Uber’s new drive
Ad makes a pitch to the outer boroughs
Outer-borough neighborhoods where it’s hard to find a yellow cab are being featured in an Uber ad as lawmakers craft new regulations on the city’s struggling taxi industry.
New York’s top app-based car service on Monday launched the 30-second spot, called “Uber’s There,” with an ad buy of more than $1 million on broadcast and cable television in the city.
The ad mainly features people of color stepping into Uber cars in the outer boroughs. There’s no end date yet for the ad following the initial buy, according to Uber, which did not disclose the full cost.
The outer boroughs are seeing the fastest growth in trips, according to Uber.
Uber is running the ad at a critical time as the City Council is putting together a package of regulations for the entire car service industry. Meanwhile, the Taxi & Limousine Commission proposed a minimum trip standard on e-hail rides so that drivers earn at least $17.22 an hour — a policy that Uber officials believe will choke the supply of cars.
Mayor de Blasio and the Council failed to pass a cap on the number of app-based black cars in 2015 in the face of an aggressive Uber ad campaign against the cap. Reps for de Blasio and Council Speaker Corey Johnson declined to comment on the new Uber ad.
The taxi industry is facing an economic crisis, in which taxi medallion values have plummeted and yellow cabbies’ income has declined. The financial pressure has been attributed to the deaths of at least six drivers who had killed themselves since December.
Drivers for Uber, meanwhile, have complained that there are too many cars on the streets to earn a decent wage after Uber takes its commission.
Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, a group pushing for new regulations, said the city can keep the outer boroughs well served, pointing out that there are thousands of green cabs and livery cars that could be on the streets with passengers in the back seats.
She also cited a study released last week on behalf of the TLC that showed Uber cars are sitting idle with a utilization rate — a measure of the time drivers have a passenger in their car — of 58%.
“Uber remembers the outer boroughs when they need to fight regulation,” she said.
But people of color have faced discrimination from yellow taxi drivers for decades, and outer-borough residents have complained that drivers refuse to take them too far outside Manhattan — an issue Desai said needs to be addressed with training and education.
Al Roker, the weatherman and anchor at NBC’s “Today” show, accused a cabdriver of refusing to pick him and his son up for a ride in 2015 because of his race, writing on Twitter, “Cabbie picked up a white guy a block away. Wonder why Uber wins?”
The driver told the Daily News at the time he didn’t see Roker, though he ended up pleading guilty and paying a $500 fine, according to taxi officials.
Travon Free, a former writer for “The Daily Show,” said in September that a yellow cab blew past him to pick up a white woman standing nearby, leaving him on an Upper West Side curb holding a suit bag and his recently won Emmy Award.
He told The News last week that he’d be “reporting a cab a day” if he complained about every stiffed ride. He criticized a bill in the Council to cut fines down for refusal of service, saying it would “incentivize discrimination.”
There has been a decline in complaints to the TLC about refusal of service, as trips in the for-hire sector, which includes app companies, have grown. Refusal complaints to the TLC dropped to 1,834 last year, from 4,684 in 2015.
Taxi officials, however, say that Uber drivers are not immune to discrimination, and that the TLC gets complaints about app-based drivers, as well. Complaints from the for-hire sector, which includes apps, grew to 343 last year from 175 in 2015, according to taxi officials.