Brakes on Uber
CITY OKs CAP FOR APP-BASED CARS
The City Council voted Wednesday to stop issuing new licenses for most for-hire vehicles for a year in an effort to regulate e-hail apps like Uber, Lyft and Via, whose rapid growth has thrown the city's taxi industry into chaos.
“This is about supporting and uplifting drivers, making sure they are paid enough to support their families,” Council Speaker Corey Johnson said. “Our goal has always been to protect drivers, bring fairness to the industry and do our best to reduce congestion — or at least not add to it.”
The bill cruised to victory with a vote of 39 in favor and six against, three years after a similar push led by Mayor de Blasio aimed at curbing congestion failed.
This time, the effort was bolstered by the vocal support of yellow and livery drivers who have seen the value of their taxi medallions, at one time worth more than $1 million, plummet in the face of competition from the apps.
Six struggling drivers have committed suicide this year.
One of them, Douglas Schifter, 61, killed himself with a shotgun while sitting in his sedan outside the gates of City Hall. His brother George Schifter was among those who attended Wednesday's vote.
“There was a time in New York City when you could, as a recent immigrant . . . drive a cab and be able to make it into the middle class, provide a better future for your family and your children,” Councilman Stephen Levin (D-Brooklyn), the prime sponsor of the license legislation, said during a committee vote on it.
“What we've seen over the last few years is that foothold of the American Dream slip away for thousands of drivers.”
The bill was part of a larger legislative package that also includes a bill requiring a minimum pay standard for drivers working for the largest e-hail apps.
Levin's legislation puts a yearlong pause on new for-hires while the Taxi & Limousine Commission studies the impact of the vehicles on the city's streets, whether their total number should ultimately be capped, and whether to regulate how often the cars are allowed to drive without passengers — a practice that helps reduce wait times compared to dispatching from a base, but which increases congestion.
There are two carveouts in the bill.
New licenses can be issued for wheelchair-accessible vehicles, which are in short supply in the city. And the TLC will be able to issue new licenses if it determines parts of the city — like those outer-borough areas poorly served by yellow cabs — are in need of more for-hire vehicles and that adding them won't “substantially contribute” to traffic.
Joseph Heller, 27, who commutes from Scarsdale in Westchester County to Manhattan for his sales job, said the e-hail apps are a big help when he's working late — but he saw upsides to a cap, too.
“I think one aspect is that it could lead to less traffic in the city,” he said. “I'm definitely sympathetic to cab drivers who have invested a lot of time and money into their medallions.”
But Milton Diaz, 33, of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a full-time Uber driver whose been working for the company for two years, said he had been hoping the cap would fail. A former yellow cabbie, he said he didn't want to return to “square one” -- and that Uber had been the “best thing” that had happened to the industry.
“I was sick of people being robbed and of people who didn't want to pay,” he said.
MD Sarker, 42, of Queens, who has driven a cab for six years, said the legislation would help him — and others.
“It'll be a good thing for me. Because there's too [many] Uber and only traffic and not make money. It's not bad only for taxi drivers but for everybody. Having too many doesn't work,” he said.