10 ms·

Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown

135 points by tiger3 8y ago

drawersheet 8y ago
You know, it would be one thing if this ruling was motivated by serious labor concerns but it really has to do with a bunch of crybabies that bought medallions as financial instrument and are upset that customers are choosing a service that's cheaper, better, and more hip.
pavel_lishin 8y ago
I wonder what percentage of cars on the streets of Manhattan are Uber/Lyft, vs. taxi cabs, vs. private vehicles vs. other commercial ones. Claiming to limit Uber license to alleviate congestion is a bullshit argument unless you can show that they make up a significant percentage of traffic. Also, to be clear, I'm not an Uber apologist; they can go fuck themselves as quickly as they move and break things.
- uptown 8y ago
  This article from January 2017 has some statistics: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/15/nyregion/yellow-cab-long-a-fixture-of-city-life-is-for-many-a-thing-of-the-past.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/15/nyregion/yellow-cab-long-... https://ny.curbed.com/2017/1/17/14296892/yellow-taxi-nyc-uber-lyft-via-numbers https://ny.curbed.com/2017/1/17/14296892/yellow-taxi-nyc-ube... "...there are 13,587 yellow cabs on New York City streets. The total number of black cars: 60,000, more than 46,000 of which are connected with Uber, though they may be hooked up to other services as well." "To the credit of taxis, that’s still more than the number of daily trips taken by app-hailed cars—but not by much. Combined, those cars took a total of 311,305 trips in October 2016. Yellow cabs are on a downward trajectory; app-hailed cars are on an upswing. The Times breaks down the brand-specific numbers: in a twist surprising to no one, Uber, which started operating in NYC in 2011, is still king of the ride-hailing apps, providing on average of 226,046 rides per day in October 2016. Lyft came in a distant second, with 35,908 rides, according to city data, while Via had 21,698 rides; Juno had 20,426 rides; and Gett, which launched in the city in 2014, came in last with 7,227 rides." Some of the statistics are dated in a fast-changing industry.
  - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
    That data is old. There are now over 100k black cars. The growth is going exponential which is why this is a problem that needs to be addressed soon.
    - uptown 8y ago
      Yeah I’d be happy to link to some newer data if you have it available.
- ddtaylor 8y ago
  What's wrong with a vast majority of the vehicles on the road not being owned by the people who use them for transportation? It seems that a large amount of people don't want to purchase and maintain a vehicle they might not always be using and instead pay on-demand like they do for many other services where someone specializes to reduce the cost for others?
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    Nothing's wrong with that; in fact, that seems like the ideal scenario. I think there should be a financial disincentive to owning a car in the city, especially if most of the congestion is due to private car ownership. If Uber+Taxi make up a small percentage of traffic, then limiting them to fix congestion seems like a stupid idea.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      >I think there should be a financial disincentive to owning a car in the city, Expensive parking on top of all the other costs is enough for most people who aren't pretty well off.
      - pavel_lishin 8y ago
        Given the fact that congestion is an admitted issue, it's possible that it's not enough; plus, many people use street parking, which costs time instead of money.
        tomjakubowski 8y ago
        Street parking often costs money too.
  - Retric 8y ago
    Driving a car from A to B is less miles driven than someone driving from X to A to pick you up before driving to B to drop you off them Y to wait for next ride. Thus Uber increases congestion.
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/27/17621344/uber-lyft-nyc-vehicle-cap-city-council https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/27/17621344/uber-lyft-nyc-ve... > The number of new vehicles on the road has surged since the last time a cap was up for debate, growing from 63,000 in 2015 to over 100,000 today. These new vehicles have added an unprecedented number of new miles driven in New York City, according to a recent analysis by traffic analyst Bruce Schaller. Trip volumes have tripled in the last year and a half, and 600 million driving miles were added citywide. In addition, Schaller found evidence that ridership was shifting from public transportation to ride-hailing apps.
pmart123 8y ago
NYC is closing down the L train next year for a year at the very least. So far, the city has proposed more water taxis as the primary solution to handle rerouting the 300k daily riders. Right now, the water taxi ridership is 1370 people per day. Secondarily, the city has indicated it might make some of the bridges carpool or ride-share only. Either way, all signs point to the shutdown heading towards a painful if not disastrous scenario. Hopefully, voters will point to this type of cronyism and corruption next mayoral election.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  I thought their big solution was a bunch of shitty, slow buses with a vaguely reserved lane across a bridge: http://gothamist.com/2018/08/06/l_train_pre-apocalypse.php http://gothamist.com/2018/08/06/l_train_pre-apocalypse.php
- djsumdog 8y ago
  This is sad. NYC is one of the few (like 2, maybe 3) America cities with an actual usable rail system and it's rotted into disrepair. I'm all for limiting rid share vehicles and better wages for drivers, but they need to dump a shit ton of time and money into the rail system, both the subway and intercity. Fix Penn Station, and get the tracks up to spec! That should be the #1 priority for city transport infrastructure.
  - lqdc13 8y ago
    There is lots of corruption and bureaucracy and lawsuit-avoidance driven construction. Right now the cost of constructing subway stations in NYC is the highest in the world. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
  - moorhosj 8y ago
