Street in Manhattan lately.
And there is nothing wrong with medallion cabs; they are clean and get the job done!
Maybe you're among those who are too good to take a yellow cab; maybe you need to be seen getting out of an oversize pollution-belching SUV. But your SUV could be driven by someone who just got their driver's license (regular driver's license, not an NYC hack license) yesterday. And in case of an accident, Uber is never gonna have your back; they only have their own back.
3
It's about time the city had the guts to impose regulations on these unregulated businesses. Without strong regulations to protect citizens from unfettered capitalism we have ended up with Donald Trump as President (a man who, for example, promotes asbestos and coal and believes that climate change is a hoax) and an America run by foreign gangsters whose only aim is to bring us to our knees at the altar of greedy self-interest and the almighty dollar, while all we can think about is downloading the newest App.
Uber drivers and other independent workers everywhere have little or no protection for their work as it is. It's time someone tried to change that. To protect them and what is left of the medallion taxi system that has suffered the most from the Donald Trumps and Michael Cohens of the world should be applauded.
10
When in New York, I have always chosen the subway when possible. But Uber is preferable to a cab for several reasons. One, the service is almost always more friendly and comfortable. Secondly, the convenience of the ap means I don't have to do anything but a couple of clicks. It seems like it wouldn't be that hard for cabs the improve their service. It seems silly to instead introduce silly regulation. I get that cities lose money without the medallions or whatever fees they get for these aps. But it is also silly that when a popular service arrives on the market offering a superior option to a government cash source (and one whose prevalence probably keeps a lot of impaired drivers off the road) to attempt to choke that off.
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@Jimmy Lightfoot
Silly regulations ?
Lucky you that dont have to buy a car , insure it and maintain , to have someone else making a living while you strugle to pay the bill and have to work 60 or 70 hours a week just to pay your bills.
3
Did someone put a gun to the Uber and Lyft drivers’ heads and forced them to buy a car to drive? No, they saw an opportunity to make money. If you want to give them a handout because you feel sorry for them, go right ahead. Meanwhile, I will respect the right of people to pursue opportunities to make an honest living.
Do you prefer having the same driver pay a hefty yellow taxi rental fee to rent from a million dollar medallion owning Michael Cohen? We forget about the plight of poor taxi drivers who had to pay high rental fees to taxi owners for an expensive medallion. How many yellow taxi drivers were simply locked out of a market that had been artificially limited by the TLC?
The fact that FHV grew to 100,000 cars just shows how much demand there is for car services that the yellow taxis were not allowed to meet.
5
@Jimmy Lightfoot: You appear to be unaware that medallion cabs DO have apps! And that "silly regulation" you don't like is there to PROTECT you if something goes wrong.
NYC has every right to regulate cabs and Ubers; only law-breaking Uber (the company) has a problem with that.
5
I worked for Uber half a year and ended voting for Trump.
5
"I worked for Uber half a year and ended voting for Trump."
That would be more informative if you explained how the two are related.
@Crow
What do you mean?
False premise: that Uber cars are responsible for NYC traffic congestion. That's laughable, NYC has gridlock alerts for decades. Go to the Empire state building viewing platform and look down: all you see are Yellow cabs!
I drove cabs, and cars, and trucks through Manhattan decades ago: traffic was terrible!
The concept of Uber is the ultimate free market. When demand is up, prices surge and more drivers hit the road to make $$$.
Maybe we should ban cars, so that horse and buggy, drivers won't be put out of business. Or we should ban Solar power,
to save coal minor jobs. Or maybe we can institute social programs to help workers in obsolete industries transition.
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@Mike k: Sorry, you're out in Chicagoland, and have no clue about current traffic congestion in NYC, no matter what you experienced decades ago.
Maybe you could concentrate on lowering the number of random shootings in Chicagoland, and leave regulating traffic in NYC to the government of NYC.
The "ultimate free market - yeah, that's the one where every user can get screwed at any time. Uber *lives* for surge-pricing!
3
@Mike k
"Go to the Empire state building viewing platform and look down: all you see are Yellow cabs!"
Seriously? When was your last visit to NYC? 1997?
