14 ms·

Lyft lobbying to prevent Portland from regulating impact of ride-sharing

195 points by cozzyd 8y ago

rahimnathwani 8y ago
After reading the article (including the letter which was reproduced within), I feel an equally fair title could be: "Mayor and Commissioner of Transportation lobby for the right to enforce their own rules, not just state laws, on Lyft"
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  How so? It seems like the mayor is reacting to lobbying by Lyft.
  - rahimnathwani 8y ago
    The state is considering a piece of legislation. The mayor: - wrote a letter and released it for publication by the press - gave interviews or quotations to journalists for publication Both of these seek to influence state legislators, and the evidence is right there in the article. Where is the evidence of Lyft's lobbying? And does 'who started it' matter? (I mean, if X did the first lobbying act, does that automatically make them the party in the wrong?)
    - dvtrn 8y ago
      Both of these seek to influence state legislators, and the evidence is right there in the article. Where is the evidence of Lyft's lobbying? I'd like to counter your question with a question: why shouldn't a mayor be speaking up to influence state legislators if they believe legislative issues could have an impact on their city? This is literally one of the primary duties of being an elected leader at the city level.
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        > why shouldn't a mayor be ...but nobody said they shouldn't.
        dvtrn 8y ago
        I'm sorry, taking into context the comment I quoted from the chain it resides in, from the way the person I'm responding to initially reacted to this post, it looked otherwise at a glance.
      - stale2002 8y ago
        Why shouldn't anyone else be speaking up about legislative issues? Doesn't everyone else have the same rights as a mayor to do so?
        dvtrn 8y ago
        They absolutely do have that right, and should be encouraged to write their state legislators if they are motivated to. but since the letter in the article was written by a mayor, from the perspective of a mayor, my response here is directly about the perspective of said mayor. I was attempting to keep my comment congruent with the context of the post.
        stale2002 8y ago
        Ok, and the context of this post is that the mayor in question is complaining about other people exercising the same exact right that he is exercising. That's the point. The mayor's opinion on the matter is ridiculous. Both the mayor, and other people, have the same right to express their opinion on legislative matters.
        dvtrn 8y ago
        I don't quite follow your last statement, perhaps I've read an improper context than what you intend. If both the mayor and other people have the same right to express their opinion on legislative matters, what about the mayor's opinion is substantively different that it rises to the description of 'ridiculous'-as you put it? His interest slightly preempts (pardon the phrase, given the context) that of the "other people" here in that he and the members of his city council-as elected officials-and appointed committee members have the express charge and duty of setting and guiding the direction of policy in their city. When state action has the result of affecting municipal policy, mayoral opinion matters along with that of local residents wouldn't you say?
- SilasX 8y ago
  That would be more misleading, because cities generally have authority to enforce their own local ordinances on top of state laws. Certainly, states set the scope of what the ordinances can be, but there's nothing unusual about a city enforcing its "own rules" on top of state laws.
dvtrn 8y ago
I've complained about this here before after Uber and Lyft did the same thing in Texas (https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2017-03-14/lege-for-sale/ https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2017-03-14/lege-f...), states certainly have an interest in legislative preemption when there's a good and prevailing cause for it, I won't argue the legal merits there, but I think this warrants serious consideration beyond the surface when voters (as was the case in Austin) decide on municipal code and business effectively 'buy' preemption or else threaten to take their ball and go home (https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-05-13/our-city-our-headache/ https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-05-13/our-city-our...).
- SOLAR_FIELDS 8y ago
  The most infuriating part of the state legislative preemption is that it was very obviously not necessary. Within days of the departure of Uber and Lyft there were competing services that operated just fine under the new regulations. I won’t speak to whether the regulations were necessary or effective, but when the companies argued that there was an undue burden being imposed that would make it difficult to do business and then we witnessed the very opposite happen (smaller companies such as Fasten and nonprofits such as RideAustin were able to do just fine with the regulations), it sure made it smellier when the legislature came in and deemed it necessary to overturn the regulations.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    Within days of the departure of Uber and Lyft there were competing services that operated just fine under the new regulations. Good point, I always forget to mention those. While not without their own technical issues, I think RideATX (I forget what the other competing service that sprung up during that legislative frackas was named-was it Fasten that you mentioned?) had a lot going for it with real promise as a model cities could follow during the months Austin went without the two big names in ridesharing. The story is even more baffling when you consider the story of HeyRide, who launched in Austin before Uber and Lyft even showed up (http://austin.culturemap.com/news/innovation/11-01-12-15-51-new-heyride-app-replaces-yellow-cabs-with-drivers-own-vehicles/#slide=0 http://austin.culturemap.com/news/innovation/11-01-12-15-51-...)
wutbrodo 8y ago