    ==NYC is one of the few (like 2, maybe 3) America cities with an actual usable rail system== Interested to hear what the other cities are. Chicago? San Fran?
Agustus 8y ago
The best note on this was from the Republican running for attorney general in the state in that he could not believe that the city was returning to the racist system whereby blacks would be having a reduced mobility option because of the known, yet not handled, yellow cabs not picking up blacks. A better system was identified that helped fix an issue and we have a city council so beholden to the taxi network that they are willing to screw over the populous.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  Have the green cabs helped in that regard?
  - TuringNYC 8y ago
    Not sure, but green cabs do address the bias against the non-Manhattan crowd. It is very common for yellow cabs in NYC to refuse rides to Brooklyn/etc. Destination discrimination "isnt allowed" but there isn't really a way to enforce the rule.
    - simonbarker87 8y ago
      Could you lie when hailing the cab and once inside say they misheard you and say the genuine destination? Not allowed I imagine but pretty hard to enforce that rule? (Genuine question, as a UK reaident I’ve little experience of the US taxi system and have always had excellent service from taxi firms in the UK - as a result I’ve never really understood the problem Uber is solving in the UK)
      - TuringNYC 8y ago
        Yes, I did that a couple of times. Then once I got in, i changed the destination. It made for a tense ride because you're already in an adverserial transaction for something that should be a default right of rider. Oh, and my mom has bigger problems. Cabs pass her by at Manhattan hospitals. Of course no one knows drivers' intents for sure, but there is some quick eyeballing, i'm sure, of whether the potential passenger is B&T (Bridge and Tunnel -- NYC Yellow cabs hate B&T passengers because they often have to deadhead back to Manhattan on the return trip -- so they take pains to avoid B&T passengers, which favors wealthier Manhattan residents and harms residents of other boroughs.) Uber/Lyft has been a lifesaver for her. There is also a larger problem Uber solves (one of many) -- once you lose density (i.e., outside airport/centercity) it is hard to hail a cab, so you have to dial a cab. You dail, they invariably say "wait outside be there in 5 min" -- sometimes they show up in 5min, sometimes 10min, sometimes 30min, sometimes never. Variable pricing and GPS tracking solves this. A lot of these problems were traditionally not problems at all, but the NYC transit system has ground to a halt on evenings/nights/weekends in the past 3-5yrs, so people are relying increasingly on Uber/Lyft and pooled rides for things traditionally accomplished via mass transit.
tonysdg 8y ago
Given the problem, this seems like a reasonable action on the part of the NYC City Council. But I'm confused by section on congestion pricing: > Many experts believe congestion pricing is the best way for New York City to fix congestion and secure the funds needed to fix the subway. Mr. Johnson supports the idea, but Mr. de Blasio has opposed it. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who controls the subway, has said he will push for congestion pricing... Why does de Blasio oppose it? It seems like another reasonable approach to tackling congestion -- heck, it's the public version of building private toll roads -- with the added bonus of providing funds to improve public transportation.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  It seems that he believes that it would put an undue burden on poorer people commuting into Manhattan: > The de Blasio administration has steadfastly maintained that it can’t get behind a congestion pricing plan because it unfairly burdens low-income New Yorkers traveling into Manhattan from the outer boroughs. On Friday, the Mayor seemed to soften on his prior opposition. https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/19/16910546/nyc-congestion-pricing-de-blasio-cuomo-response https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/19/16910546/nyc-congestion-pric... But I can't actually find a quote of him saying that; everything I can find just says he thinks it's not fair, but doesn't specify why: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/nyregion/de-blasio-congestion-pricing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/nyregion/de-blasio-conges...
- CPLX 8y ago
  Because it's regressive. It takes money away from people who drive, who are often people who are blue collar, spread out in the outer boroughs, or who need to bring tools to do their jobs, those who are forced to cross the city to get anywhere west of town, etc. Sure, that's not the only effect it will have, it will also cost money for bankers that drive in from Westchester and park underneath their midtown offices. But, as you can imagine, it won't change their behavior much -- by definition the only people that it will affect are people who can't easily afford it. If you look at it in a different way, congestion pricing takes a public good that everyone paid to create, the roads and streets of the central business district, and reserves them so they can only be used by drivers with lots of money. There are problems with that approach. Of course there's another side to the argument, obviously. But I feel like many people don't realize this issue cuts in two directions, rather than just being an obvious "good idea".
jeffreyrogers 8y ago
This benefits the drivers at the expense of consumers. Maybe that's worth doing, maybe not. I don't think there is a right answer to that since it depends on your perspective. In either case, it seems like the problem they're trying to address is congestion, which could be better addressed by taxing drivers more highly. Then only the more productive rideshare and taxi drivers would be on the streets, plus you'd get rid of a lot of the other drivers who don't value their ability to drive that highly. I used to drive into NYC fairly regularly, since I liked being able to park near where I was going, but if it cost more I would have just taken the train and the subway.
- test6554 8y ago
