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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 likel

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.
    - TaylorAlexander 8y ago
      Knowing about the donations helps, but some have suggested we forego the idea of donations in the first place. It’s hard to see how it could be called a democracy when some people can donate millions to prop up a candidate. We can all watch and say “yep, they got a big donation”, but they’re still going to out find a candidate who represents the people against the moneyed interests. Perhaps not in all cases but the donations really slew the system.
      - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
        I agree. I think the idea is that being able to track the flow of monies is supposed to lead to changes that nudge us in the direction of political donation reform.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > the 2013 campaign tallies $254,451 By 2014 it was over half a million dollars [1]. This bill's proponents on the City Council were similarly endowed. [1] https://nypost.com/2014/05/17/taxi-industry-gave-de-blasio-over-550000-for-campaign/ https://nypost.com/2014/05/17/taxi-industry-gave-de-blasio-o...
  - jkaplowitz 8y ago
    Honest question: what are the equivalent numbers for Uber's side of the battle? Looking at one side of the question without the other doesn't allow a balanced assessment of the situation.
    - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      > what are the equivalent numbers for Uber's side of the battle? The bulk of Uber's ~$2 million/year of political spending in New York goes towards ad campaigns [1]. The taxi lobby bought the mayor and City Council; Uber created a grassroots backlash. This was the balance. Then Uber burned off its teflon coating. Since Lyft never bothered with politics and Juno/Gett is so young, the balance broke and we got this mess. [1] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/uber-spent-1-2m-lobbying-efforts-2017-article-1.3408470 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/uber-spent-1-2m-lob...
      - jkaplowitz 8y ago
        Thanks for providing the numbers and your take on the situation. I think we come away with quite different reactions to the same facts: I view it as telling that Uber spent roughly four times what the taxi lobby spent, but most of the conversational focus regarding spending targets the taxi lobby - one of many widespread biases in which some bits of the for-hire transportation debate get more frequently talked about and others usually overlooked. The (legitimately real) rank and file support and skewed discussion focus which Uber's ad/lobbying money has bought them isn't my idea of grassroots backlash, even if it unwittingly enlists the grassroots in their PR campaign. No doubt the taxi lobby is pushing their interests just like Uber pushes theirs. Neither set of industry lobbyists is truly looking out for the citizens. But when the conversation they've shaped pairs "bought the mayor and City Council" for the less-spending party with "created a grassroots backlash" for the more-spending party, I can only marvel impressed and saddened at Uber PR's effectiveness. In most cities, the local taxi lobby plus the citizens who oppose Uber/Lyft/Juno/Gett for normal public policy reasons are even more outclassed against a major VC-funded global would-be monopolist like Uber than NYC managed. I'm impressed at de Blasio and City Council for holding firm. (As you can tell, I'm no fan of these companies for several reasons, but explaining those reasons substantively would be a huge tangent.)
asah 8y ago
In NYC a tax would be wildly regressive and favor wealthy wall st users over all others. EDIT: congestion tax = more expensive mobility (incl taxis and ride sharing) = less affordability It's similar to local sales taxes: the 1% aren't affected by the cost of basic items, but the 99% are.
- tomtheelder 8y ago
  A congestion tax? That seems very unlikely to me, I would be shocked if car owners/users were not wealthier almost across the board.
  - bunderbunder 8y ago
    Well, car owners living in Manhattan, anyway. I doubt the same is true for FHV drivers coming in from further out.
    - ahoy 8y ago
      In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, the poorest here don't have cars.
    - CydeWeys 8y ago
      There aren't many poor people commuting into Manhattan every day using a car. You'd be spending way more on fuel and parking than the monthly MTA ticket costs.
      - bunderbunder 8y ago
        Well, if you're an FHV driver, MTA won't cut it, since you can't take it on the train with you, and you need it to do your job. On the upside, given the nature of the work, you shouldn't have to worry too much about parking costs.
        admax88q 8y ago
        With a for hire vehicle any congestion tax you had to pay should be passed on to your customers.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> the cab drivers who are hurting because they provide an inferior service to a clientele who now have better options This is a bill for bail out medallion owners, not cab drivers. Most NYC taxi medallions are corporate owned.
pradn 8y ago
The real issue is that cab drivers are committing suicide because of their debts. Simple market analysis ignores the real human toll these technological changes are making. Yes, better service should be rewarded. But those hurting should get some relief. (I personally don't care too much about medallion-owning companies/groups.)
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  That issue is present with everyone else also, not just cab drivers. I don't see why they should be singled out for relief. If we want to provide a safety net for people obviated by technology, that has nothing to do with Uber or Lyft.
  - tzs 8y ago
    One difference between taxis and "everyone else" is that with everyone else, the business that does in their business is usually legal. Uber and Lyft were largely operating illegally when they started in most cities. They ignored expensive licensing requirements. They ignored safety regulations. They ignored insurance requirements. They ignored price controls on fares. They ignored requirements to accommodate disabled people. Taxi companies who were obeying all these rules (which all imposed costs on the taxi companies that Uber and Lyft did not have) had a reasonable expectation, perhaps even a right, to expect the city would force Uber and Lyft to follow those rules too, or would shut them down. But the cities didn't, so I think a good case can be made that the cities owe the taxi drivers a bailout.
    - bln_wgc 8y ago
      Uber and Lyft operated 100% legally in NYC from their inception. The NYC ride-sharing market is not like other US cities, which allow peer-to-peer ridesharing. All rideshare drivers in NYC are licensed by the TLC, and Uber and Lyft are licensed TLC operators. Uber and Lyft beat NYC taxis fair and square - they used the existing TLC regulations (with the overhead required) and won out because of being a better product.
  - newfocogi 8y ago
weeksie 8y ago
Unfortch Bloomberg tried congestion pricing and it got strangled in the cot. That would be my preference too. Simple, market-based, fair, etc. . . . With the ranks of uber cars in the city growing as much as they have the downtown traffic has become insane and I'm for anything that would relieve that congestion. I've been living along the Prince/Spring corridor for ~10 years now and the change in bumper-to-bumper traffic, particularly on summer Fridays is outrageous. However it's sliced, though there's a problem with the city being full of too many idling/circling cars. ~10 yellow cabs at 330k rides per day vs Uber's 60k cars at ~200k rides per day, as per the article. That means Yellow cabs are actually driving people somewhere most of the time they are on the road whereas Uber drivers are spending a lot of time idling and/or driving to or from a pickup/dropoff. All of that said I've been looking everywhere for good supportable numbers on how Uber has been affecting Manhattan traffic and it has been impossible to get anything other than the total number of Ubers on the road which isn't very helpful.
