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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

#121

Post by fwip »

ikonst wrote: post #54

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 indemnif…

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."

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

#122

Post by iamdave »

scarejunba wrote: post #113
iamdave wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because I already did .

Haha, no you didn’t. You’re terrified that if you openly said what you insinuate, it wouldn’t work.

I insinuated that your statement wasn't overly concerned with the merits of democracy vs. corporate interests, pretty directly in fact, and asked you to let me know if that assessment was incorrect.

Turns out it was.

I was incorrect in that assessment, there is no terror here. I was merely mistaken and I am pretty openly owning that mistake, not shying away from it. Not sure how this idea that I'm somehow "terrified" of the debate is relevant when I openly invited you to correct me no the matter-which you did.

Thank you for the correction, I guess?

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

#123

Post by TuringNYC »

bobthepanda wrote: post #118
TuringNYC wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Congestion pricing with a fee on all yellow & black car rides for origin and destination within CBD If the goal was to reduce congestion in CBD, I'd support that goal...and zone-based pricing fixes that. CBD has extensive and frequent subway service, so that makes sense, esp since congestion pricing can be turned off on non-peak hours when subways dont seem to work. However, what the city actually did was put a bl…

Both are pretty bad. A Lyft or Uber waiting for a passenger also drives around and causes congestion like a yellow cab. Lyft and Uber have increased total VMT. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2018/07/2... Poor people in New York overwhelmingly don't drive. They don't even own cars. The median car commuter into Manhattan makes far more than the median transit user. https://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/newsfax/…

The yellow/green cab experiment failed because it happened before the magic of smartphone ubiquity. The problem with yellow/green cabs was density -- the density outside Manhattan is thin and the area is enormous. The chances of a yellow/green taxi just passing by when you need one is close to zero.

Uber/Lyft solved this issue with beaconing. Uber/Lyft further reduce cost if you pool, which is great all around.

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

#124

Post by LifeLiverTransp »

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…

State of the Union: european

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

#125

Post by rayiner »

zimpenfish wrote: post #49
rayiner wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Special interest groups generally can’t “fund his re-election” because it’s illegal for corporations to donate to candidates. It might be worth considering whether your belief that “it happens all the fucking time” is based on facts or some sort of inchoate narrative you’ve picked up over the years.

> it’s illegal for corporations to donate to candidates. Only directly, I thought? Can't they can give money to PACs which then give to candidates? In theory there's no collusion but...

They can’t contribute to PACs either. PACs just pool individual contributions. They can give to SuperPACs, but SuperPACs can’t contribute to candidates.

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

#126

Post by dragonwriter »

zimpenfish wrote: post #49
rayiner wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Special interest groups generally can’t “fund his re-election” because it’s illegal for corporations to donate to candidates. It might be worth considering whether your belief that “it happens all the fucking time” is based on facts or some sort of inchoate narrative you’ve picked up over the years.

> it’s illegal for corporations to donate to candidates. Only directly, I thought? Can't they can give money to PACs which then give to candidates? In theory there's no collusion but...

> Can't they can give money to PACs which then give to candidates?

No, but they can sponsor a PAC, which frees up more of the money a PAC raises from individual sources for donations to candidates; this is different only if you ignore the fungibility of money.

(They can also spend directly or via a “SuperPAC” on advocacy that is for/against candidates but legally not coordinated with candidates, and SuperPAC activity in practice is often coordinated with campaigns via public signalling and other mechanisms.)

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

#127

Post by subroutine »

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.

Right, if only that were true.

It's a bigger pain-in-the-ass to run a property as an STR compared to renting to some local on a yearly lease, since tenant turnover always requires a variety of owner/prop-manager/property interactions (cleaning, fixing stuff, finding the right seasonal listing price, interacting with people unfamiliar with the area, and a big issue of dealing with 'vacationer' collateral damage: trashed apartment, pissed-off neighbors, etc.).