As someone who walks and bikes the streets of Manhattan every day of the year, I can tell you unequivocally that Uber cars cause congestion. The sheer numbers - 100K+ - create traffic problems that have not existed to the same extent in the 38 years that I have lived here.
2
@Mike k
You see yellow cabs from the top of the Empire State Building because their color makes them stand out. Try walking down a crowded street in Midtown the next time you're in NYC. What you'll see are Camrys, SUVs, Escalades, and Suburbans with "T" license plates. Over 100,000 of them compared to 13,000 yellow cabs.
2
Isn't it strange that the city government and de Blasio would go so far out of their way to prop up the mummified corpse of the yellow cab industry that nobody wants? Why would they do such a thing?
The answer, as with most things in politics these days, is money. de Blasio is completely beholden to the taxi cab lobby, having received $550,000 in campaign contributions from them. This is not about helping drivers or congestion, this is simple bribery by the corrupt taxi lobby.
Instead of implementing a sensible solution like congestion pricing which would generate tax revenue, de Blasio and the city government have doubled down on failed policies of the past. Had the city government done anything to prevent the medallion system from becoming an investment vehicle this situation would never have arisen.
de Blasio needs to take a class in basic economics and learn the right way to regulate externalities. I'm about as liberal as they come, but this issue has forced me to conclude that the mayor is corrupt and has no idea how to govern effectively. He just lost my vote. Forever.
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@John Malister I think de Blasio needs more than a single class, a degree might be more helpful.
There are plenty of Uber and Lfyt drivers on the street right now. Yellow and Green cabs are easy to come by. People are reacting as if the city is shutting down Uber overnight. In reality they are capping licenses for a year. Uber is notorious for treating their drivers horribly. That certainly bears looking at as well. I have lived in NYC for 30 years. I remember the days where Yellow cabs refused to drive to the outer boroughs. Some competition is good, but Uber needs to be better regulated. At this point no one seems to be making a living from it, whether medallion cab or Uber/Lyft. All of you who love your cheap, easily accessible rides are doing so on the backs of the people who can no longer make ends meet. I hope you tip your driver every time, because $5 for a ride across Brooklyn certainly isn't covering that driver's expenses.
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@BKMom
I use Uber and Lyft across nyc all the time and my experience is that it's substantially more expensive and dramatically nicer than yellow cabs. I have no idea who's driving you for $5 but a typical ride from jfk to Park Slope is $70. The same ride in a yellow cab is about $45.
Get your facts straight before you start yelling at people to get off your lawn.
1
market forces will prevail....if people don't want to be uber drivers there will be fewer of them and pay will rise.
Win for the Taxi lobby and the status quo. Loss for the citizens. What else is new.
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The city council finally did something right. The roads are clogged with T plate vehicles that are a complete log jam to emergency vehicles. All I see in these T plate vehicles are one passenger. How is this efficient ?. Someone had to do something to limit this. We all pay for worn roads and the pollution these torrents of vehicles create. Uber tried its best to make this some type of civil rights issue to be able to hail a cab . The city is not the 1970s , you can take the subway late at night. This city is open to all, not just to this naked greed.,
28
So, the City did something today that will enable drivers to work less grueling hours, sleep more to prevent fatigue and accidents, maybe have time to exercise, spend more time with their loved ones, eat more nutritious meals, and catch up on their bills? Good for them! Where were the ride hailing companies when the depraved conditions for drivers was going on and they knew all about it and did nothing?
14
I just don’t understand when cities fail at providing basic services they ban the market from fixing the problem. Taxi lobbyists and the MTA have failed New Yorkers for decades. Now they say you can’t get a ride when you need it
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@Stephen All the Ubers now on the streets will still be here. The city is just saying they don't want MORE. They're not actually getting rid of any currently in business.
3
@Stephen: Why do people in OAKLAND think they know all about NYC traffic congestion and other issues here? How about if I tell you how to fix everything that's wrong with Oakland?
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@Stephen
NYC has a great mass transit system. There are problems, and I appreciate activists who constantly fight to make it better, but to keep saying NYC mass transit is bad is just incorrect.
I have to commute from Staten Island to Brooklyn. It takes just as long to drive as it does to take a bus, ferry, and subway, and driving is far more stressful and far more expensive.