  The number of drivers finds equilibrium on its own. Too many drivers = too low wages, so people stop driving. Too few drivers = high wages/wait times, so more people become drivers.
  - jeffreyrogers 8y ago
    It doesn't solve the congestion problem though since lots of drivers are on the road for other reasons.
    - techsin101 8y ago
      Congestion problem stems from broken Subway system. Uber is just responding to pain. Uber is like pain medicine for broken bone that subway system is.
bumholio 8y ago
> 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 $200,000. Clearly, a cap on ride hailing licenses can only mean that the already licensed drivers stand to gain a similar amount by pimping their license to various competing services until they get the best deal. It's simple economics, assuming taxis and Ubers are comparable to the average consumer.
romwell 8y ago
Alternative title: "NYC Taxi mafia strikes back, gives Uber 12 months to come up with a large enough bribe". Really, the life of nearly everyone (who's not a taxi driver, perhaps) improved a bit since Uber entered the city. Even the fabled subway in its theoretical best has been dysfunctional in Brooklyn since the takedown of streetcars a hundred years ago (see how all the tracks are running towards Manhattan and very few across?). And need anyone be reminded of the countless problems with the yellow cabs (good luck hailing one around Kings Highway!), green cabs (too little too late, same problems), car services (aka taxis you order by phone, which may or may not come to pick you up and may or may not go where you need to, and can tell you to, quote, f$#k off when they're late), etc? Obligatorily, I have a lot of reservations towards whatever Uber is doing elsewhere - but the NYC situation looked unfixable before Uber came a long with a stick (or candy) large enough.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  100k Uber cars is fantastic. Let's boost that to 1M and get 10x the benefit. There is a limit where all these cars become a true public nuisance. It might be less than 100k.
  - cryptonector 8y ago
    At some point people might stop bothering with car ownership. That would open up a number of interesting possibilities. Imagine removing all parking on some (not all) streets during the day, thus doubling or tripling their bandwidth, and also increasing the number of cars that can be operated at the same time. I'm not saying that's the answer, but that there are lots of things that could be tried here.
    - Jugglerofworlds 8y ago
      I'm hoping that once self driving cars become common, we can remove parking spaces and replace them with protected bike lanes. A while back I bought an electric bike to ride around Boston, but I quickly returned it because I didn't want to end up as a splatter on the side of the road. Self-driving cars can't come soon enough.
mkolodny 8y ago
It looks like the city snuck in a ride-sharing vehicles cap by pairing it with a pay floor for for-hire vehicle drivers. "[Caption] Drivers of for-hire vehicles on Wednesday demonstrated in support of a cap on ride-hail vehicles outside City Hall." Then the signs in the picture above the caption are all focused on the pay floor... "VOTE yes to create a pay floor for FHV drivers" The pay floor and the ride-sharing cap are very separate issues, but it seems like the city pulled a fast one by pairing their legislation. With the L train shutting down for a year+, this could be disastrous for getting from Brooklyn to Manhattan.
- Eridrus 8y ago
  I don't think these issues are actually that separate; both of them seek to limit Uber trips; one does it on the demand side by increasing the price, the other does it on the supply side, by directly constraining supply. The exact mechanisms are different, but the direction they are pushing is basically the same so that if one doesn't work the other should.
colinbartlett 8y ago
If the problem they are trying to solve is "too many vehicles" then we need a congestion tax. They should certainly not be limiting vehicles that are more likely to take multiple people with a Pool option. If the problem they are trying to solve is "drivers aren't making enough" then they should impose a minimum wage on drivers or force an actual employee relationship. If the problem they are trying to solve is a bail out of the failed and corrupt taxi medallion system, then maybe this will succeed. The real issue here is the cab drivers who are hurting because they provide an inferior service to a clientele who now have better options. I avoid cabs for all but the shortest trips because of the large percentage of bad driving experiences. Some solutions to improve yellow cabs like having a simple feedback mechanism for drivers could go a long way to leveling the playing field between Uber and Taxi.
- TuringNYC 8y ago
  What if the problem is that you are mayor and got lots of campaign funding from the taxi lobby and now they want their pound of flesh? http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/don-big-bill-article-1.1448237 http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/don-big-bill-article-1.14... FROM ARTICLE "A review of all contributions to de Blasio raised by or made by taxi lawyers, owners and other associates in the 2013 campaign tallies $254,451, making them de Blasio’s biggest backers by far. Fleet owner Ron Sherman is the most powerful taxi leader, just as his father Donald was in the 1980s before he was convicted in a federal felony case, and he orchestrated the de Blasio deluge of support."
  - TuringNYC 8y ago
    Not sure why the downvotes. One has to realize that sometimes "solutions" are an answer not to a problem but to address some constituency.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
      Further than that, we can’t have democracy unless all contributions to politicians/ candidates are reported and published in real time. Without that we can’t know if a person deserves to hold a position, or even if they are eligible.
sbuttgereit 8y ago
Is this title really fair? "The City Council approved a package of bills that will halt new licenses for Uber and other ride-hail vehicles for a year while the city studies the booming industry." While yes, this does impact Uber, it also impacts Lyft, etc.
- romwell 8y ago