It's worth noting: as much as a low-quality source like this frames their headline as if devolving control to local government is an unalloyed good, the interplay between the policy of nested polities (eg city, state, federal) is a much more complex issue, and one that people come down on the other side of fairly often (as a simple, dramatic example, the repeal of Roe v Wade is considered to be a nightmare scenario for many here, and yet it's precisely a case of federal law restricting the ability of local govts under the aegis of protecting individual rights[1]). I'm not expressing approval or disapproval of Lyft's actions, but I think it's worth pointing out what a low-quality source this is, given its reliance on leaning into the reader's biases right from the headline. Low-effort advocacy like this is almost never the best way to understand a topic, just as a libertarian think tank's hypothetical "Lyft protects consumers from authoritarian local govt's" headline wouldn't be. [1] I know this is a complicated issue and I'm really not interested in getting arguing it on its merits; it's just a convenient, widely-recognized example that takes the jurisdictional form I'm describing here.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  Merely curious since you went out of your way to twice refer to this as a 'low-quality source', but is there something remarkably un-qualitative about the writing on the topic of public transit in this blog-beyond your stated objections with this particular post? This post got me looking through the rest of the blog as someone passively interested in transit, but otherwise uninformed on the topic as an area of focused-study compared to Mr. Walker, here.
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  What exactly is low quality about the source? Apart from the fact that Mr. Walker is without question an expert in public transport most of the blog post reprints a letter from the city of Portland outlining Lyft's dirty tacticts. The actual blog entry simply outlines the different requirements between dense - and suburban city areas. Your comment, smearing the original poster, seems to me vile and totally beyond the point.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
kodablah 8y ago
Color me naive, but I'm always confused why those troubled by the lobbying criticize the influencers instead of the influenced. The influenced aren't some innocent party here. Surely it is more reasonable to act in the best interest of your company as a lobbyist than it is to act against your constituents as a politician. Where is the scathing letter directed towards the writers/signatories/supporters of the bill in question? The reason you see this one is simple PR as a city lobbies for their way at the state level just as Lyft lobbies and they know anti-big-company is an effective tactic. If the city of Portland has a problem with the state of Oregon, then that's where the politicians need to hash out their issues. > Specifically, the bill Lyft has proposed and is attempting to pass [...] Lulz...what kind of terrible spin is that. I would be ashamed if I voted for this guy. Lyft doesn't pass laws.
- eganist 8y ago
  > I'm always confused why those troubled by the lobbying criticize the influencers instead of the influenced. Bribery tends to be a crime because we haven't found a way to short circuit en masse the human tendency to submit to influence. > Lulz...what kind of terrible spin is that. I would be ashamed if I voted for this guy. Lyft doesn't pass laws. Considering your comment, I shouldn't be surprised that you would be dismissive of the idea that directing influence means exerting greater control over the legislative process; it's only the technicalities (i.e. Lyft is not a legislator) that differ. The statement holds, and I think many of us would appreciate a more dignified rebuttal to the article's point rather than "lulz."
  - darawk 8y ago
    > Bribery tends to be a crime because we haven't found a way to short circuit en masse the human tendency to submit to influence Contrary to popular belief, lobbying and bribery are in fact not the same thing.
    - pbreit 8y ago
      What's the difference?
scarejunba 8y ago
I've seen the effect of San Francisco "governing itself". In many respects, I would rather they didn't. "Governing itself" isn't some magical good. The cost of incompatible laws in jurisdictions can be large and invisible. Since the legislature ignores the cost of laws, they are encouraged to complicate things as much as possible. I'm on Lyft's side here.
- spacegod 8y ago
  You want corporate interests to rule a city? That's not even remotely democratic.
  - iamdave 8y ago
    "Governing itself" isn't some magical good I don't think one who holds this particular stance is particularly concerned with the merits of democracy. Call me on it, if I'm wrong, scarejunba.
    - notduncansmith 8y ago
      For what it’s worth, I read that comment as drawing attention to the fact that democracy, while powerful, can be misdirected. People make mistakes, and in large groups, peoples make mistakes, especially when working with a complex set of top-down rules that we’ve built up over centuries for the purpose of controlling other people in a world that has had billions of years to develop its own complexities. As an aside, that fragility is why such top-down structures are so rare in nature.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      The topic is city level democracy vs. county or state level democracy. A lot of housing and transportation problems are caused by the regulation being too local.
      - anth_anm 8y ago
        a lot are caused by things like messed up state level property taxes. California's housing problems are multiple levels of poor regulation.
a_imho 8y ago
How is Lyft different from any taxi service?
- beerlord 8y ago
  Because its much better, and so attracts more people to the service. Uber has a great potential to be used as public transport, with dynamic route pathing based on supply and demand. Something traditional public transport could never do.
  - CaptainZapp 8y ago
    Uber has a great potential to be used as public transport, with dynamic route pathing based on supply and demand Yeah, Silicon Valley companies taking over our public transport infrastructure. What could ever go wrong with that?
  - cozzyd 8y ago
    Traditional public transport certainly could do that (and demand-response routes are a thing in rural places), but fixed-route consistent routes make more sense in urban areas from geometric considerations (and you know, not requiring a charged smart phone to get from point A to B).
  - anth_anm 8y ago
    Uber is a disaster as public transit. It's functionally little different than just having everyone drive themselves. Not needing parking is a big benefit, but it's still a bad idea.
    - beerlord 8y ago