The fact that there are so many people willing to drive for below minimum wage is more of an indictment of brutal global crony capitalism than of NYC mass transit.
Wages are nearly flat for for decades while the wealth of the mega rich soars because they are manipulating markets and Uber is a perfect example.
1
New Yorkers, I hope you like surge pricing, cause you are about to get a lot more of it!
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@Richard
Why not allow surge pricing? It is market based instead of a government bureaucrat dictating a maximum wage. Drivers should earn what the market will bear during peak hours and be allowed to discount when demand is low.
Should airlines be forced to offer discounts during peak travel season? Care to complain about airline surge pricing?
3
As a driver who just narrowly escaped an eviction, surge can’t come soon enough. Time to end this Twilight Zone pricing scheme meant to demoralize and bankrupt drivers who have been repeatedly bait-and-switched on income by the ride hail companies.
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@Richard: The only surge pricing will come from Uber, b/c medallion cabs can't charge surge pricing. You're yet another non-New Yorker who thinks you know what traffic in NYC is like these days - but you don't know at all!
5
The Yellow Cab business takes customers for granted. They’ve gotten away with it because they had no competition.
I prefer Uber.
The cars are more comfortable, they’re cleaner and without a partition the air conditioning is great - you could suffocate in a yellow cab. Most of the time I get a nice smooth ride - no jerking back and forth because the driver is riding the break, no incessant honking.
And the price is almost the same.
Yellow cabs need to do better (without raising prices).
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@FJM not mentioning cab drivers speaking incessantly on the phone....
Once again Gen X and the Milennials will have to drag the Baby Boomers kicking and screaming into the modern world. Today the battle is yours, but the war is far from over. Buckle up buckeroos.
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@Josue Azul
Travel by car is not the "modern world".
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@Josue Azul
Too often technology is looked at as being both the question and the answer to every problem in the modern world.
In this case, it is simply neither.
Looking at "modern" operations like UBER as being positive disruptors is immeasurably naive and dangerous.
Skipping safeguards and oversight for convenience has rarely worked out well for the consumer. The profit motive wins over customer needs in the end.
Finally, Gen X and Millennials are all too quick to put their faith and trust in silicon valley corporations with a profit motive, yet mistrust, deride, and undermine politicians that they elected to act on their behalf.
If you don't like your political leaders, change them, but for goodness sake don't put your faith in capitalism to have your best interest at heart, especially those with dominant or virtual monopoly positions in an industry. That's not generational advice, that self preservation 101.
Finally no more Uber alles
6
This is why I no longer vote for democrats. Taxis in NYC have been notorious for their discrimination and bad service. That is why they lost customers. Yet the so called liberal politicians are protecting them. They are also protecting the NYPD from any changes or accountability and corruption is as bad as the days of Serpico. I can't wait to see another hypocritical rant about Trump.
49
Too may T plate vehicles on the road creating a public safety issue of preventing emergency vehicles to get around. We all pay for worn roads and pollution these Torrents of vehicles create. The city council was right on this one
8
How about one about George W. Bush? He did the same thing on a much grander scale with Wall Street after the Financial Crisis. That was Republicans helping wealthy Republicans and cost over ONE TRILLION dollars!! Now that’s welfare! Still sick of Democrats?
5
@Ralph
Bill Clinton helped repeal Glass-Steagall which was the first step towards giving wall street more power. Then there are all the democrats who voted for Bush jr's fake war and the financial bail out. Yes, I am sick of both parties but more disgusted with how some democrats have destroyed the party.
Another well intentioned progressive policy that will increase prices and hurt people in poor neighbors.
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@Daniel Orloski
Are you sure that crushing competitive cab service in NYC is "well intentioned"?
2
@Daniel Orloski
It won't hurt the people in poor neighborhoods who are actually driving the vehicles.
1
I was biking ( I know, I know) along 45th between Lex and 3rd. The street was jammed. I counted the TLC plates - 6. There really are a lot of UBER cars out there now. More than enough.
One number. Current UBER drivers who are unhappy with today's vote? 0. Taxes UBER pays for clogging our streets? 0.
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@Drew
The drivers pay income taxes. Consumers pay sales taxes. Uber offers a low cost service that makes it worth the while.