  Other comments in the thread quote numbers indicating that Uber has 8X ridership of Lyft. I'd say the title is fair.
deleted 8y ago
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TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
Are ride-hailing licenses transferable? How much would a ride-hailing license cost to buy from an existing operator right now in NYC.
blondie9x 8y ago
Ride sharing in general is worsening traffic and causing less utilization of mass transit. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2018/02/ride-sharing-actually-congests/ https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2018/02/ride-sharing-actua... We have to find a way to have better more effective cities built for people that utilize walking, biking, and transit. The less cars the better: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-11/fight-climate-change-one-bus-ride-at-a-time https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-11/fight-cli... We have to find a way to stop the laziness/traffic/transit abandonment that spreads with ride sharing. http://devonzuegel.com/post/we-should-be-building-cities-for-people-not-cars http://devonzuegel.com/post/we-should-be-building-cities-for...
cm2012 8y ago
As someone who lives in Eastern Queens, Uber has changed my life. There is no other kind of reliable taxi out here, and uber lets me live without a car. I had to take a yellow cab the other day from a dispatcher at JFK. I normally take Uber all the time. We were going literally 20 min away to Queens. I tell him we're going to Queens. He literally screams, "Queens?!" and storms out of the car to the dispatcher. He comes back in 2 minutes and starts driving, muttering to himself for 10 minutes after I give him the address, whining like a little bitch that he didn't get to go to Manhattan. Fuck yellow cabs.
- bgruber 8y ago
  When going from JFK to somewhere else in queens, yellow cabs are supposed to get a voucher from the dispatcher that allows them to skip to the front of the line when they get back to the airport. The fact that he was surprised when you said Queens implies that the dispatcher failed to do this, which explains both his going back to the dispatcher and his annoyance.
  - ctoth 8y ago
    And maybe this is the reason. Not that it should matter... But why then should I care? Why should I have to deal with the problem? I tell you what, I've never had this happen in the hundreds of Uber and Lyft rides I've taken this year or the thousands in the years before. So... Okay there's a reason. But that reason still demonstrates why one would prefer rideshare over taxi.
    - erik_seaberg 8y ago
      If the symptom is "I don't want task X, I'd rather sit here earning nothing waiting for task Y", the root cause is compensation being too low for X and too high for Y.
- CPLX 8y ago
  He was mad because the dispatcher didn’t do his job and give the guy a shorty ticket like he’s supposed to.
deleted 8y ago
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Dowwie 8y ago
Congestion is only part of the story. The MTA is competing for customers and has gotten help.
cwkoss 8y ago
Article notes he is eyeing AirBnb regs next. De Blasio seems to really like adding regulations to industries that were largely responses to NYC (and similar large cities') regulation that strangled the previous version of that industry, leaving competition excessively expensive, inefficient and unpleasant. Maybe there are some things he could do to make taxi's more competitive with Uber? - Develop a cross-service hailing app including taxis? - Regulate to prevent annoying TV screen ads - Streamline payment process I feel like this is a step towards Uber being regulated into becoming a clone of the poor taxi services it was rebelling against: unmaintained interiors, no customer service, unreliable hailing. The only regulation I want to see on Uber is statutory penalties if "time to arrival" wait times consistently exceed the provided estimates. I use Uber much less now because I several times I've gotten an estimate of "3 minutes" and waited over 15. This is false advertisement.
8bitsrule 8y ago
We are pausing the issuance of new licenses in an industry that has been allowed to proliferate without any appropriate check or regulation... or graft...
Itaxpica 8y ago
It’s ironic that this was passed this morning, because this morning a power issue at Canal managed to knock out all service on the A/C/E line for hours... leaving me to have to get a Lyft to work. For the second time in a week. I’m all for greater regulation for ridesharing companies, but making it even harder to get around at a time the subway is in full crisis is a terrible idea.
sebleon 8y ago
My suspicion is that Uber could out-bribe the taxi lobby by 10x, without moving the needle on profitability. This cap signifies that Uber either a) doesn't bribe politicians, or b) bribed the wrong politicians.
- dilap 8y ago
  Losing their edge w/o Travis.
sytelus 8y ago
I'd expected better from NYC. They are again trying to put back "Medallion" culture back in so that only powerful few can operate taxi business and essentially are licenced to exploit drivers from 3rd world. The city should have seen its taxi system as shameful arrangement where rich people created laws to get license for what was a slave market for all purpose and intent. People like Michael Cohen had exploited this system to make 10s of millions of dollars from the sweat of taxi drivers for practically zero effort. There are no reason to artificially limit the number of taxis. The demand and supply are far more efficient and desirable than politicians.
techsin101 8y ago
This is plain bribery. I live in Brooklyn. Now I'm less late because of Uber. Before I've gotten fired because of situations where I can do nothing but just let fate run it course as I'm stuck in B train. Or wait for a bus that hasn't even left the station. I know cab drivers are behind this. Uber pool has saved me so much money. When is next election for NYC mayor
fatjokes 8y ago
Uber and Lyft actually offered to support a $100M bribe-er, I mean, "hardship" fund to support underwater individual (i.e., not those taxi business that own multiple medallions) medallion owners, but the city refused. Which makes sense since how are the politicians suppose to get money from that?