      It is functionally very different because: -You dont have to drive around and find a park (less congestion and real estate) -You can pool your trip with another user (Uber Pool)
- dexen 8y ago
  There are certain key differences, but basically the supply of drivers / vehicles, and the pricepoints are regulated by the company rather than by municipal legislative. Which has upsides and downsides wrt quality, availability, wait time, and pricing, including potential to apply "surge pricing". For example, municipal yellow cab taxis are known for both being legally obliged to pick up passengers in all relevant areas, and at the same time unwilling to do so in certain areas, due to unprofitability, or perceived risks.
cheriot 8y ago
If America's urban areas were good at "geometry" they wouldn't have so much parking and such shitty transit.
googlemike 8y ago
Really odd comment sentiments here. I fail to see how this is a good thing as opposed to alarming.
joecool1029 8y ago
Honestly, I would much prefer everything get regulated at state level. I live in NJ. There are 565 municipalities here. Every single one has different regulations. For example, if one were to pick up a prearranged regular fare from Terminal A at EWR (Newark Liberty International), they might not know that this terminal is in the City of Elizabeth. The city sometimes has plainclothes detectives write $783 tickets. For prearranged pickups by non-airport taxi, not solicitation. Uber and Lyft got regulated under a statewide 'rideshare' law here. Townships and cities can't ticket them for doing pickups. Taxis have to know all the regulation of every municipality they operate in. In the above example, Elizabeth wrote a ton of tickets for rideshare drivers before the statewide framework into effect. I'm aware large cities provide unique challenges and can understand why NYC for instance should be allowed to regulate their own taxi/livery situation, but for the rest of the state it doesn't make sense to have every little town have different regulations. Edit: Seems someone did write a petition that even covers the nuance of allowing some larger municipalities a little oversight https://www.change.org/p/new-jersey-governor-help-the-taxi-industry-taxicab-crisis-in-new-jersey-legislation-needs-to-be-changed https://www.change.org/p/new-jersey-governor-help-the-taxi-i...
- woodpanel 8y ago
  Echoing you concern and somehow related: in Germany it is almost impossible to get state of the art software infrastructure on the road for customers of public transit because of the fragmentation of transportation providers. Municipalities run their own systems and while not all of them are actively sabotaging attempts at increased coherence, none of them has any incentive to increase coherence either. If it weren't for the state-run federal railway system, that runs also commuter railways in all German cities (and thus can enforce pressure) I reckon there would even be no software to calculate a ride from one end of the country to the other. And there would certainly be no product like the BahnCard, were you can use all of Germany's public transit for ~4.200 € / year.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    Japan has bunch of different rail providers that run parts of the network. I wonder how the interoperability problems are solved over there.
subroutine 8y ago
ITT there seems to be a lot of sentiment that city/county local governments shouldn't be able to implement policy on anything but the most trivial matters. As if politicians and corporations residing in other cities are better suited to make impactful local policy. I dont get it... Then again I am still scathing from a similar case study in my home town of San Diego, with Airbnb. Our city council passed some policies to regulate whole-home short term vacation rentals in residential areas. It limited whole-home short-term Airbnb/VRBO rentals to 6-months per year (you could still rent out a spare room or granny flat on Airbnb as much as you want). Airbnb wasn't having it. They hired a gazillion signature gatherers to brute force a public ballot measure. I'm talking about a signature gathering army; they were such a presence/nuisance it led to absurdities like Trader Joe's filing a lawsuit against Airbnb [1]. To be clear, Airbnb is killing San Diego's local renter market. Over the last 5 years, thousands of rental properties have been converted to short-term Airbnb rentals. These images speak for themselves: https://imgur.com/a/UBJYbwr https://imgur.com/a/UBJYbwr This is on the heels of an independent consulting firm warning that sd housing and rental prices are rising at an alarming rate, and F grade in new housing development (blame SANDAG?), and single-family home prices slipping out of reach of median income earners (further saturating the apartment rental market) [2]. The natural reaction was SD locals filling town-hall meetings for several solid months, demanding city council take action (it was a sight to behold, because, I mean, when do you ever hear your friends say 'I just got back from a town hall meeting?'). And they did. And everyone cheered. And then a week later it was all over. The funny thing is; it won't even be a ballot measure. Airbnb understood that if they got the minimum number of signatures, they could force san diego city council to either (1) rescind the policies they just passed and start over on new policy more favorable to Airbnb - it had to be since laws require resubmissions after a petition to be substantially different; or (2) no policy whatsoever, until a formal ballot measure could be put in front of voters (i.e. 2+ years of no policy & airbnb propaganda). TLDR; a silicon valley company has more sustained influence on san diego rental/housing policy than san diego elected officials 1. https://www.fastcompany.com/90231150/trader-joes-has-filed-a-restraining-order-against-airbnb https://www.fastcompany.com/90231150/trader-joes-has-filed-a... 2. http://londonmoeder.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Regional-Housing-Study-San-Diego-County-Final.pdf http://londonmoeder.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Regional-...
- 8y ago
Kiro 8y ago
The HN crowd has always been hypocritical when bashing Uber but praising Lyft. They are the same kind of crooks.
ikonst 8y ago