3
@Drew
Drew, I bike from Greenwich Village to the theater district 6 days a week. Up 6th Ave with a left turn on to 45th. In the early evening I consistently count at least 25 TLC plates between 6th and 7th Aves. Insane!
1
Great series of articles on the issue. Much of the hostile reaction doesn’t understand how this law or the NYC livery car and taxi system works. Thanks for actively distinguishing between for-hire cars, green boroughs taxis, yellow taxis, etc. For discussing how TLC licensed drivers form the same supply of workers for all the car services and move between them. For mentioning the high number of drivers and the attrition with various hailing services. And for mentioning exemptions in the new law for wheelchair accessible vehicles and for areas found to actually need increased services.
Uber and Lyft can get around the cap by increasing the number of vehicles accessible to wheelchairs. Will they meet the challenge of providing more service to the disabled.
8
The only people that love cabs are the rich medallion owners.
Instead of capping User and Lyft, why not ban private cars from entering Manhattan? After all, NYC's transit is supposed to be the best. Uber and Lyft are much more environmentally friendly than a private car, which is pretty much a waste of resources.
63
@mannyv On the other hand, a parked car is more environmentally friendly than an empty, perpetually cruising one. At the same time, buses in NYC are completely unusable, because they're never on time, half as frequent as they should be according to the schedule, and nearly always stuck in traffic jam (because no dedicated bus lanes). If your target is within 45min walk, it makes no sense to take a bus as you can walk there faster, unless you're 80 or handicapped. Emptier streets could lead to better buses which would actually be a progress, environment-wise. But regarding NYC public transport, I got accustomed to read and hear about how something cannot be done (or would take 50 years), rather than the opposite.
Uber and Lyft are not more environmentally friendly than privately owned cars! They are regularly adding tens of thousands of additional vehicles to already congested city streets. They are still carbon consuming vehicles! It's not as if these ride share services require more than one driver/one passenger per vehicle - an equivalent to using a commuter lane. Users love the convenience but hate congested streets ... widespread cognitive dissonance.
4
@mannyv
"Rich medallion owners"? Have you not read the news lately? The medallion owners are broke. Many have returned their medallions to the city rather than continuing to try to pay off their massive loans.
1
Politicians underestimated and ignored the growing anger of voters and that is how we got Trump.
DeBlasio and company are greatly underestimating the anger over this move combined with the crumbling transit system. It really is a modern version of the tone deaf corrupt rulers just before the French Revolution.
68
@Hellen precisely. And the thing is once again it’s going to hurt the middle and lower class. The people in the outer boroughs that take uber out of desperation when that extra 15 min to get to work is 30 then you take w car because you’re scared that you may be late otherwise. They’re clueless. Very elitist move during a subway crisis that has people so concerned they actually move neighborhoods.
I fail to see any reference in this article to the elimination of Uber, Lyft or any other for-hire services. What I do see is a cap, a long overdue halt to the ever-increasing congestion that makes New York look more and more like a third-world city. In a city whose residents ostensibly support a greener, healthier life style, why does it seem so difficult to enact steps that would plainly bring us closer to those ideals. I would ask my fellow New Yorkers to take a look at the license plates of the vehicles that constantly block the box, that honk incessantly when a car fails to move within a nanosecond of a light turning green, of the cars that fail to pull over to the curb to disgorge passengers. The vast majority of those cars bear T_C plates. New York has never been the cheapest town to live in, but it has long boasted of endless other attractions that counter the cost. Chaos has never been one of them.
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@gary giardina
It seems a lot of idle taxi drivers are posting. You should be preparing for the backlash.
7
The city is more congested because people want to be here now. I remember when you could run down 8th Avenue because no one would walk there.
4
@gary giardina You are absolutely right. Ironically, though, I think that the city's effort to be green by turning certain streets into a no-car zone (like in Times Square) also made the traffic worse - I mean, if you can't drive through certain areas anymore, then forcibly there will be more cars jammed together on other streets. But you're right that way too many cars bear T&C plates these days.
1
Watch who opposes this: Uber corporate employees whose future stock options won't be worth quite as much, and cheapskates who don't want to pay a little more for a ride so that drivers can make a living wage. You can bet we'll fight for similar laws in every city.