- zone411 8y ago
  Your data on the number of daily rides seems quite outdated. It was 400k/day for Uber, 112k for Lyft, and 300k for taxis in the latest article I saw (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/nyregion/uber-taxi-drivers-struggle.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/nyregion/uber-taxi-driver...) and I don't see your numbers in this article. You'd at least need to know the average trip length and the work time per driver to make any comparisons as to who's more efficient. But I agree with you that the congestion pricing would be a better idea.
  - weeksie 8y ago
    That's super weird, maybe I had another NYT article open. Seriously, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. No numbers at all in that one though. Anyway quick googling for 2017 numbers: https://ny.curbed.com/2017/10/13/16468716/uber-yellow-cab-nyc-surpass-ridership https://ny.curbed.com/2017/10/13/16468716/uber-yellow-cab-ny... So we have 10k medallion holders and ~60k uber drivers giving the same number of rides per day. No, there's not enough there to give a rigorous analysis but that is a vast difference in the amount of rides offered per car. Maybe most of those Uber rides are in the boroughs and that accounts for the difference in ratio, but I'd be very surprised if that was the whole story.
jrockway 8y ago
Yup. I'm no fan of Uber but at least the service is consistent. I remember on my first trip to NYC many years ago, I wanted to go to the airport during rush hour. No cab would stop and take me, because I looked like someone who wanted to go to the airport, which is out of their way. Apparently this is a known problem, so you're supposed to kind of hide your bag so they don't notice, then get in the cab, close the door, and THEN declare that you want to go to the airport, at which point they are legally obligated to take you. (Having used this option on subsequent trips... it consists of 45 minutes of whining.) Meanwhile, with Uber you just press a button and they take you to the airport, bags and all. This is why the taxi industry is dying; these little "hustles" add up and people don't trust yellow cabs anymore. Meanwhile, the app-based cars just take you where you want to go without the complaining. (I suppose they now have the ability to just not accept your trip if they don't feel like going there, which I think is fair. I don't want to listen to an adult whine about how annoying it is to go a particular place, I just want to go there.) Right now, NYC faces a big problem. There is no viable method of transportation. There is too much traffic to drive anywhere quickly. The subways are overcrowded and broken. You can bike, but there probably won't be a citibike dock at your destination, and the bike lanes will be blocked with parked cars on the way there. It's kind of a nightmare that's going to become a crisis. Does limiting the number of Uber vehicles on the road fix any of this? Nope! But it's the only thing that's politically feasible, I guess. (We can't have congestion charging, because people in New Jersey and upstate will whine about having to pay to get to work. We can't expand the subway, because the MTA is controlled by the state and it only benefits NYC, so the governor and the legislature won't fund it. We can't enforce traffic laws to prevent people from parking in bike lanes because the NYPD is lazy and incompetent. So we're basically screwed. Eventually it will melt down completely, but we're doing an OK job of keeping the city on life support right now.)
- komali2 8y ago
  Thank God there's no electronic push scooters there, though. That would be the tipping point /s
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
CydeWeys 8y ago
I would love a congestion tax. I take a bike to work, but there's no good cross-town protected bike lanes, so I hit so a lot of damn vehicle traffic that severely slows down my commute. I frequently have to go slow to wend my way through narrow gaps of parked cars and cars stuck in traffic, and sometimes get stuck completely with double parking or construction. Make more protected bike lanes so that vehicle congestion doesn't impact bike travel, and add a congestion tax on all vehicles so that people only drive into the busiest areas if it's really necessary, and will otherwise consider alternative forms of transportation. I don't just want a cap on rideshares; a privately owned vehicle takes up just as much space on the road as an Uber, so why only target the latter? And what's to say that if you target Ubers you won't just get a corresponding increase in private drivers to pick up the slack, with the end result being the same amount of congestion?
- Regardsyjc 8y ago
  Does anyone know what would be the best way to get these bike lanes? Is the only way to petition our local politicians or are there any other ways?
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    More cyclists need to die. Unfortunately I'm not joking -- a lot of the protected bike lanes we've gotten recently have been along stretches where cyclists (sometimesore than one) have died. That's what it takes to override the nimbyists in the local Community Boards. But for a less morbid suggestion, you should join Transportation Alternatives (and its mailing lists!) and go to the Community Board meetings they send notices about where bike lanes will be debated. Every voice in favor helps. I've spoken at a bunch of em.
  - caro_douglos 8y ago
    Another alternative is to attempt to get federal funding (local politicians love padding the budget): https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bicycle_pedestrian/funding/funding_opportunities.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bicycle_pedestrian/fund... This explained a number of dumb bike lanes (which lead to nowhere) in my 'hood.
zjaffee 8y ago
I think there's a 4th factor which is under looked by your comment and it's that the way in which ride sharing is taking away revenue from the MTA. While this is likely caused by the system constantly being under construction and having delays, removing idling cars from the road would very likely also help with reducing bus traffic (although it's pathetic that NYC hasn't implemented BRT on all major corridors such as they are going to do on 14th street.
naveen99 8y ago
Uber already does surge pricing which has a similar effect as congestion tax.
mlthoughts2018 8y ago
I read it differently. This legislation is good for Uber, because it lays the groundwork for severe regulatory capture where Uber can use the cap to prevent competitors from having any chance to gain critical customer bases. It’s an anti-competition decision disguised as if city hall is doing something for the people. Now Uber just has to lobby to have its cap raised or be allocated a greater portion, and steadily push others out. This way Uber can get the transit monopoly it wants but without having to do the hard work of making the product profitable at a price point that drivers and riders actually value, which it currently papers over with VC funding and distraction stories about branching into other lines of business that are clearly not significant.
dajohnson89 8y ago
Uber drivers are also really bad drivers, compared to the norm. They don't know the streets as well, they make abrupt stops in the middle of the street (cabs at least pull over if possible), they drive just weird and it's annoying. As a driver and pedestrian, I can spot an uber car immediately without even seeing the sticker. I like to play this guessing game in my head, and 9 times out of 10 I see the uber sticker, "T L & C" license plate, and/or a single passenger in the back seat staring at their phone.
rdlecler1 8y ago
There are something like 8k restaurants in New York. Imagine if a restaurant lobby was able to limit new restaurants. This is basically what the taxi industry is doing.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  It would be more like they were limiting the new buildings that could be zoned for restaurants. Since land is a finite resource, the number of restaurants that NYC can even contain is limited. Here the limited resource is traffic bandwidth. Without congestion tolling, arbitrary regulations are the next best thing to helping to regulate usage.

