WASHINGTON — When Uber envisions the future, it not only wants to put urban air taxis and drones in the skies. It also wants to transform how people navigate cities and how they live in them.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the San Francisco-based tech company wants to turn today's cities that are getting denser and more polluted into "cities of the future that are fundamentally green and built for people." To do that, he said, cities need transportation options that range from cruising down the street on an electric scooter to commuting through the skies.

"We want not just to be the Amazon of transportation but also the Google of transportation," he said.

One of the first places Uber wants that to play out is Dallas-Fort Worth: It's one of the first three markets for Uber Elevate, an initiative to launch the aerial ride-sharing service.

Uber took that message — and its pitch for urban air taxis — to a new, and potentially tougher, audience last week. It held a two-day conference about the ambitious effort in Washington, D.C., the home turf of the regulatory agencies and lawmakers that it must win over.

About 1,500 policymakers, tech executives and aviation officials attended the conference. It featured lawmakers and federal officials, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao and Federal Aviation Administration officials.

Uber gave a progress report and made splashy announcements at its third annual Uber Elevate Summit. It announced the first international market for the air service: Melbourne, Australia. It revealed that Uber Eats is working with McDonald's to deliver Big Macs and fries by drone. It touted the progress of six aviation companies that are designing the aircraft. And it dived into specifics, such as economics, safety and FAA-required certification. It showed off its different modes of transportation, from its new self-driving Volvo SUV to electric scooters.

Through splashy presentations and showroom floor exhibits, Uber and its business partners tried to build the case that urban air taxi service is not a far-fetched idea but one that's coming to fruition.

Uber went public in May. The tech giant's growth has been fueled by venture capital, but it is spending billions of dollars and has yet to turn a profit. That hasn't slowed development of its aerial ride-sharing service. It expects to start flight demonstrations next year and launch commercial service in a few cities, including Dallas, in 2023. Eventually, it wants the urban air taxis to become autonomous.

Mark Moore, Uber's director of engineering for vehicle systems, said he's already seen some of the aircraft take flight. He declined to name the companies that are flight testing, saying they're keeping quiet for competitive reasons.

"It's incredibly impressive," he said. "They're nothing like helicopters."

Flying cars

Three years ago, Uber published a white paper that declared its intentions to make a Jetsons-like vision of flying cars real. It ratcheted up the project by throwing its first Uber Elevate Summit in Dallas in 2017. It invited engineers, aviation experts and technology executives and announced that Dallas would be one of the service's first markets.

Since then, Uber has been the project's booster and coordinator. It has enlisted companies it needs for the service to take flight, from real estate developers to aircraft makers. There's no money changing hands at this stage. Basically, Uber is forming partnerships based on a pact that if the idea takes off, all involved will make money. Fort Worth-based Bell and five other companies are building the vertical take-off and landing vehicles.

Uber has provided specifications for the vehicles. It wants them to be electric-powered with a pilot and four riders who share a vehicle, similar to its Uber Pool ride-hailing service on the ground.

1 / 2Fort Worth-based Bell is one of six companies that are designing a vertical take-off and landing vehicle for Uber's urban air taxi service. It showed off a prototype of its vehicle, the Nexus, at the Uber Elevate Summit in Washington, D.C.(Eva Hambach / Agence France-Presse) 2 / 2Attendees could sit inside of prototypes of urban air taxis or look at miniature versions of what they may look like at the Uber Elevate Summit.(Eva Hambach / Agence France-Presse)

The urban air taxis are expected to travel between 150 and 200 mph at a cruising altitude of 1,000 to 2,000 feet above the ground. That's slower and lower than commercial airplanes, which cruise around 500 mph at 35,000 feet.

Uber will sign agreements for the vehicles to operate on its network as companies prove out their technology and get FAA certification, Moore said.

Uber is also beginning to test what it will take to synchronize the aerial ridesharing service. In July, it will launch Uber Copter, a luxury on-demand helicopter service that will fly from Lower Manhattan to JFK International Airport. The service, which will cost an average of $200 and $225 per person, will be open only to customers who are in the top two tiers of Uber's loyalty program. Uber will test how its algorithms match up riders who must take flights together and also stitch together their trips — on the ground, in the air and back on the ground again.

But with Uber Air, the company wants prices to be within reach of the general public. At launch, Moore said the price per person will be similar to an Uber Black. Eventually, it wants the urban air taxi to be so affordable that it makes more sense for people to travel by urban air taxi than to own their own cars.

The aircraft will differ from helicopters in other key ways, he said: It will have built-in redundancies that keep it flying even if one part fails. It will operate at a frequency that blends in better with the noise of cities. And it will be less expensive to operate.

A twin-engine helicopter costs about $2,500 per hour to operate, he said. Uber's goal is to have the vehicles cost $700 per flight hour.