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@nssf
And watch who doesn't oppose it: the drivers themselves, whose motivation is not to become super-wealthy robber barons, but just to earn a living wage.
1
Not a moment too soon. There are just too many of them. They’re in front of your home before you can grab your coat. Here in Chicago when someone takes a left exit lane and cuts right in front of the queue at the end, you can bet it’s a Lyft/Uber driver. You can’t call them in like most other professional drivers.
44
It's about time to bring some sanity to our crowded streets. While I use both Uber's, Lyft and taxis frequently there is just not enough room for so many cars driving around. If a wait time increases by five minutes due to a few less cars on the road I think we will survive.
My job necessitates I have a vehicle which I garage in NY and daily when i drive I am surrounded by T license plates with the streets jammed and little room to move from drivers that are just as bad, if not worse, than taxis. Our air quality suffers along with increase in global warming from about half of these vehicles running with no passengers in them as reported.
Seems like a good idea to have some attrition and get some of them off the road, and to allow the working drivers to have the opportunity to earn more by better utilization. Sort of like thinning the herd naturally.
Thank you to our reptresentatives. It's about time.
71
@Dan
So, Dan. You want to have Uber and Lyft. But you don't want so much congestion on the road while you drive around.
You should pay for it. With a congestion tax.
Also, BTW, haven't you noticed a flood of yellow cabs on the roads in the last two months. With all the black rubber on their bumpers? Don't you think this is a bit strange? Why so many, all of a sudden.
People love uber. People hate cabs. I know, let's make uber more expensive and less available so people will have to take cabs.
Next, lets pay millions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize medallion owners for a bad investment. Passengers and citizens always come last. Taxi lobby always comes first.
445
@Sparky Maybe it's different in NYC, but in Dallas, taxi cabs are carefully regulated. Cars and vans must pass enhanced safety inspections every year, and drivers have to pass rigorous background checks. Lyft and Uber skate around all that. We've had several women assaulted by ride-share drivers who turned out to have a violent background that Uber didn't catch. So, no, not everyone loves Uber. I'll take a cab every time.
75
I hate uber. I like yellow cabs.
4
This is less about a taxi lobby and more about how uber is flooding the market with cars to drive down prices. It is causing lots of congestion, and isn’t really good for nyc as a whole.
2
I have friends who drive for Uber to try and make ends meet.
It is a miserable job where you are treated like a hamster on a wheel. All the money goes to the top, and a number of the drivers need welfare services to augment their income.
When did it become okay for workers to be exploited like this by owners/management, where the owners are valued at billions and the workers can barely hang on.
Time to change this dynamic.
514
@V Agreed!
The commenters who leap to the defense of Uber have no idea - or just don't care - how little the drivers make for the long hours they put in. I never use Uber. I could not enjoy the luxury of riding in one knowing how these guys struggle to make a living at it.
28
We should enforce the same regulations against Amazon for its exploitation of employees. Bezos probably breaks every OSHA law in the book. Why haven't we gone after him? Is it because he poses as a liberal?
1
@Trilby, I have one friend who makes as much driving for uber as he did at his white-collar job before layoff. Another happily takes it on as part-time flexible work. Most Uber drivers I've used all over the US seem happy -- but if you want to work a straight 40 hours, there are easier, more lucrative gigs. Yes, its probably impossible to raise a family as an Uber driver.
Really? So the local NYC gov't can step in to moderate out-of-control capitalism for the taxi industry, but does nothing to stop the craven and corrupt real estate industry from gentrifying the entire borough of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn and Queens into a giant mall, ripping apart the character and fabric of the city for the benefit of another bank to take up an entire block, while mom and pop stores and buildings with reasonable rents become relics and fond memories for the past several generations? I guess real estate has way more money to buy politicians, not just properties.
377
Hear hear, nyc is being destroyed .. it’s character gone. Just a giant Epcot center for the one percent
5
@z1ny
Yeah it sucks.
Would you have the city commandeer private properties? Would you have them - for the VERY FIRST TIME - tell owners of properties that they can't do what they want to do? Access to roads for commerce, sure, that's easy to regulate, it's totally obvious because taxpayers support those roads, but are you suggesting that private property be wrested from the hands of those owners and turned over to the state FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER - to be stopped from development? Do you see any problems with your plan?