Many of the bullet points are somewhat vague, but one is strangely specific: > Prohibiting companies from charging passengers with disabilities higher prices during busy times. First of all, what constitutes 'disability'? How will passengers identify themselves as 'disabled' to the apps? How would the companies store this highly private information? (think medical-info grade, not credit-card grade) What will indemnify the companies from claims of discrimination, claims possible in light of the companies being aware of users' disabilities, information they never wanted to keep in the first place? And finally, not to make it the main topic, but who would pay for this? That "surge pricing" you pay is, in turn, being paid to the drivers. The drivers are "chasing the surge'.
- thomaslangston 8y ago
  I would assume the definition of disabled at play here is related to the equipment of the car e.g. wheelchair lift, or service required e.g. driver getting out of the car to help someone in or out of the car.
  - ikonst 8y ago
    So it's not a status but just a per ride assessment -- if you appear disabled when the driver comes to pick you up, he should ask not to receive surge pay for that particular ride?
- fwip 8y ago
  I interpreted that not as "disabled people don't pay surge pricing" but instead as "disabled people pay the same rate as nondisabled people, even when demand is high."
pdx_flyer 8y ago
Calling Portland "dense" is hysterical. As a Portlander, I can say we are a terrible example of what NIMBYism does to efforts to lower housing costs by adding density. Our city has a decent public transit setup and if the focus was on adding usable density with improved transit options, rather than people trying to protect neighborhoods, we'd be much better off. I am fine with Lyft wanting this regulated at the state level. It seems like a weird hill to die on for Portland.
- SilasX 8y ago
  “Less dense than than optimal” does not imply “density effects don’t matter for city management as claimed in the letter [eg for scarcity of road capacity or pickup points]”.
  - pdx_flyer 8y ago
    Well, the city has done very little to move density forward. They continue to approve buildings that are mostly overpriced, poorly built, studio apartments. The other problem is that the commute pattern in Portland isn't into downtown only. There are people who commute from the east side of town, through downtown, through the tunnel (or one of the other limited transit options over the hills) to Beaverton or Hillsboro to work at Nike, Intel, etc. The efficient public transit options for that commute simply don't exist. It can take 1.5+ hours to do that via MAX and bus.
    - SilasX 8y ago
      Which, I agree, are important issues, but don't obviate the mayor's reference to municipalities' need to manage the problems of density (rather than be overridden by voters that don't encounter such problems).
- ppseafield 8y ago
  Usually what happens when things get regulated at the state level is that change is a lot slower to happen, and the state might have either indifference toward or opposing interest with the city. There's already kind of a Portland-vs-rest-of-Oregon dynamic, plus a Portland-vs-Clark-Washington-Clackamas-Counties dynamic. I think the process that we've done in Portland is pretty decent: have a prototype/trial period, see how traffic patterns change, evaluate trade-offs and safety, then pass laws based on the experience. Lyft even previously worked directly with the city to develop and implement these local rules. It's not clear to me that preventing Portland from regulating services like Lyft without state intervention is a win. Certainly Bend, Medford, Seaside, etc. would probably benefit from their own rules. Perhaps legislation that facilitates some basic ground rules would be helpful, but also allowing for additional local regulation would be the best fit. When the state complicates or bans local regulation/development, seems like the trend is to just stop it and then do nothing else. For example North Carolina's HB1 bathroom bill, Chattanooga's municipal fiber vs. AT&T's lobbying for bans, Atlanta's MARTA being at the mercy of the state legislative branch for its funding.
r_klancer 8y ago
Of interest to HN. Specifically, the bill Lyft has proposed and is attempting to pass would eliminate the ability of every Oregon city from taking the following common sense steps to protect TNC passengers: ... - Collecting local data, which is critical for understanding congestion and climate impacts. ... TNC providers are not eager to reveal any more of their data than they have to, for reasons of proprietary advantage. Similarly they understandably don't want to take on the operational cost of having to comply with many local requirements. (I work in data at a tech company; I can sympathize with their point of view.) Yet if urban mobility ultimately becomes a good provided by tech monopolies, we want to make sure local governments are in on the loop with respect to the knowledge and data those companies have, and have some leverage to enforce local requirements. Applications to current issues regarding privacy regulation, antitrust and tech monopolies, and the potential rollout of autonomous vehicles are left as an exercise for the reader. Also, recommended: "Inside the Transportation Data Tug of War" - https://www.move-forward.com/inside-the-transportation-data-tug-of-war/ https://www.move-forward.com/inside-the-transportation-data-...
syntaxing 8y ago
I feel like every state should mandate accessible data similar to Taiwan's approach (https://data.cdc.gov.tw/en/ https://data.cdc.gov.tw/en/). New York has a similar program but does not have the hackathon or incentives for people to use the data.
ineedasername 8y ago
It seems like the tldr of Portland's objections is that rideshare services result in a net increase of cars on the road-- the rideshare cars-- because it makes taking a cab more convenient than mass transit. But it seems like an inverse effect might offset this issue: fewer people choosing to own & drive their personal vehicles because it's now more convenient to use rideshare services an not have to worry about finding & paying for parking.
- jerrysievert 8y ago
  burst traffic vs constant traffic, where burst can be defined as commute times. you can see the affect in downtown Portland, where car traffic was mostly concentrated to burst hours with the rest of traffic being a relative trickle of vehicles that weren't delivery or transit vehicles. now, it's a constant stream of lyft/uber labeled cars at all hours, in addition the the burst hours. anecdotally, no passengers most of the time (around 70%), seeming to be between fares.

