Uber is not just for hailing rides anymore

»The messy WASHINGTON battle for the future of urban transportation is playing out in the gridlocked and bike-cluttered streets and sidewalks of the District of Columbia - and the subway tunnels underneath it.

On Wednesday, Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi appeared in Washington with Mayor Muriel Bowser, D, to announce a suite of new initiatives aimed at positioning the ride-hailing app as a one-stop shop for urban mobility. The company is expanding its business to include bike-share, car rental and eventually transit, which customers will be able to access and pay for within its all-purpose app. The District is the testing ground for several of the company’s projects.

But in heralding the company’s partnership with the city, Khosrowshahi also used the opportunity to subtly criticize Bowser’s proposal to tax ride-hail companies, including Uber, to raise money for the city’s share of the Metro funding package.

“What we want to make sure is that you’re not taxing one form of shared transportation for another form of shared transportation,” Khosrowshahi said. “We are in this to promote shared transportation in general. We want to make sure that proposals like this are not unconstructive to that goal.”

Bowser has proposed raising ride-hailing companies’ gross receipts tax to 4.75 percent from 1 percent to pay for about 10 percent of the $178.5 million that represents the District’s portion of $500 million in annual dedicated funding for Metro. The transit agency is struggling amid chronic safety and reliability issues, and it has faced falling ridership as a result, as well as increased competition from Uber, Lyft and other services.