4
@z1ny
We need to rezone and encourage massive new building. Also land value tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax
LVT will 1) reduce housing costs by encouraging building, 2) reduce inequality, and 3) raise revenues from a tax that cannot be evaded because land is immobile.
Too bad NYC can't enact congestion pricing like it should. Manipulation of the supply of Ubers is only going to create problems in the future, just like taxi medallions did.
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@Pete of course NYC and its bought and paid for politicians (including the mayor) won't. And if they would, you can bet that the "taxi medallion" cartel would be screaming for a waiver to the congestion charge because they cannot make ends meet
Yay, NYC! Hopefully Boston will follow suit soon. Unfettered, unregulated growth of any industry is rarely, if ever, a positive thing. It's absolutely insane that cab companies have been regulated and Uber/Lyft haven't. These days, "innovation" often appears to be little more than a way for the latest generation of robber barons to skirt the labor and environmental regulations previous generations fought hard to enact to improve the quality of life for workers and to make our cities safer and cleaner. Up next: Uber and Lyft drivers need to unionize! As for the people who have come to depend on the cheap convenience of Uber/Lyft: humanity will destroy itself with convenience. Nothing is truly cheap - there is a real cost to everything, whether you carry it now or later.
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@michelle Well said.
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@michelle Thank you thank you thank you for the comment !
I wish more people would realize that unregulated, non-unionized, low-paying jobs are bad for everyone! And that's exactly what Uber/Lyft are doing - ignoring the rules other, legitimate businesses need to follow. That's why they're so cheap. And I can only imagine how some of the same commenters would react if someone wanted to come along and take away their job and not have to follow the same rules and regulations.
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My answer to all this is walk. I'm done with the subway system. I will not support an agency that takes money and wastes money. The island of Manhattan has essentially reached the peak population it can handle. Limiting Uber (which I love) and attempting to fix the decrepit subways won't work. The island is maxed out. How about limiting new building?
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Akin to a tariff for the steel an aluminum industries, really. In sum, create barriers to entry that don't exist in the market. This increases the cost for the consumer, both in terms of hard costs and opportunity costs. Also like tariffs, the caps seem to be designed to favor a group that spends its capital and energy on access to lawmakers instead of improving its product/service. It is wrong when Trump does it; it is wrong when DeBlasio does it.
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@James - Those underpaid Uber drivers end up using social services. Guess who pays for that?
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@James
You don't think that Uber is donating millions to politicians? I would guess Uber is donating more than all of the medallions combined, hidden in dark money PACs.
Soon Higher will probably call "the sharing economy," a religion so they can make more secret donations. (Shaping is not supposed to involve money by the way. They are not sharing they are selling below cost to steal market share.
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@James
You don't think that Uber is donating millions to politicians? I would guess Uber is donating more than all of the medallions combined, hidden in dark money PACs.
Soon Uber will probably call "the sharing economy," a religion so they can make more secret donations. (Sharing is not supposed to involve money by the way. They are not sharing they are selling below cost to steal market share.)
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Heaven forbid that any competition be introduced. It might lead to improved service at a lower cost. How much money has changed hands from medallion cabs to politicians to get this done?
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@Mark In NJ
Unfortunately costs can't go any lower and still allow the drivers to make a livable wage. All of the costs we have been paying for Uber in the past were fake and propped up by private equity money to allow Uber to gain market share (they are not profitable yet). In reality, Uber is more expensive since you have to give a slice to the company while still paying the driver. This cap should help the consumer by hopefully reducing traffic and will help the drivers by increasing pay. I'm fine if my Manhattan uber costs go up a bit but I can actually get there faster than walking.
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Why are we giving a select group of people the ability to become a cartel?
Is it not good that we have a free market for ride-hailing vehicles? If the pay for driving ubers is too low, then the least efficient / productive drivers should exit from the market and find employment elsewhere. The economy is booming and demand for workers is high -- great time for people to go get other jobs if they cannot make a sufficient return.
There's no good reason to hand Taxi medallion owners and current Uber drivers the ability to extract rents from the rest of the citizenry, especially when historically taxi drivers have provided terrible and expensive services.
Is this just a giveaway to the taxi lobby because they're big donors to the current mayor and city council?