135 points by tiger3 8y ago

You know, it would be one thing if this ruling was motivated by serious labor concerns but it really has to do with a bunch of crybabies that bought medallions as financial instrument and are upset that customers are choosing a service that's cheaper, better, and more hip.

pavel_lishin 8y ago

I wonder what percentage of cars on the streets of Manhattan are Uber/Lyft, vs. taxi cabs, vs. private vehicles vs. other commercial ones. Claiming to limit Uber license to alleviate congestion is a bullshit argument unless you can show that they make up a significant percentage of traffic. Also, to be clear, I'm not an Uber apologist; they can go fuck themselves as quickly as they move and break things.

uptown 8y ago
This article from January 2017 has some statistics: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/15/nyregion/yellow-cab-long-a-fixture-of-city-life-is-for-many-a-thing-of-the-past.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/15/nyregion/yellow-cab-long-... https://ny.curbed.com/2017/1/17/14296892/yellow-taxi-nyc-uber-lyft-via-numbers https://ny.curbed.com/2017/1/17/14296892/yellow-taxi-nyc-ube... "...there are 13,587 yellow cabs on New York City streets. The total number of black cars: 60,000, more than 46,000 of which are connected with Uber, though they may be hooked up to other services as well." "To the credit of taxis, that’s still more than the number of daily trips taken by app-hailed cars—but not by much. Combined, those cars took a total of 311,305 trips in October 2016. Yellow cabs are on a downward trajectory; app-hailed cars are on an upswing. The Times breaks down the brand-specific numbers: in a twist surprising to no one, Uber, which started operating in NYC in 2011, is still king of the ride-hailing apps, providing on average of 226,046 rides per day in October 2016. Lyft came in a distant second, with 35,908 rides, according to city data, while Via had 21,698 rides; Juno had 20,426 rides; and Gett, which launched in the city in 2014, came in last with 7,227 rides." Some of the statistics are dated in a fast-changing industry.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  That data is old. There are now over 100k black cars. The growth is going exponential which is why this is a problem that needs to be addressed soon.
  - uptown 8y ago
    Yeah I’d be happy to link to some newer data if you have it available.
ddtaylor 8y ago
What's wrong with a vast majority of the vehicles on the road not being owned by the people who use them for transportation? It seems that a large amount of people don't want to purchase and maintain a vehicle they might not always be using and instead pay on-demand like they do for many other services where someone specializes to reduce the cost for others?
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  Nothing's wrong with that; in fact, that seems like the ideal scenario. I think there should be a financial disincentive to owning a car in the city, especially if most of the congestion is due to private car ownership. If Uber+Taxi make up a small percentage of traffic, then limiting them to fix congestion seems like a stupid idea.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >I think there should be a financial disincentive to owning a car in the city, Expensive parking on top of all the other costs is enough for most people who aren't pretty well off.
    - pavel_lishin 8y ago
      Given the fact that congestion is an admitted issue, it's possible that it's not enough; plus, many people use street parking, which costs time instead of money.
      - tomjakubowski 8y ago
        Street parking often costs money too.
- Retric 8y ago
  Driving a car from A to B is less miles driven than someone driving from X to A to pick you up before driving to B to drop you off them Y to wait for next ride. Thus Uber increases congestion.
bobthepanda 8y ago
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/27/17621344/uber-lyft-nyc-vehicle-cap-city-council https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/27/17621344/uber-lyft-nyc-ve... > The number of new vehicles on the road has surged since the last time a cap was up for debate, growing from 63,000 in 2015 to over 100,000 today. These new vehicles have added an unprecedented number of new miles driven in New York City, according to a recent analysis by traffic analyst Bruce Schaller. Trip volumes have tripled in the last year and a half, and 600 million driving miles were added citywide. In addition, Schaller found evidence that ridership was shifting from public transportation to ride-hailing apps.

pmart123 8y ago

NYC is closing down the L train next year for a year at the very least. So far, the city has proposed more water taxis as the primary solution to handle rerouting the 300k daily riders. Right now, the water taxi ridership is 1370 people per day. Secondarily, the city has indicated it might make some of the bridges carpool or ride-share only. Either way, all signs point to the shutdown heading towards a painful if not disastrous scenario. Hopefully, voters will point to this type of cronyism and corruption next mayoral election.

pavel_lishin 8y ago
I thought their big solution was a bunch of shitty, slow buses with a vaguely reserved lane across a bridge: http://gothamist.com/2018/08/06/l_train_pre-apocalypse.php http://gothamist.com/2018/08/06/l_train_pre-apocalypse.php
djsumdog 8y ago
This is sad. NYC is one of the few (like 2, maybe 3) America cities with an actual usable rail system and it's rotted into disrepair. I'm all for limiting rid share vehicles and better wages for drivers, but they need to dump a shit ton of time and money into the rail system, both the subway and intercity. Fix Penn Station, and get the tracks up to spec! That should be the #1 priority for city transport infrastructure.
- lqdc13 8y ago
  There is lots of corruption and bureaucracy and lawsuit-avoidance driven construction. Right now the cost of constructing subway stations in NYC is the highest in the world. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
- moorhosj 8y ago
  ==NYC is one of the few (like 2, maybe 3) America cities with an actual usable rail system== Interested to hear what the other cities are. Chicago? San Fran?