That final hurdle (the 'pain-in-the-ass bottleneck') is almost completely mitigated in the current manifestation of Airbnb. We are at a tipping point where corporations buy dozens, hundreds, of residential properties and automate the entire STR process. Vacationers book online, they show up at the STR and punch-in a pin code to open the front door (no need to shake anyone's hand), vacationers stay for a few days, leave the STR in whatever state of affairs, later that day some contracted cleaning staff shows up and cleans the mess, washes the sheets etc, and resets the door-lock on the way out. Voilà, fully automated STR. Rinse, repeat. And the more STRs the corporation owns in a city, the lower the overhead cost per unit.

Here is one such company... Sonder.

https://www.sonder.com/destinations/san_diego/search?ne=32.8...

If you take a look at the map of their San Diego offerings, you'll see a bunch of pins on the map with numbers like , , , up to it seems. But if you look closely, that doesn't mean they own 27 total apartments in San Diego, that number means they own 27 apartments/lofts under that single pin. Sonder is a Silicon Valley based company, waddayaknow.

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

#128

Post by stale2002 »

dvtrn wrote: post #120
stale2002 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 peo…

> If both the mayor and other people have the same right to express their opinion on legislative matters

His opinion is apparently that it is not OK for Lyft to do the exact same thing he is doing.

Yes, both Lyft, and the Mayor, have the right to express their opinions on political matters. And apparently the opinion that the Mayor is expressing, is that it is not OK for Lyft to exercise this same right that he is expressing.

Ie, he is condemning the fact that someone else is doing the same thing he is doing.

To use an analogy, imagine that 2 people are arguing about the hypothetical concept of free speech. Both person 1, and person 2, have the right to use free speech, to discuss the concept of free speech, but if person 2 is arguing against the idea of free speech, then I am going to call his opinion ridiculous.

The point is to show hypocrisy. Both entities should have the ability to express their opinions on legislative matters, and it is ridiculous that apparently the mayor disagrees with this concept.

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

#129

Post by TuringNYC »

anth_anm wrote: post #107
TuringNYC wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 M…

Uber/Lyft as a solution is just about as regressive and ignorant of the working class. The solution is fixing transit.

I'd agree the strategic solution is fixing transit. But for the working class, strategic solutions don't pay rent nor do they fill your stomach today.

Uber/Lyft is both a terrible solution and often the only viable one immediately available. What is the immediate alternative when the transit system isnt working now...walking?

My mother used to take the subways. Now, on off-hours, half the time you end up without subways running, or running express, or running on alternative tracks, or a wall of conflicting reroute posters conflicting with actuality, or subways simply not showing up. She ends up at some random station without elevators or escalators and thinks...why didn't I just Uber this?

For those not familiar with NYC's transit death spiral: Governor Cuomo Announces $1 Billion in New MTA Funding and Declares State of Emergency to Speed Up Subway Repairs

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-photos-rush-transcrip...

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

#130

Post by dvtrn »

stale2002 wrote: post #128
dvtrn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peo…

> If both the mayor and other people have the same right to express their opinion on legislative matters His opinion is apparently that it is not OK for Lyft to do the exact same thing he is doing. Yes, both Lyft, and the Mayor, have the right to express their opinions on political matters. And apparently the opinion that the Mayor is expressing, is that it is not OK for Lyft to exercise this same right that he is ex…

Surely you see the difference between someone who is speaking in an official capacity as a public official and someone speaking in a business capacity to influence legislation for competitive business advantages.

You cannot be so blind to the differences here, can you?

The point is to show hypocrisy. Both entities should have the ability to express their opinions on legislative matters, and it is ridiculous that apparently the mayor disagrees with this concept.

The mayor doesn't disagree with the concept of free speech, the mayor simply disagrees with what the speech is and how it, and the actions of legislative preemption at the behest of these companies can potentially impact his city. Which isn't hypocrisy, it is his express prerogative as a city leader! It is what the people of Portland elected him to do.

If you'd READ the letter in full, you'll see the Mayor isn't trying to curtail Lyft's speech, or saying they shouldn't be allowed to Lobby, but instead he's pointing to specific things and agenda items Lyft is Lobbynig for, and pointing to those specific items as things that could harm his city.

There's a lot of difference between pointing out something someone said that you disagree with, and positing that they shouldn't say it at all or be allowed to speak period. If that distinction is lost here, or for whatever reason being willfully left out of your responses, I think this is as good as any of a point to retire from the discussion because we'll be here forever.

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