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That’s a really cute utopian capitalistic vision you have there but let’s bring it back to reality. When the Financial Crisis occurred and almost ten years ago several well known banks and insurance companies should have gone under. Yes, bankrupt. They made bad bets and they lost, Goldman Sachs being one because AIG didn’t have the funds to pay Goldman for their “winning” trades. The whole things was going to be a disaster and there was talk of economic doom and gloom. What happened to assuage this? THE GOVERNMENT INTERVENED!! Did the conservative capitalistic Titans of Wall Street and Swashbuckling traders turn down the money from the Fed who bought up all the bad loans? You betcha they didn’t. Did they say, “Know what, as the model of capitalism we’d rather just fail, lay off our employees, and stop making money (including yearly bonuses) so please keep your money.”? NO!!
When there is an economic crisis, responsible governments step in and attempt to make things right. That’s what happened with the City Council today and, as a driver, I applaud them and the mayor for their leadership.
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@Ralph Finally...the real you behind your biased posts is revealed...
Comparing the plight of the over valued taxi medallion "investors" to the financial crisis is utopian and naive on your part.
You are the beneficiary of a government sanctioned cartel. In any case, it will all be moot as the "driver" industry will be gone in a couple of decades.
Welcome to the new reality: progress.
@NYCresident
All of you Uber supporters refuse to see the big picture. Once Uber crushes the unionized medallions (the reason that it operates at a loss) it will raise prices and cut payments to drivers.
This a baldface attempt to break driver unions and dominate the market so they can take huge profits in the future. Where would those profits come from? Paying drivers a smaller share of the income, as usual.
I've used uber all over the world. It has provided safe, efficient and friendly transportation. The local drivers I have met have added much to my travel experience. They also seemed to be happy working as uber drivers (most had other jobs/responsibilities as well). Ubers allow me to carpool without fear of being stranded in a pinch, which is good for the environment and good for me. Taxis have been a monopolistic rip off for generations, and I would often walk or change travel plans to avoid them. Good riddance. Those whose business involved horses also lost out when the horseless carriage came along. NY would be better off compensating the medallion owners.
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"All over the world " is different from NYC. Yes, I realize that there are many places where one feels "stranded" as there are no good public transportation options, but that is not the case here.
We have good public transportation in much of NYC--if Uber stayed where they were needed, in places where public transportation is not nearby in the outer boroughs, that would be different, but they completely clog Manhattan streets where they are not needed at all, are in the way, pollute the air.
Over one million people live in Manhattan, and that doubles with commuters, not to mention tourists. There is no room to chauffeur everyone around in private cars.
Again, we have extensive public transportation (buses would be faster if streets were not so clogged) (I would advocate a $10/ride Uber surcharge in midtown) and, as a backup, our medallion taxis, which have served generations of New Yorkers.
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Taxis are dirty, hard, smelly, and the drivers oftentimes unfriendly. They are carsick boxes. Plus, people of color can’t catch them in certain neighborhoods. Ride shares solve all of the above.
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@r "They also seemed to be happy" - that what plantation owners probably thought about their serfs. As a former Uber driver I can attest one is especially happy when a passenger is saying that it costs him now 1/3 to get to the airport.
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It’s sad the City had to intervene to do a humane act for drivers while the ride hailing companies whistled Dixie and stared at their shoes. It didn’t have to come to this. Now let’s see how many other cities follow suit and dispense this meal of bitter karma.
This will definitely not help the ride hailing companies corporate image not their forthcoming initial public offerings.
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@Ralph
Karma was paying back taxi drivers for their discrimination and bad service. I have news for you, this is going to backfire and backfire big time. Prepare yourself because the anger over this is greatly underestimated.
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Are you speaking of the anger for now paying a car fare that should have been in place all along versus the unicorn fares sprinkled with pixie dust that Uber created out of thin air to fool new customers and bring drivers to despair with their bait-and-switch revenue tactics?
Prior to Uber it has always been relatively expensive to take a private car within the City. Ask any New Yorker who has resided in NYC prior to 2011. These prices of the last few years should never have been in place. Blame the ride hailing companies for that.
All the City Council has attempted to do is bring things back to normal. Sorry the relatively free ride is over. There are no free lunches.
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