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.
  - TaylorAlexander 8y ago
    Knowing about the donations helps, but some have suggested we forego the idea of donations in the first place. It’s hard to see how it could be called a democracy when some people can donate millions to prop up a candidate. We can all watch and say “yep, they got a big donation”, but they’re still going to out find a candidate who represents the people against the moneyed interests. Perhaps not in all cases but the donations really slew the system.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
      I agree. I think the idea is that being able to track the flow of monies is supposed to lead to changes that nudge us in the direction of political donation reform.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> the 2013 campaign tallies $254,451 By 2014 it was over half a million dollars [1]. This bill's proponents on the City Council were similarly endowed. [1] https://nypost.com/2014/05/17/taxi-industry-gave-de-blasio-over-550000-for-campaign/ https://nypost.com/2014/05/17/taxi-industry-gave-de-blasio-o...
- jkaplowitz 8y ago
  Honest question: what are the equivalent numbers for Uber's side of the battle? Looking at one side of the question without the other doesn't allow a balanced assessment of the situation.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > what are the equivalent numbers for Uber's side of the battle? The bulk of Uber's ~$2 million/year of political spending in New York goes towards ad campaigns [1]. The taxi lobby bought the mayor and City Council; Uber created a grassroots backlash. This was the balance. Then Uber burned off its teflon coating. Since Lyft never bothered with politics and Juno/Gett is so young, the balance broke and we got this mess. [1] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/uber-spent-1-2m-lobbying-efforts-2017-article-1.3408470 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/uber-spent-1-2m-lob...
    - jkaplowitz 8y ago
      Thanks for providing the numbers and your take on the situation. I think we come away with quite different reactions to the same facts: I view it as telling that Uber spent roughly four times what the taxi lobby spent, but most of the conversational focus regarding spending targets the taxi lobby - one of many widespread biases in which some bits of the for-hire transportation debate get more frequently talked about and others usually overlooked. The (legitimately real) rank and file support and skewed discussion focus which Uber's ad/lobbying money has bought them isn't my idea of grassroots backlash, even if it unwittingly enlists the grassroots in their PR campaign. No doubt the taxi lobby is pushing their interests just like Uber pushes theirs. Neither set of industry lobbyists is truly looking out for the citizens. But when the conversation they've shaped pairs "bought the mayor and City Council" for the less-spending party with "created a grassroots backlash" for the more-spending party, I can only marvel impressed and saddened at Uber PR's effectiveness. In most cities, the local taxi lobby plus the citizens who oppose Uber/Lyft/Juno/Gett for normal public policy reasons are even more outclassed against a major VC-funded global would-be monopolist like Uber than NYC managed. I'm impressed at de Blasio and City Council for holding firm. (As you can tell, I'm no fan of these companies for several reasons, but explaining those reasons substantively would be a huge tangent.)