195 points by cozzyd 8y ago

After reading the article (including the letter which was reproduced within), I feel an equally fair title could be: "Mayor and Commissioner of Transportation lobby for the right to enforce their own rules, not just state laws, on Lyft"

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
How so? It seems like the mayor is reacting to lobbying by Lyft.
- rahimnathwani 8y ago
  The state is considering a piece of legislation. The mayor: - wrote a letter and released it for publication by the press - gave interviews or quotations to journalists for publication Both of these seek to influence state legislators, and the evidence is right there in the article. Where is the evidence of Lyft's lobbying? And does 'who started it' matter? (I mean, if X did the first lobbying act, does that automatically make them the party in the wrong?)
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    Both of these seek to influence state legislators, and the evidence is right there in the article. Where is the evidence of Lyft's lobbying? I'd like to counter your question with a question: why shouldn't a mayor be speaking up to influence state legislators if they believe legislative issues could have an impact on their city? This is literally one of the primary duties of being an elected leader at the city level.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      > why shouldn't a mayor be ...but nobody said they shouldn't.
      - dvtrn 8y ago
        I'm sorry, taking into context the comment I quoted from the chain it resides in, from the way the person I'm responding to initially reacted to this post, it looked otherwise at a glance.
    - stale2002 8y ago
      Why shouldn't anyone else be speaking up about legislative issues? Doesn't everyone else have the same rights as a mayor to do so?
      - dvtrn 8y ago
        They absolutely do have that right, and should be encouraged to write their state legislators if they are motivated to. but since the letter in the article was written by a mayor, from the perspective of a mayor, my response here is directly about the perspective of said mayor. I was attempting to keep my comment congruent with the context of the post.
        stale2002 8y ago
        Ok, and the context of this post is that the mayor in question is complaining about other people exercising the same exact right that he is exercising. That's the point. The mayor's opinion on the matter is ridiculous. Both the mayor, and other people, have the same right to express their opinion on legislative matters.
        dvtrn 8y ago
        I don't quite follow your last statement, perhaps I've read an improper context than what you intend. If both the mayor and other people have the same right to express their opinion on legislative matters, what about the mayor's opinion is substantively different that it rises to the description of 'ridiculous'-as you put it? His interest slightly preempts (pardon the phrase, given the context) that of the "other people" here in that he and the members of his city council-as elected officials-and appointed committee members have the express charge and duty of setting and guiding the direction of policy in their city. When state action has the result of affecting municipal policy, mayoral opinion matters along with that of local residents wouldn't you say?
SilasX 8y ago
That would be more misleading, because cities generally have authority to enforce their own local ordinances on top of state laws. Certainly, states set the scope of what the ordinances can be, but there's nothing unusual about a city enforcing its "own rules" on top of state laws.

dvtrn 8y ago

I've complained about this here before after Uber and Lyft did the same thing in Texas (https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2017-03-14/lege-for-sale/ https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2017-03-14/lege-f...), states certainly have an interest in legislative preemption when there's a good and prevailing cause for it, I won't argue the legal merits there, but I think this warrants serious consideration beyond the surface when voters (as was the case in Austin) decide on municipal code and business effectively 'buy' preemption or else threaten to take their ball and go home (https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-05-13/our-city-our-headache/ https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-05-13/our-city-our...).

SOLAR_FIELDS 8y ago
The most infuriating part of the state legislative preemption is that it was very obviously not necessary. Within days of the departure of Uber and Lyft there were competing services that operated just fine under the new regulations. I won’t speak to whether the regulations were necessary or effective, but when the companies argued that there was an undue burden being imposed that would make it difficult to do business and then we witnessed the very opposite happen (smaller companies such as Fasten and nonprofits such as RideAustin were able to do just fine with the regulations), it sure made it smellier when the legislature came in and deemed it necessary to overturn the regulations.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  Within days of the departure of Uber and Lyft there were competing services that operated just fine under the new regulations. Good point, I always forget to mention those. While not without their own technical issues, I think RideATX (I forget what the other competing service that sprung up during that legislative frackas was named-was it Fasten that you mentioned?) had a lot going for it with real promise as a model cities could follow during the months Austin went without the two big names in ridesharing. The story is even more baffling when you consider the story of HeyRide, who launched in Austin before Uber and Lyft even showed up (http://austin.culturemap.com/news/innovation/11-01-12-15-51-new-heyride-app-replaces-yellow-cabs-with-drivers-own-vehicles/#slide=0 http://austin.culturemap.com/news/innovation/11-01-12-15-51-...)

wutbrodo 8y ago

It's worth noting: as much as a low-quality source like this frames their headline as if devolving control to local government is an unalloyed good, the interplay between the policy of nested polities (eg city, state, federal) is a much more complex issue, and one that people come down on the other side of fairly often (as a simple, dramatic example, the repeal of Roe v Wade is considered to be a nightmare scenario for many here, and yet it's precisely a case of federal law restricting the ability of local govts under the aegis of protecting individual rights[1]). I'm not expressing approval or disapproval of Lyft's actions, but I think it's worth pointing out what a low-quality source this is, given its reliance on leaning into the reader's biases right from the headline. Low-effort advocacy like this is almost never the best way to understand a topic, just as a libertarian think tank's hypothetical "Lyft protects consumers from authoritarian local govt's" headline wouldn't be. [1] I know this is a complicated issue and I'm really not interested in getting arguing it on its merits; it's just a convenient, widely-recognized example that takes the jurisdictional form I'm describing here.