Agustus 8y ago

The best note on this was from the Republican running for attorney general in the state in that he could not believe that the city was returning to the racist system whereby blacks would be having a reduced mobility option because of the known, yet not handled, yellow cabs not picking up blacks. A better system was identified that helped fix an issue and we have a city council so beholden to the taxi network that they are willing to screw over the populous.

pavel_lishin 8y ago
Have the green cabs helped in that regard?
- TuringNYC 8y ago
  Not sure, but green cabs do address the bias against the non-Manhattan crowd. It is very common for yellow cabs in NYC to refuse rides to Brooklyn/etc. Destination discrimination "isnt allowed" but there isn't really a way to enforce the rule.
  - simonbarker87 8y ago
    Could you lie when hailing the cab and once inside say they misheard you and say the genuine destination? Not allowed I imagine but pretty hard to enforce that rule? (Genuine question, as a UK reaident I’ve little experience of the US taxi system and have always had excellent service from taxi firms in the UK - as a result I’ve never really understood the problem Uber is solving in the UK)
    - TuringNYC 8y ago
      Yes, I did that a couple of times. Then once I got in, i changed the destination. It made for a tense ride because you're already in an adverserial transaction for something that should be a default right of rider. Oh, and my mom has bigger problems. Cabs pass her by at Manhattan hospitals. Of course no one knows drivers' intents for sure, but there is some quick eyeballing, i'm sure, of whether the potential passenger is B&T (Bridge and Tunnel -- NYC Yellow cabs hate B&T passengers because they often have to deadhead back to Manhattan on the return trip -- so they take pains to avoid B&T passengers, which favors wealthier Manhattan residents and harms residents of other boroughs.) Uber/Lyft has been a lifesaver for her. There is also a larger problem Uber solves (one of many) -- once you lose density (i.e., outside airport/centercity) it is hard to hail a cab, so you have to dial a cab. You dail, they invariably say "wait outside be there in 5 min" -- sometimes they show up in 5min, sometimes 10min, sometimes 30min, sometimes never. Variable pricing and GPS tracking solves this. A lot of these problems were traditionally not problems at all, but the NYC transit system has ground to a halt on evenings/nights/weekends in the past 3-5yrs, so people are relying increasingly on Uber/Lyft and pooled rides for things traditionally accomplished via mass transit.

tonysdg 8y ago

Given the problem, this seems like a reasonable action on the part of the NYC City Council. But I'm confused by section on congestion pricing: > Many experts believe congestion pricing is the best way for New York City to fix congestion and secure the funds needed to fix the subway. Mr. Johnson supports the idea, but Mr. de Blasio has opposed it. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who controls the subway, has said he will push for congestion pricing... Why does de Blasio oppose it? It seems like another reasonable approach to tackling congestion -- heck, it's the public version of building private toll roads -- with the added bonus of providing funds to improve public transportation.

pavel_lishin 8y ago
It seems that he believes that it would put an undue burden on poorer people commuting into Manhattan: > The de Blasio administration has steadfastly maintained that it can’t get behind a congestion pricing plan because it unfairly burdens low-income New Yorkers traveling into Manhattan from the outer boroughs. On Friday, the Mayor seemed to soften on his prior opposition. https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/19/16910546/nyc-congestion-pricing-de-blasio-cuomo-response https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/19/16910546/nyc-congestion-pric... But I can't actually find a quote of him saying that; everything I can find just says he thinks it's not fair, but doesn't specify why: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/nyregion/de-blasio-congestion-pricing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/nyregion/de-blasio-conges...
CPLX 8y ago
Because it's regressive. It takes money away from people who drive, who are often people who are blue collar, spread out in the outer boroughs, or who need to bring tools to do their jobs, those who are forced to cross the city to get anywhere west of town, etc. Sure, that's not the only effect it will have, it will also cost money for bankers that drive in from Westchester and park underneath their midtown offices. But, as you can imagine, it won't change their behavior much -- by definition the only people that it will affect are people who can't easily afford it. If you look at it in a different way, congestion pricing takes a public good that everyone paid to create, the roads and streets of the central business district, and reserves them so they can only be used by drivers with lots of money. There are problems with that approach. Of course there's another side to the argument, obviously. But I feel like many people don't realize this issue cuts in two directions, rather than just being an obvious "good idea".

jeffreyrogers 8y ago

This benefits the drivers at the expense of consumers. Maybe that's worth doing, maybe not. I don't think there is a right answer to that since it depends on your perspective. In either case, it seems like the problem they're trying to address is congestion, which could be better addressed by taxing drivers more highly. Then only the more productive rideshare and taxi drivers would be on the streets, plus you'd get rid of a lot of the other drivers who don't value their ability to drive that highly. I used to drive into NYC fairly regularly, since I liked being able to park near where I was going, but if it cost more I would have just taken the train and the subway.

