Facing a new regulatory crackdown that they say will
severely impact their business, Uber and Lyft made an unusual proposal
to New York City’s government: stand down, and in exchange we’ll bail
out struggling yellow taxi drivers. The response was a polite no thanks.
The proposal — to create a $100 million “hardship fund”
to support individual taxi medallion owners — was “summarily rejected”
by the City Council and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office, Joe Okpaku,
Lyft’s vice president for public policy, told The Verge. “It’s a little bit astonishing to us.”
The companies would contribute $20 million a year for
five years to the fund to support medallion owners. It was intended to
help individual medallion owners, though, and not corporate owners who
hold multiple medallions. Okpaku said he has spoken to the Robin Hood
Foundation about executing the fund, but a spokesperson for the
foundation says talks are just preliminary and no deal has been reached.
A spokesperson for Uber said the company does not comment on private
conversations.
Uber and Lyft claim a cap on vehicle licenses would send
wait times soaring and driver earnings plummeting. They also say a cap
would disproportionately affect outer borough residents, including
low-income communities and people of color. “The cap bill would set
things back to a time when service levels were horrible in the outer
boroughs,” Okpaku said.
The offer to bail out taxi drivers is an unforeseen twist
in the years-long struggle by New York City regulators to contain the
explosion of ride-hailing app drivers. City Council members have said
they were partly motivated by the plight of taxi medallion owners, who
have seen the value of their licenses plummet in recent years in direct
correlation to the rise of ride-hailing apps. Six taxi drivers have committed suicide in the last six months, a grim reminder of the human costs of technological disruption.
Uber’s
response to the proposed bills was to go on the offensive. A message
appears on the homepage of its app for New York City users with the
title, “Arriving now: Higher prices and increased wait times.” The
company has been calling Uber customers directly, asking them to send
messages of support for Uber to their council members, according to BuzzFeed. Lyft has been emailing customers with its own appeal to “speak up for ridesharing.”
(Not part of the effort? Any in-app trolling
of local politicians. In 2015, when Mayor de Blasio first proposed
restricting the number of Uber and Lyft drivers, Uber responded by
creating a “DE BLASIO” option in its app that made all the cars
disappear.)
For its part, the city believes its already doing that.
“The Administration believes the Council’s approach remains the most
holistic way to help drivers support their families and to address
congestion,” a spokesperson for the mayor said in a statement.
The City Council agrees. “From the very beginning, the
council has engaged with all stakeholders on this legislative package,” a
spokesperson for Council Speaker Corey Johnson said. “Those dialogues
were extremely productive and informed the proposals that we put forth.
We don’t negotiate in public, but we can say that we are confident the
bills that will be voted on will help drivers, reduce congestion and
bring fairness to the industry.”
“Lyft and other high-volume for hire vehicle companies
are welcome to establish such a fund with a non-profit and assist
drivers who are experiencing serious financial difficulties,” he added.
“They don’t need any Council authority to do that.”
Update August 1st 6:48 pm ET: A
previous version of this story said Lyft was working the Robin Hood
Foundation to create a fund for taxi drivers. While Lyft has reached out
to Robin Hood Foundation about the fund, talks are just preliminary and
no deal has been reached. The story has been modified to reflect this.
© 2018 Vox Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment