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

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

#71

Post by SilasX »

pdx_flyer wrote: post #65

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…

“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]”.

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

#72

Post by ineedasername »

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.

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

#73

Post by SilasX »

vkou wrote: post #34
pbreit wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't legislation be more reactive than preemptive? Isn't the Uber/Lyft worst case scenario that traffic gets a little worse?

The worst case scenario is also that fixed rate, lottery availability taxi is completely replaced by highest bidder availability. Depending on your value system, this can be a good, or a bad thing.

That’s only how it works in theory. No city actually has a blinded lottery system for equitable pickups. In practice, drivers just discriminate on who looks likely to tip more when demand is hot, and this is very hard to police.

Price controls rarely have this ideal outcome.

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

#75

Post by futureastronaut »

twoodfin wrote: post #61
subroutine wrote: post #46

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…

Or to put it another way, San Diego property-holders now have more control over what they do with their property than San Diego elected officials.

Covert, illegal hotels are great for permanent residents. Score one for libertarianism.

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

#76

Post by futureastronaut »

scarejunba wrote: post #13

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.

Why the scare quotes?

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

#77

Post by ineedasername »

blahblahthrow wrote: post #64
joecool1029 wrote: post #37

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…

Conversely, what if every single person in a small town agrees on a regulation that they feel is in their best interest? Why shouldn't transport providers be bound by that? These are mostly local services, it's only the behemoth tech companies coming in to offer "ride sharing" that really benefit from uniform laws across the state in 99% of cases.

They may be local, but they aren't bound to a single township. I live in a suburb, and there's no way a rideshare operator in my ares could function without consistently operating in at least 30 different local municipalities. Each small town deciding what is in their own best interest may conflict with what is in broader interest of people outside that town. If municipalities start passing their own rules that in some way limit rideshare & cab rides, all of a sudden you have drivers saying "sorry, I don't go to towns x, y and z". Or "I have to drive through town x & y to get you to z, and they have $5 surcharges on each ride, so that will be $10 extra for the ride." Then every town catches on to this revenue source and all pass similar rules, and a 20 minute trip costs an extra $20. I live 10 minutes away from where I work and still touch 3 towns on my way.

The narrow self interest of a small group isn't always compatible with the larger group, or even the small group's own longer term interest.

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

#78

Post by woodpanel »

Xylakant wrote: post #62
woodpanel wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> were you can use all of Germany's public transit for ~4.200 € / year. Well, you can't. You can use Railway and S-Bahn because S-Bahn is traditionally owned by the DB. You can also use other public transport in the specific regions that the DB negotiated for, the ones that are included as "city" on a long distance railway ticket. These regions do not even always align with the regions for public transport, for examp…

Yes there are some exceptions, but you're just proving my point: Even the Bahn can't negotiate full alignment across Germany although its only the largest of cities that don't accept the BC100 completely.

Then again, almost all of those cities have an extensive S-Bahn system, so we're really just talking about some subways across Germany where you still have to pay extra.

Case in point is Berlin: What edge case does it have to be for a typical BC100 owner to travel across Germany and have to visit Zone B or C with a subway but not with a S-Bahn?

https://www.bahn.de/wmedia/view/mdb/media/intern/cityticket_...

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

#79

Post by TuringNYC »

joecool1029 wrote: post #37

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…

>> 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,

Firstly -- NYC's regulation of Uber/Lyft probably had much to do with the mayor's massive campaighn donations received from the TLC: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/nyregion/de-blasio-reaps-... NYTIMES: Taxi Industry Opens Wallet for de Blasio, a Chief Ally by MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUMJULY 17, 2012

I wish Uber/Lyft had lobbied more heavily in NYC...it isnt as if the other side was not lobbying. The cap on Uber/Lyft in NYC is regressive and particularly cruel to the poor. NYC transit has been in a death spiral for several years now and often becomes unusable in weekends/off-hours and in outer-boroughs (you know...when working class individuals commute.) A let-them-eat-cake approach to suggesting that Yellow Cabs (~40$+/ride from Brooklyn) are a solution is absurd when pooled Uber/Lyft offer far better prices and a more sophisticated product (shared rides for 3-4 people.)

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

#80

Post by tzs »

ineedasername wrote: post #77
blahblahthrow wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, what if every single person in a small town agrees on a regulation that they feel is in their best interest? Why shouldn't transport providers be bound by that? These are mostly local services, it's only the behemoth tech companies coming in to offer "ride sharing" that really benefit from uniform laws across the state in 99% of cases.

They may be local, but they aren't bound to a single township. I live in a suburb, and there's no way a rideshare operator in my ares could function without consistently operating in at least 30 different local municipalities. Each small town deciding what is in their own best interest may conflict with what is in broader interest of people outside that town. If municipalities start passing their own rules that in so…

> Or "I have to drive through town x & y to get you to z, and they have $5 surcharges on each ride, so that will be $10 extra for the ride."

If the ride does not terminate in x or y, and is using an ordinary passenger car, I doubt that such a regulation would be enforceable specifically against ride services unless the town could show a specific danger from them. I think they would have to charge $5 for every non-resident vehicle passing through, not just ride service vehicles, to get away with it.

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