test6554 8y ago
The number of drivers finds equilibrium on its own. Too many drivers = too low wages, so people stop driving. Too few drivers = high wages/wait times, so more people become drivers.
- jeffreyrogers 8y ago
  It doesn't solve the congestion problem though since lots of drivers are on the road for other reasons.
  - techsin101 8y ago
    Congestion problem stems from broken Subway system. Uber is just responding to pain. Uber is like pain medicine for broken bone that subway system is.

bumholio 8y ago

> 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. Clearly, a cap on ride hailing licenses can only mean that the already licensed drivers stand to gain a similar amount by pimping their license to various competing services until they get the best deal. It's simple economics, assuming taxis and Ubers are comparable to the average consumer.

romwell 8y ago

Alternative title: "NYC Taxi mafia strikes back, gives Uber 12 months to come up with a large enough bribe". Really, the life of nearly everyone (who's not a taxi driver, perhaps) improved a bit since Uber entered the city. Even the fabled subway in its theoretical best has been dysfunctional in Brooklyn since the takedown of streetcars a hundred years ago (see how all the tracks are running towards Manhattan and very few across?). And need anyone be reminded of the countless problems with the yellow cabs (good luck hailing one around Kings Highway!), green cabs (too little too late, same problems), car services (aka taxis you order by phone, which may or may not come to pick you up and may or may not go where you need to, and can tell you to, quote, f$#k off when they're late), etc? Obligatorily, I have a lot of reservations towards whatever Uber is doing elsewhere - but the NYC situation looked unfixable before Uber came a long with a stick (or candy) large enough.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
100k Uber cars is fantastic. Let's boost that to 1M and get 10x the benefit. There is a limit where all these cars become a true public nuisance. It might be less than 100k.
- cryptonector 8y ago
  At some point people might stop bothering with car ownership. That would open up a number of interesting possibilities. Imagine removing all parking on some (not all) streets during the day, thus doubling or tripling their bandwidth, and also increasing the number of cars that can be operated at the same time. I'm not saying that's the answer, but that there are lots of things that could be tried here.
  - Jugglerofworlds 8y ago
    I'm hoping that once self driving cars become common, we can remove parking spaces and replace them with protected bike lanes. A while back I bought an electric bike to ride around Boston, but I quickly returned it because I didn't want to end up as a splatter on the side of the road. Self-driving cars can't come soon enough.

mkolodny 8y ago

It looks like the city snuck in a ride-sharing vehicles cap by pairing it with a pay floor for for-hire vehicle drivers. "[Caption] Drivers of for-hire vehicles on Wednesday demonstrated in support of a cap on ride-hail vehicles outside City Hall." Then the signs in the picture above the caption are all focused on the pay floor... "VOTE yes to create a pay floor for FHV drivers" The pay floor and the ride-sharing cap are very separate issues, but it seems like the city pulled a fast one by pairing their legislation. With the L train shutting down for a year+, this could be disastrous for getting from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

Eridrus 8y ago
I don't think these issues are actually that separate; both of them seek to limit Uber trips; one does it on the demand side by increasing the price, the other does it on the supply side, by directly constraining supply. The exact mechanisms are different, but the direction they are pushing is basically the same so that if one doesn't work the other should.

colinbartlett 8y ago

If the problem they are trying to solve is "too many vehicles" then we need a congestion tax. They should certainly not be limiting vehicles that are more likely to take multiple people with a Pool option. If the problem they are trying to solve is "drivers aren't making enough" then they should impose a minimum wage on drivers or force an actual employee relationship. If the problem they are trying to solve is a bail out of the failed and corrupt taxi medallion system, then maybe this will succeed. The real issue here is the cab drivers who are hurting because they provide an inferior service to a clientele who now have better options. I avoid cabs for all but the shortest trips because of the large percentage of bad driving experiences. Some solutions to improve yellow cabs like having a simple feedback mechanism for drivers could go a long way to leveling the playing field between Uber and Taxi.

TuringNYC 8y ago
What if the problem is that you are mayor and got lots of campaign funding from the taxi lobby and now they want their pound of flesh? http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/don-big-bill-article-1.1448237 http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/don-big-bill-article-1.14... FROM ARTICLE "A review of all contributions to de Blasio raised by or made by taxi lawyers, owners and other associates in the 2013 campaign tallies $254,451, making them de Blasio’s biggest backers by far. Fleet owner Ron Sherman is the most powerful taxi leader, just as his father Donald was in the 1980s before he was convicted in a federal felony case, and he orchestrated the de Blasio deluge of support."
- TuringNYC 8y ago
  Not sure why the downvotes. One has to realize that sometimes "solutions" are an answer not to a problem but to address some constituency.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    Further than that, we can’t have democracy unless all contributions to politicians/ candidates are reported and published in real time. Without that we can’t know if a person deserves to hold a position, or even if they are eligible.

sbuttgereit 8y ago

Is this title really fair? "The City Council approved a package of bills that will halt new licenses for Uber and other ride-hail vehicles for a year while the city studies the booming industry." While yes, this does impact Uber, it also impacts Lyft, etc.

romwell 8y ago
Other comments in the thread quote numbers indicating that Uber has 8X ridership of Lyft. I'd say the title is fair.