asah 8y ago

In NYC a tax would be wildly regressive and favor wealthy wall st users over all others. EDIT: congestion tax = more expensive mobility (incl taxis and ride sharing) = less affordability It's similar to local sales taxes: the 1% aren't affected by the cost of basic items, but the 99% are.

tomtheelder 8y ago
A congestion tax? That seems very unlikely to me, I would be shocked if car owners/users were not wealthier almost across the board.
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  Well, car owners living in Manhattan, anyway. I doubt the same is true for FHV drivers coming in from further out.
  - ahoy 8y ago
    In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, the poorest here don't have cars.
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    There aren't many poor people commuting into Manhattan every day using a car. You'd be spending way more on fuel and parking than the monthly MTA ticket costs.
    - bunderbunder 8y ago
      Well, if you're an FHV driver, MTA won't cut it, since you can't take it on the train with you, and you need it to do your job. On the upside, given the nature of the work, you shouldn't have to worry too much about parking costs.
      - admax88q 8y ago
        With a for hire vehicle any congestion tax you had to pay should be passed on to your customers.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> the cab drivers who are hurting because they provide an inferior service to a clientele who now have better options This is a bill for bail out medallion owners, not cab drivers. Most NYC taxi medallions are corporate owned.

pradn 8y ago

The real issue is that cab drivers are committing suicide because of their debts. Simple market analysis ignores the real human toll these technological changes are making. Yes, better service should be rewarded. But those hurting should get some relief. (I personally don't care too much about medallion-owning companies/groups.)