dvtrn 8y ago
Merely curious since you went out of your way to twice refer to this as a 'low-quality source', but is there something remarkably un-qualitative about the writing on the topic of public transit in this blog-beyond your stated objections with this particular post? This post got me looking through the rest of the blog as someone passively interested in transit, but otherwise uninformed on the topic as an area of focused-study compared to Mr. Walker, here.
CaptainZapp 8y ago
What exactly is low quality about the source? Apart from the fact that Mr. Walker is without question an expert in public transport most of the blog post reprints a letter from the city of Portland outlining Lyft's dirty tacticts. The actual blog entry simply outlines the different requirements between dense - and suburban city areas. Your comment, smearing the original poster, seems to me vile and totally beyond the point.
- Dylan16807 8y ago

kodablah 8y ago

Color me naive, but I'm always confused why those troubled by the lobbying criticize the influencers instead of the influenced. The influenced aren't some innocent party here. Surely it is more reasonable to act in the best interest of your company as a lobbyist than it is to act against your constituents as a politician. Where is the scathing letter directed towards the writers/signatories/supporters of the bill in question? The reason you see this one is simple PR as a city lobbies for their way at the state level just as Lyft lobbies and they know anti-big-company is an effective tactic. If the city of Portland has a problem with the state of Oregon, then that's where the politicians need to hash out their issues. > Specifically, the bill Lyft has proposed and is attempting to pass [...] Lulz...what kind of terrible spin is that. I would be ashamed if I voted for this guy. Lyft doesn't pass laws.

eganist 8y ago
> I'm always confused why those troubled by the lobbying criticize the influencers instead of the influenced. Bribery tends to be a crime because we haven't found a way to short circuit en masse the human tendency to submit to influence. > Lulz...what kind of terrible spin is that. I would be ashamed if I voted for this guy. Lyft doesn't pass laws. Considering your comment, I shouldn't be surprised that you would be dismissive of the idea that directing influence means exerting greater control over the legislative process; it's only the technicalities (i.e. Lyft is not a legislator) that differ. The statement holds, and I think many of us would appreciate a more dignified rebuttal to the article's point rather than "lulz."
- darawk 8y ago
  > Bribery tends to be a crime because we haven't found a way to short circuit en masse the human tendency to submit to influence Contrary to popular belief, lobbying and bribery are in fact not the same thing.
  - pbreit 8y ago
    What's the difference?

scarejunba 8y ago

I've seen the effect of San Francisco "governing itself". In many respects, I would rather they didn't. "Governing itself" isn't some magical good. The cost of incompatible laws in jurisdictions can be large and invisible. Since the legislature ignores the cost of laws, they are encouraged to complicate things as much as possible. I'm on Lyft's side here.

spacegod 8y ago
You want corporate interests to rule a city? That's not even remotely democratic.
- iamdave 8y ago
  "Governing itself" isn't some magical good I don't think one who holds this particular stance is particularly concerned with the merits of democracy. Call me on it, if I'm wrong, scarejunba.
  - notduncansmith 8y ago
    For what it’s worth, I read that comment as drawing attention to the fact that democracy, while powerful, can be misdirected. People make mistakes, and in large groups, peoples make mistakes, especially when working with a complex set of top-down rules that we’ve built up over centuries for the purpose of controlling other people in a world that has had billions of years to develop its own complexities. As an aside, that fragility is why such top-down structures are so rare in nature.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    The topic is city level democracy vs. county or state level democracy. A lot of housing and transportation problems are caused by the regulation being too local.
    - anth_anm 8y ago
      a lot are caused by things like messed up state level property taxes. California's housing problems are multiple levels of poor regulation.

a_imho 8y ago

How is Lyft different from any taxi service?

beerlord 8y ago
Because its much better, and so attracts more people to the service. Uber has a great potential to be used as public transport, with dynamic route pathing based on supply and demand. Something traditional public transport could never do.
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  Uber has a great potential to be used as public transport, with dynamic route pathing based on supply and demand Yeah, Silicon Valley companies taking over our public transport infrastructure. What could ever go wrong with that?
- cozzyd 8y ago
  Traditional public transport certainly could do that (and demand-response routes are a thing in rural places), but fixed-route consistent routes make more sense in urban areas from geometric considerations (and you know, not requiring a charged smart phone to get from point A to B).
- anth_anm 8y ago
  Uber is a disaster as public transit. It's functionally little different than just having everyone drive themselves. Not needing parking is a big benefit, but it's still a bad idea.
  - beerlord 8y ago
    It is functionally very different because: -You dont have to drive around and find a park (less congestion and real estate) -You can pool your trip with another user (Uber Pool)
dexen 8y ago
There are certain key differences, but basically the supply of drivers / vehicles, and the pricepoints are regulated by the company rather than by municipal legislative. Which has upsides and downsides wrt quality, availability, wait time, and pricing, including potential to apply "surge pricing". For example, municipal yellow cab taxis are known for both being legally obliged to pick up passengers in all relevant areas, and at the same time unwilling to do so in certain areas, due to unprofitability, or perceived risks.