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TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago

Are ride-hailing licenses transferable? How much would a ride-hailing license cost to buy from an existing operator right now in NYC.

blondie9x 8y ago

Ride sharing in general is worsening traffic and causing less utilization of mass transit. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2018/02/ride-sharing-actually-congests/ https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2018/02/ride-sharing-actua... We have to find a way to have better more effective cities built for people that utilize walking, biking, and transit. The less cars the better: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-11/fight-climate-change-one-bus-ride-at-a-time https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-11/fight-cli... We have to find a way to stop the laziness/traffic/transit abandonment that spreads with ride sharing. http://devonzuegel.com/post/we-should-be-building-cities-for-people-not-cars http://devonzuegel.com/post/we-should-be-building-cities-for...

cm2012 8y ago

As someone who lives in Eastern Queens, Uber has changed my life. There is no other kind of reliable taxi out here, and uber lets me live without a car. I had to take a yellow cab the other day from a dispatcher at JFK. I normally take Uber all the time. We were going literally 20 min away to Queens. I tell him we're going to Queens. He literally screams, "Queens?!" and storms out of the car to the dispatcher. He comes back in 2 minutes and starts driving, muttering to himself for 10 minutes after I give him the address, whining like a little bitch that he didn't get to go to Manhattan. Fuck yellow cabs.

bgruber 8y ago
When going from JFK to somewhere else in queens, yellow cabs are supposed to get a voucher from the dispatcher that allows them to skip to the front of the line when they get back to the airport. The fact that he was surprised when you said Queens implies that the dispatcher failed to do this, which explains both his going back to the dispatcher and his annoyance.
- ctoth 8y ago
  And maybe this is the reason. Not that it should matter... But why then should I care? Why should I have to deal with the problem? I tell you what, I've never had this happen in the hundreds of Uber and Lyft rides I've taken this year or the thousands in the years before. So... Okay there's a reason. But that reason still demonstrates why one would prefer rideshare over taxi.
  - erik_seaberg 8y ago
    If the symptom is "I don't want task X, I'd rather sit here earning nothing waiting for task Y", the root cause is compensation being too low for X and too high for Y.
CPLX 8y ago
He was mad because the dispatcher didn’t do his job and give the guy a shorty ticket like he’s supposed to.

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Dowwie 8y ago

Congestion is only part of the story. The MTA is competing for customers and has gotten help.

cwkoss 8y ago

Article notes he is eyeing AirBnb regs next. De Blasio seems to really like adding regulations to industries that were largely responses to NYC (and similar large cities') regulation that strangled the previous version of that industry, leaving competition excessively expensive, inefficient and unpleasant. Maybe there are some things he could do to make taxi's more competitive with Uber? - Develop a cross-service hailing app including taxis? - Regulate to prevent annoying TV screen ads - Streamline payment process I feel like this is a step towards Uber being regulated into becoming a clone of the poor taxi services it was rebelling against: unmaintained interiors, no customer service, unreliable hailing. The only regulation I want to see on Uber is statutory penalties if "time to arrival" wait times consistently exceed the provided estimates. I use Uber much less now because I several times I've gotten an estimate of "3 minutes" and waited over 15. This is false advertisement.

8bitsrule 8y ago

We are pausing the issuance of new licenses in an industry that has been allowed to proliferate without any appropriate check or regulation... or graft...

Itaxpica 8y ago

It’s ironic that this was passed this morning, because this morning a power issue at Canal managed to knock out all service on the A/C/E line for hours... leaving me to have to get a Lyft to work. For the second time in a week. I’m all for greater regulation for ridesharing companies, but making it even harder to get around at a time the subway is in full crisis is a terrible idea.

sebleon 8y ago

My suspicion is that Uber could out-bribe the taxi lobby by 10x, without moving the needle on profitability. This cap signifies that Uber either a) doesn't bribe politicians, or b) bribed the wrong politicians.

dilap 8y ago
Losing their edge w/o Travis.

sytelus 8y ago

I'd expected better from NYC. They are again trying to put back "Medallion" culture back in so that only powerful few can operate taxi business and essentially are licenced to exploit drivers from 3rd world. The city should have seen its taxi system as shameful arrangement where rich people created laws to get license for what was a slave market for all purpose and intent. People like Michael Cohen had exploited this system to make 10s of millions of dollars from the sweat of taxi drivers for practically zero effort. There are no reason to artificially limit the number of taxis. The demand and supply are far more efficient and desirable than politicians.

techsin101 8y ago

This is plain bribery. I live in Brooklyn. Now I'm less late because of Uber. Before I've gotten fired because of situations where I can do nothing but just let fate run it course as I'm stuck in B train. Or wait for a bus that hasn't even left the station. I know cab drivers are behind this. Uber pool has saved me so much money. When is next election for NYC mayor

fatjokes 8y ago

Uber and Lyft actually offered to support a $100M bribe-er, I mean, "hardship" fund to support underwater individual (i.e., not those taxi business that own multiple medallions) medallion owners, but the city refused. Which makes sense since how are the politicians suppose to get money from that?