1 / 3Attendees of the Uber Elevate Summit could test what it may feel like to fly in an urban air taxi with a virtual reality experience.(Eva Hambach / Agence France-Presse) 2 / 3Uber has been enlisting companies across industries to made the futuristic mode of transportation real, from aircraft manufacturers to real estate developers. One of the companies is Pipistrel, which showed off a concept for its aircraft at the Uber Elevate Summit in Washington, D.C.(Eva Hambach / Agence France-Presse) 3 / 3An Uber Eats car and drone was on display at the Uber Elevate Summit, too. Uber is testing food delivery service by drone. The drones will land on an Uber car and a courier will deliver the order to a customer's door.(ANNA-ROSE GASSOT / Getty Images)

Dallas connections

Dallas is one of Uber's major markets and is home to several of its Uber Elevate partners. Four architecture firms in the Dallas area — Beck, BOKA Powell, Corgan and the Dallas office of Gensler — were tapped to design skyports, the airports where the urban air taxis could take off and land. Real estate developer Hillwood plans to develop skyports in North Texas, including the first one that's under construction in Frisco. Bell showed off a scale prototype of its aircraft, the Nexus, at the summit.

And this week, Uber announced that it will work with Dallas-based AT&T to boost connectivity of drones and urban air taxis when they're operating at low altitudes.

Dallas may soon become one of Uber's corporate hubs, too. A site in Deep Ellum is a leading contender for an office that would bring thousands of jobs, from engineering to finance. Uber officials declined to say who the competition is for the hub. It said it will make a decision by late August.

Moore said the next four years will focus on demonstrations that "prove out the safety, noise and performance" of the vehicles.

In 2023, he said it will launch to paying customers in Dallas — but with a limited number of vehicles and limited operations. He said he expects five aircraft per manufacturer at launch. That will grow to about 50 per manufacturer in 2024. But, he said, some manufacturers may not be ready in time.

In Dallas, the average trip is expected to be 20 to 25 miles, Moore said.

But one of the major questions is whether Uber can win over regulators and the public. Unlike other tech innovations, early adopters won't just use a new kind of technology. They'll fly in public, so that affects the people driving, walking or living on the ground below, whether or not they choose to opt in.

Widespread effects

Will the vehicles disrupt the quiet of communities? And could they lead to disaster in the skies over Dallas, a dense, urban environment with two busy airports?

Uber is already laying the groundwork to win public acceptance in the Dallas area. It started a task force of local stakeholders. It measured noise levels at more than 120 sites in Dallas-Fort Worth to study the best locations for skyports and design aircraft that better match city soundscapes.

Uber's head of vehicle engineering, Rob McDonald, said the vehicles must fade into the rumble of highway traffic and allow people to still hear the chirps of birds in the suburbs.

"Uber is obsessed with making these vehicles as quiet as possible," he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration's acting administrator, Dan Elwell, said he's enthusiastic about urban air taxis but acknowledged that their development gives him more to worry about.

"Everyone is riveted by this, especially me, but then I put on my FAA regulator hat and I got a whole new bucket of stuff to lose sleep over," he said in a speech at the summit. "What you see is the ideal way to transporting people across cities. When I look at it, I see car-sized vehicles with multiple rotors hanging over dense urban populations."

He said his agency is eager to work with companies like Uber, but safety will be paramount.

The stakes are high. When an Uber self-driving car killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Ariz., last year, the crash led to heightened scrutiny and widespread concern about autonomous vehicles.

"One accident can make a huge difference and even stop an entire program, so we know that," Moore said. "We are doing absolutely everything that's possible to ensure safety from the beginning."

Along with persuading customers to board urban air taxis, Uber will also have to add skyports to cities. Dallas-based architecture firm Corgan was one of eight firms that showed off slick renderings of what they might look like.

1 / 2Dallas-based Corgan is one of eight architecture and engineering firms that presented renderings of skyports at the Uber Elevate Summit. In its renderings, it put public amenities like green space and a food hall below the flight deck.(Courtesy of Corgan and Uber) 2 / 2In Corgan's design for skyports, Uber's vertical take-off and landing vehicles take off from the rooftop. Below, there is coworking space and amenities for the public. Uber-owned Jump's electric bikes and scooters are parked nearby.(Courtesy of Corgan and Uber)

Samantha Flores, Corgan's director of innovation and research, said she was inspired by her experience living in the Arts District in downtown Dallas. When she goes to her favorite Tex-Mex restaurant, she walks through a dreary underpass. She and her husband take electric scooters to Whole Foods in Uptown. Like other downtown residents, she craves more parks, grocers and amenities.

She's motivated, too, by friends who have moved to Frisco to buy a house and have kids. She sees them less often, since the drive is a hassle.

In Corgan's design, the skyport is built over a highway. Urban air taxis take off and land from a flight deck on a rooftop. Below, there's a coworking space and features for the public, like a food hall and pedestrian-friendly area. Uber-owned Jump offers bikes and scooters parked nearby.

Flores said skyports must add to neighborhoods and become an attraction for everyone, whether or not they board a flight.

"If we are dropping these into our communities, we need to better enhance them," she said.