lotsofpulp 8y ago
That issue is present with everyone else also, not just cab drivers. I don't see why they should be singled out for relief. If we want to provide a safety net for people obviated by technology, that has nothing to do with Uber or Lyft.
- tzs 8y ago
  One difference between taxis and "everyone else" is that with everyone else, the business that does in their business is usually legal. Uber and Lyft were largely operating illegally when they started in most cities. They ignored expensive licensing requirements. They ignored safety regulations. They ignored insurance requirements. They ignored price controls on fares. They ignored requirements to accommodate disabled people. Taxi companies who were obeying all these rules (which all imposed costs on the taxi companies that Uber and Lyft did not have) had a reasonable expectation, perhaps even a right, to expect the city would force Uber and Lyft to follow those rules too, or would shut them down. But the cities didn't, so I think a good case can be made that the cities owe the taxi drivers a bailout.
  - bln_wgc 8y ago
    Uber and Lyft operated 100% legally in NYC from their inception. The NYC ride-sharing market is not like other US cities, which allow peer-to-peer ridesharing. All rideshare drivers in NYC are licensed by the TLC, and Uber and Lyft are licensed TLC operators. Uber and Lyft beat NYC taxis fair and square - they used the existing TLC regulations (with the overhead required) and won out because of being a better product.
- newfocogi 8y ago

weeksie 8y ago

Unfortch Bloomberg tried congestion pricing and it got strangled in the cot. That would be my preference too. Simple, market-based, fair, etc. . . . With the ranks of uber cars in the city growing as much as they have the downtown traffic has become insane and I'm for anything that would relieve that congestion. I've been living along the Prince/Spring corridor for ~10 years now and the change in bumper-to-bumper traffic, particularly on summer Fridays is outrageous. However it's sliced, though there's a problem with the city being full of too many idling/circling cars. ~10 yellow cabs at 330k rides per day vs Uber's 60k cars at ~200k rides per day, as per the article. That means Yellow cabs are actually driving people somewhere most of the time they are on the road whereas Uber drivers are spending a lot of time idling and/or driving to or from a pickup/dropoff. All of that said I've been looking everywhere for good supportable numbers on how Uber has been affecting Manhattan traffic and it has been impossible to get anything other than the total number of Ubers on the road which isn't very helpful.

zone411 8y ago
Your data on the number of daily rides seems quite outdated. It was 400k/day for Uber, 112k for Lyft, and 300k for taxis in the latest article I saw (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/nyregion/uber-taxi-drivers-struggle.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/nyregion/uber-taxi-driver...) and I don't see your numbers in this article. You'd at least need to know the average trip length and the work time per driver to make any comparisons as to who's more efficient. But I agree with you that the congestion pricing would be a better idea.
- weeksie 8y ago
  That's super weird, maybe I had another NYT article open. Seriously, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. No numbers at all in that one though. Anyway quick googling for 2017 numbers: https://ny.curbed.com/2017/10/13/16468716/uber-yellow-cab-nyc-surpass-ridership https://ny.curbed.com/2017/10/13/16468716/uber-yellow-cab-ny... So we have 10k medallion holders and ~60k uber drivers giving the same number of rides per day. No, there's not enough there to give a rigorous analysis but that is a vast difference in the amount of rides offered per car. Maybe most of those Uber rides are in the boroughs and that accounts for the difference in ratio, but I'd be very surprised if that was the whole story.

jrockway 8y ago

Yup. I'm no fan of Uber but at least the service is consistent. I remember on my first trip to NYC many years ago, I wanted to go to the airport during rush hour. No cab would stop and take me, because I looked like someone who wanted to go to the airport, which is out of their way. Apparently this is a known problem, so you're supposed to kind of hide your bag so they don't notice, then get in the cab, close the door, and THEN declare that you want to go to the airport, at which point they are legally obligated to take you. (Having used this option on subsequent trips... it consists of 45 minutes of whining.) Meanwhile, with Uber you just press a button and they take you to the airport, bags and all. This is why the taxi industry is dying; these little "hustles" add up and people don't trust yellow cabs anymore. Meanwhile, the app-based cars just take you where you want to go without the complaining. (I suppose they now have the ability to just not accept your trip if they don't feel like going there, which I think is fair. I don't want to listen to an adult whine about how annoying it is to go a particular place, I just want to go there.) Right now, NYC faces a big problem. There is no viable method of transportation. There is too much traffic to drive anywhere quickly. The subways are overcrowded and broken. You can bike, but there probably won't be a citibike dock at your destination, and the bike lanes will be blocked with parked cars on the way there. It's kind of a nightmare that's going to become a crisis. Does limiting the number of Uber vehicles on the road fix any of this? Nope! But it's the only thing that's politically feasible, I guess. (We can't have congestion charging, because people in New Jersey and upstate will whine about having to pay to get to work. We can't expand the subway, because the MTA is controlled by the state and it only benefits NYC, so the governor and the legislature won't fund it. We can't enforce traffic laws to prevent people from parking in bike lanes because the NYPD is lazy and incompetent. So we're basically screwed. Eventually it will melt down completely, but we're doing an OK job of keeping the city on life support right now.)