cheriot 8y ago

If America's urban areas were good at "geometry" they wouldn't have so much parking and such shitty transit.

googlemike 8y ago

Really odd comment sentiments here. I fail to see how this is a good thing as opposed to alarming.

joecool1029 8y ago

Honestly, I would much prefer everything get regulated at state level. I live in NJ. There are 565 municipalities here. Every single one has different regulations. For example, if one were to pick up a prearranged regular fare from Terminal A at EWR (Newark Liberty International), they might not know that this terminal is in the City of Elizabeth. The city sometimes has plainclothes detectives write $783 tickets. For prearranged pickups by non-airport taxi, not solicitation. Uber and Lyft got regulated under a statewide 'rideshare' law here. Townships and cities can't ticket them for doing pickups. Taxis have to know all the regulation of every municipality they operate in. In the above example, Elizabeth wrote a ton of tickets for rideshare drivers before the statewide framework into effect. I'm aware large cities provide unique challenges and can understand why NYC for instance should be allowed to regulate their own taxi/livery situation, but for the rest of the state it doesn't make sense to have every little town have different regulations. Edit: Seems someone did write a petition that even covers the nuance of allowing some larger municipalities a little oversight https://www.change.org/p/new-jersey-governor-help-the-taxi-industry-taxicab-crisis-in-new-jersey-legislation-needs-to-be-changed https://www.change.org/p/new-jersey-governor-help-the-taxi-i...

woodpanel 8y ago
Echoing you concern and somehow related: in Germany it is almost impossible to get state of the art software infrastructure on the road for customers of public transit because of the fragmentation of transportation providers. Municipalities run their own systems and while not all of them are actively sabotaging attempts at increased coherence, none of them has any incentive to increase coherence either. If it weren't for the state-run federal railway system, that runs also commuter railways in all German cities (and thus can enforce pressure) I reckon there would even be no software to calculate a ride from one end of the country to the other. And there would certainly be no product like the BahnCard, were you can use all of Germany's public transit for ~4.200 € / year.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Japan has bunch of different rail providers that run parts of the network. I wonder how the interoperability problems are solved over there.

subroutine 8y ago

ITT there seems to be a lot of sentiment that city/county local governments shouldn't be able to implement policy on anything but the most trivial matters. As if politicians and corporations residing in other cities are better suited to make impactful local policy. I dont get it... Then again I am still scathing from a similar case study in my home town of San Diego, with Airbnb. Our city council passed some policies to regulate whole-home short term vacation rentals in residential areas. It limited whole-home short-term Airbnb/VRBO rentals to 6-months per year (you could still rent out a spare room or granny flat on Airbnb as much as you want). Airbnb wasn't having it. They hired a gazillion signature gatherers to brute force a public ballot measure. I'm talking about a signature gathering army; they were such a presence/nuisance it led to absurdities like Trader Joe's filing a lawsuit against Airbnb [1]. To be clear, Airbnb is killing San Diego's local renter market. Over the last 5 years, thousands of rental properties have been converted to short-term Airbnb rentals. These images speak for themselves: https://imgur.com/a/UBJYbwr https://imgur.com/a/UBJYbwr This is on the heels of an independent consulting firm warning that sd housing and rental prices are rising at an alarming rate, and F grade in new housing development (blame SANDAG?), and single-family home prices slipping out of reach of median income earners (further saturating the apartment rental market) [2]. The natural reaction was SD locals filling town-hall meetings for several solid months, demanding city council take action (it was a sight to behold, because, I mean, when do you ever hear your friends say 'I just got back from a town hall meeting?'). And they did. And everyone cheered. And then a week later it was all over. The funny thing is; it won't even be a ballot measure. Airbnb understood that if they got the minimum number of signatures, they could force san diego city council to either (1) rescind the policies they just passed and start over on new policy more favorable to Airbnb - it had to be since laws require resubmissions after a petition to be substantially different; or (2) no policy whatsoever, until a formal ballot measure could be put in front of voters (i.e. 2+ years of no policy & airbnb propaganda). TLDR; a silicon valley company has more sustained influence on san diego rental/housing policy than san diego elected officials 1. https://www.fastcompany.com/90231150/trader-joes-has-filed-a-restraining-order-against-airbnb https://www.fastcompany.com/90231150/trader-joes-has-filed-a... 2. http://londonmoeder.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Regional-Housing-Study-San-Diego-County-Final.pdf http://londonmoeder.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Regional-...

