New York Could Become First Major U.S. City to Cap Uber and Similar Vehicles

Vancouver is going to cap Uber at the outset. The taxi industry here is highly concentrated within eight key electoral ridings that you have to win in order to take a majority in provincial political. It’s the most powerful taxi industry in the world.

NYC: we feel your pain, but spare us a thought as we suffer without any Uber at all, and only the dimmest prospect of ever having Uber, let alone an adequate number of cabs.

I've been following the red-light-camera issue, was not aware of this "overpolicing" but that certainly explains a lot.

> We live in a free market, they're free to find work elsewhere.

except taxis aren't currently a free market, and definitely weren't when many of those medallions were originally purchased. the government shouldn't have been mucking with the market, but it did.

Ive lived in NYC for 10 years, and have never personally used Uber/Lyft. Its surprising to a lot of people, which is funny to me in a place with so many other options. So, besides taking friend's Ubers, maybe I dont know what I'm missing completely, but I always have enjoyed and preferred the experience of walking out into the streets and hailing a cab. It is one of the reasons this city was so appealing in the first place.

It is a simple act, requiring only your eyes and a working arm, and you can go anywhere in the city. It can also be challenging, but over time you start figuring out and mapping to memory the best places to hail cabs going in your direction, you start learning the fastest routes through different areas at various times of day. Mastering the cab experience is part of what makes living here fun, while adding some meaning to the "achievement" of NYC "experience."

How you describe the situation seems quite exaggerated, to say the least. I'm reserved to say that you are intentionally presenting a biased or agenda-driven description here, as you may very well have had a horrible run of luck, or you may just have higher personal standard, so I'm just going to throw in my experience as a counter-point.

-I've never had a cabbie that was any ruder than what you are likely to experience from any person living and working in this city at any time. Part of living in NYC is "learning to deal" with lots of different people of every type of temperament and attitude. I could also care less that I "can't rate them." I think this obsession with rating people for basic services is an alienating force in society. They are a driver to get me to point B. Go on reddit and downvote somebody or finish writing that really vicious Yelp review you've been mulling over if you need your need to get your fix "rating" someone.

- I can't remember the last time I had a cabbie refuse service to Brooklyn, or anywhere for that matter. 8 years ago? The green cabs that came around ~4-5 years ago were a godsend for the borroughs. I have had hailed (green) cabs tell me to get out as soon as I got in because they got booked by a friggin Uber fair with surge pricing as I was opening the door...

- The only reason I struggle with cabs now is because they are disappearing, which is a result of Uber/Lyft domination. Everything changed for the worse following the arrival of Uber/Lyft, for cab drivers and non-Uber users/cab lovers. Dramatically so, the last couple of years.

-I've definitely had problems with smelly drivers once or twice, but not so much garbage. I certainly can't think of even a single instance where I have been presented by what I would describe as "horrors."

If I were describing the situation realistically rather than with hypercritically, it seems, for the most part, basic human decency keeps people from leaving trash in the cars in the first place, with the driver's self-respect and the desire for a better tip covering the rest. The experience is adequately clean and professional.

I know from talking to cabbies, who generally seem to be more social and socialable in a NY kind of way than Uber/Lyft automatons, that things have been pretty rough for them, and I remember one convo in particular with a cabbie who was not optimistic about my ability to hail cabs a year or two from now, at all.

NYC cabs are a cultural institution, especially the analog aspect of hailing a cab using physical gestures is what I am saying, and it seems people are quite over-eager to basically throw that away.

It is likely Uber would have thrived on the merits of its premium features and conveniences, but it should have had to do it on a level playing field, some way or another. I have no sympathy for Uber or Lyft if the rug gets pulled out from under them. I also have no sympathy for NYC bureaucracy and the situation they have created. I do feel bad for the people who got screwed for playing by well-established, long-standing rules.

Overall, I could care less what happens to Uber or medallion owners, but I would like to preserve the iconic experience that is the ability to walk out into the dark streets, scan the roads for a vehicle with a small white light on top, wave my arm in the air for a bit, tell my new driver friend my destination, and go.

> Save some miracle involving housing prices, it's hard to levy a consumption-based tax that isn't regressive based on income.

You could allow income-based discounts, either retroactively by refund (with receipts + tax return) or prospectively (if you have pre-registered accounts) or by a combination (e.g., if your income for the year qualified you for a higher discount than the advance registration info indicated, you can file for a refund.)

This is obviously potentially operationally more expensive in the general case, but for a congestion charge you are going to want to push people to personal accounts and toll tags anyway to minimize toll delays, so most of the infrastructure will already be there to support both prospective and retrospective discounts.