New York Post: De Blasio considering cap on ride-sharing vehicles

By Danielle Furfaro and Rich Calder

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday he is once again willing to consider a cap on for-hire vehicles such as Uber — three years after wimping out on the move.

Hizzoner made the comments on WNYC radio Friday morning in response to a question from a caller who asked him what he plans to do to end the recent spate of cabbie suicides, which taxi advocates say were fueled by financial woes caused by the car-app services.

“I think the caps are the kind of thing we need to talk about again because this situation has gotten worse since then, both in terms of the pressure that has been put on the [cab-]medallion owners and everyday taxi drivers,” de Blasio told host Brian Lehrer.

When de Blasio first tried to go toe to toe with Uber, there were about 47,000 black cars on the road.

Now there are more than 100,000. The nasty battle over the issue in the summer of 2015 sputtered when de Blasio couldn’t get the City Council votes needed to push the cap through. Councilman Steve Levin, who was the one who first sponsored the bill back then, reintroduced it to the council earlier this year and is trying to garner votes.

There also should be more regulation on the for-hire vehicles to get them more in line with the safety and other rigmarole that cabbies have to go through, de Blasio said.

“We are trying to create parity across all of this industry,” he said. “Everything that yellow cabs do, the other should have to do too. So we applied disability-access rules to the for-hire vehicles. I want to see stronger safety and labor rules for them as well.”

Taxi advocates say getting raises for all drivers has to be a part of the package, too.

“There needs to be an immediate raise for the drives and regulations on labor standards to protect their income,” said New York Taxi Workers Alliance executive director Bhairavi Desai.

De Blasio also said that since the city can no longer sell medallions because of the lack of demand, it needs to take steps to protect the value of the more than 13,000 that are already out there.

Desai said the only way to do that is to cap Uber vehicles.

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“The thing that has reduced the value is the driver’s ability to earn a living,” she said.

Uber officials argued that there are still enough riders to go around.

“Each week, 30,000 new New Yorkers sign up to use Uber for the first time,” said Uber spokeswoman Alix Anfang. “Uber’s riders take the majority of their trips outside the congested streets of Manhattan, and in the communities that have long been ignored by yellow taxis and are underserved by public transit.”