8y ago

Kiro 8y ago

The HN crowd has always been hypocritical when bashing Uber but praising Lyft. They are the same kind of crooks.

ikonst 8y ago

Many of the bullet points are somewhat vague, but one is strangely specific: > Prohibiting companies from charging passengers with disabilities higher prices during busy times. First of all, what constitutes 'disability'? How will passengers identify themselves as 'disabled' to the apps? How would the companies store this highly private information? (think medical-info grade, not credit-card grade) What will indemnify the companies from claims of discrimination, claims possible in light of the companies being aware of users' disabilities, information they never wanted to keep in the first place? And finally, not to make it the main topic, but who would pay for this? That "surge pricing" you pay is, in turn, being paid to the drivers. The drivers are "chasing the surge'.

thomaslangston 8y ago
I would assume the definition of disabled at play here is related to the equipment of the car e.g. wheelchair lift, or service required e.g. driver getting out of the car to help someone in or out of the car.
- ikonst 8y ago
  So it's not a status but just a per ride assessment -- if you appear disabled when the driver comes to pick you up, he should ask not to receive surge pay for that particular ride?
fwip 8y ago
I interpreted that not as "disabled people don't pay surge pricing" but instead as "disabled people pay the same rate as nondisabled people, even when demand is high."

pdx_flyer 8y ago

Calling Portland "dense" is hysterical. As a Portlander, I can say we are a terrible example of what NIMBYism does to efforts to lower housing costs by adding density. Our city has a decent public transit setup and if the focus was on adding usable density with improved transit options, rather than people trying to protect neighborhoods, we'd be much better off. I am fine with Lyft wanting this regulated at the state level. It seems like a weird hill to die on for Portland.

SilasX 8y ago
“Less dense than than optimal” does not imply “density effects don’t matter for city management as claimed in the letter [eg for scarcity of road capacity or pickup points]”.
- pdx_flyer 8y ago
  Well, the city has done very little to move density forward. They continue to approve buildings that are mostly overpriced, poorly built, studio apartments. The other problem is that the commute pattern in Portland isn't into downtown only. There are people who commute from the east side of town, through downtown, through the tunnel (or one of the other limited transit options over the hills) to Beaverton or Hillsboro to work at Nike, Intel, etc. The efficient public transit options for that commute simply don't exist. It can take 1.5+ hours to do that via MAX and bus.
  - SilasX 8y ago
    Which, I agree, are important issues, but don't obviate the mayor's reference to municipalities' need to manage the problems of density (rather than be overridden by voters that don't encounter such problems).
ppseafield 8y ago
Usually what happens when things get regulated at the state level is that change is a lot slower to happen, and the state might have either indifference toward or opposing interest with the city. There's already kind of a Portland-vs-rest-of-Oregon dynamic, plus a Portland-vs-Clark-Washington-Clackamas-Counties dynamic. I think the process that we've done in Portland is pretty decent: have a prototype/trial period, see how traffic patterns change, evaluate trade-offs and safety, then pass laws based on the experience. Lyft even previously worked directly with the city to develop and implement these local rules. It's not clear to me that preventing Portland from regulating services like Lyft without state intervention is a win. Certainly Bend, Medford, Seaside, etc. would probably benefit from their own rules. Perhaps legislation that facilitates some basic ground rules would be helpful, but also allowing for additional local regulation would be the best fit. When the state complicates or bans local regulation/development, seems like the trend is to just stop it and then do nothing else. For example North Carolina's HB1 bathroom bill, Chattanooga's municipal fiber vs. AT&T's lobbying for bans, Atlanta's MARTA being at the mercy of the state legislative branch for its funding.

r_klancer 8y ago

Of interest to HN. Specifically, the bill Lyft has proposed and is attempting to pass would eliminate the ability of every Oregon city from taking the following common sense steps to protect TNC passengers: ... - Collecting local data, which is critical for understanding congestion and climate impacts. ... TNC providers are not eager to reveal any more of their data than they have to, for reasons of proprietary advantage. Similarly they understandably don't want to take on the operational cost of having to comply with many local requirements. (I work in data at a tech company; I can sympathize with their point of view.) Yet if urban mobility ultimately becomes a good provided by tech monopolies, we want to make sure local governments are in on the loop with respect to the knowledge and data those companies have, and have some leverage to enforce local requirements. Applications to current issues regarding privacy regulation, antitrust and tech monopolies, and the potential rollout of autonomous vehicles are left as an exercise for the reader. Also, recommended: "Inside the Transportation Data Tug of War" - https://www.move-forward.com/inside-the-transportation-data-tug-of-war/ https://www.move-forward.com/inside-the-transportation-data-...

syntaxing 8y ago

I feel like every state should mandate accessible data similar to Taiwan's approach (https://data.cdc.gov.tw/en/ https://data.cdc.gov.tw/en/). New York has a similar program but does not have the hackathon or incentives for people to use the data.

ineedasername 8y ago

It seems like the tldr of Portland's objections is that rideshare services result in a net increase of cars on the road-- the rideshare cars-- because it makes taking a cab more convenient than mass transit. But it seems like an inverse effect might offset this issue: fewer people choosing to own & drive their personal vehicles because it's now more convenient to use rideshare services an not have to worry about finding & paying for parking.

jerrysievert 8y ago
burst traffic vs constant traffic, where burst can be defined as commute times. you can see the affect in downtown Portland, where car traffic was mostly concentrated to burst hours with the rest of traffic being a relative trickle of vehicles that weren't delivery or transit vehicles. now, it's a constant stream of lyft/uber labeled cars at all hours, in addition the the burst hours. anecdotally, no passengers most of the time (around 70%), seeming to be between fares.