komali2 8y ago
Thank God there's no electronic push scooters there, though. That would be the tipping point /s
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago

CydeWeys 8y ago

I would love a congestion tax. I take a bike to work, but there's no good cross-town protected bike lanes, so I hit so a lot of damn vehicle traffic that severely slows down my commute. I frequently have to go slow to wend my way through narrow gaps of parked cars and cars stuck in traffic, and sometimes get stuck completely with double parking or construction. Make more protected bike lanes so that vehicle congestion doesn't impact bike travel, and add a congestion tax on all vehicles so that people only drive into the busiest areas if it's really necessary, and will otherwise consider alternative forms of transportation. I don't just want a cap on rideshares; a privately owned vehicle takes up just as much space on the road as an Uber, so why only target the latter? And what's to say that if you target Ubers you won't just get a corresponding increase in private drivers to pick up the slack, with the end result being the same amount of congestion?

Regardsyjc 8y ago
Does anyone know what would be the best way to get these bike lanes? Is the only way to petition our local politicians or are there any other ways?
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  More cyclists need to die. Unfortunately I'm not joking -- a lot of the protected bike lanes we've gotten recently have been along stretches where cyclists (sometimesore than one) have died. That's what it takes to override the nimbyists in the local Community Boards. But for a less morbid suggestion, you should join Transportation Alternatives (and its mailing lists!) and go to the Community Board meetings they send notices about where bike lanes will be debated. Every voice in favor helps. I've spoken at a bunch of em.
- caro_douglos 8y ago
  Another alternative is to attempt to get federal funding (local politicians love padding the budget): https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bicycle_pedestrian/funding/funding_opportunities.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bicycle_pedestrian/fund... This explained a number of dumb bike lanes (which lead to nowhere) in my 'hood.

zjaffee 8y ago

I think there's a 4th factor which is under looked by your comment and it's that the way in which ride sharing is taking away revenue from the MTA. While this is likely caused by the system constantly being under construction and having delays, removing idling cars from the road would very likely also help with reducing bus traffic (although it's pathetic that NYC hasn't implemented BRT on all major corridors such as they are going to do on 14th street.

naveen99 8y ago

Uber already does surge pricing which has a similar effect as congestion tax.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

I read it differently. This legislation is good for Uber, because it lays the groundwork for severe regulatory capture where Uber can use the cap to prevent competitors from having any chance to gain critical customer bases. It’s an anti-competition decision disguised as if city hall is doing something for the people. Now Uber just has to lobby to have its cap raised or be allocated a greater portion, and steadily push others out. This way Uber can get the transit monopoly it wants but without having to do the hard work of making the product profitable at a price point that drivers and riders actually value, which it currently papers over with VC funding and distraction stories about branching into other lines of business that are clearly not significant.

dajohnson89 8y ago

Uber drivers are also really bad drivers, compared to the norm. They don't know the streets as well, they make abrupt stops in the middle of the street (cabs at least pull over if possible), they drive just weird and it's annoying. As a driver and pedestrian, I can spot an uber car immediately without even seeing the sticker. I like to play this guessing game in my head, and 9 times out of 10 I see the uber sticker, "T L & C" license plate, and/or a single passenger in the back seat staring at their phone.

rdlecler1 8y ago

There are something like 8k restaurants in New York. Imagine if a restaurant lobby was able to limit new restaurants. This is basically what the taxi industry is doing.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago
It would be more like they were limiting the new buildings that could be zoned for restaurants. Since land is a finite resource, the number of restaurants that NYC can even contain is limited. Here the limited resource is traffic bandwidth. Without congestion tolling, arbitrary regulations are the next best thing to helping to regulate usage.