NYC taxi industry to propose cap on Uber

Kaja Whitehouse | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Uber and other digital life-changers There are now more Uber cars than yellow cabs in New York City. We took a look at other apps that can take away calling other people for assistance.

New York City's taxi industry is gearing up to propose a cap on for-hire-vehicles as the number of Uber cars outpaces yellow taxis for the first time.

The proposed cap, which is still being drafted, seeks to halt the growth of this market, which are like cabs except they cannot take street hails, until city officials can study the impact it's having on traffic, parking and pollution, said Tweeps Phillips, executive director of Committee for Taxi Safety, an industry group.

The planned cap comes on the heels of new data showing that the number of Uber cars in NYC has outpaced yellow taxis for the first time. There are 14,088 cars, including luxury SUVs, affiliated with Uber in the city's five boroughs, compared with 13,587 yellow cabs, according to the The Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC).

"It's remarkable that this one company is able to put vehicles on the road willy-nilly without anyone saying what this means for traffic conditions or parking or the environment," Phillips said. "It's like the city fell asleep."

"The facts clearly show that Uber is changing New York City's transportation ecosystem for the better," countered Matthew Wing, Uber's head of communications for the Northeastern states. Wing pointed to Uber drivers in the outer-boroughs "where taxis don't go," as well as Uber Pool, which encourages car-pooling.

"It is not surprising that the taxi industry would try to stop this progress and any effort to offer more drivers better earning opportunities," Wing said.

Uber, which matches riders with drivers through a mobile app, is accustomed to taxis around the globe seeking to stymie its growth, which has been aided in some cases by fewer regulatory barriers.

But the call to measure the impact its growth may be having on cities and their residents could resonate among a wider swath of people, including environmentalists — and potentially spread to other cities.

"I would absolutely support a moratorium until this could be studied," said Samuel Schwartz, a transportation engineer and advocate of controlling traffic through tolls. "The specter of gridlock looms if we continue these trends," said Schwartz, who is also known as "Gridlock Sam."

"If there is evidence that the proliferation of new services is leading to chaos on our streets, the TLC should more forcefully flex its regulatory muscle," added Paul White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, a non-profit that advocates decreasing private car use.

"The bottom-line here is, more research is needed on this," said Susan Shaheen, a transportation expert with the University of California, Berkeley, who recently published a paper examining the impact of Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing companies on transportation in the San Francisco area.

Sheheen's study found that ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft carried slightly more passengers per ride than traditional taxis. But such services also had no visible reduction on private car ownership.

Since its launch in 2009, Uber has expanded to 55 countries, including 160,000 drivers in the United States. Earlier this month, Uber vowed to create 1 million jobs for women drivers by 2020, suggesting that it has no plans to slow its breakneck pace.

The number of yellow cabs in NYC, by contrast, are severely capped — thanks to legislation passed by Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia in 1937. Since that time, the city has increased the number of yellow cabs, also known as medallion cabs, by a mere 1,800.

Of course, yellow cabs still dominate when it comes to number of rides and time on the road. The TLC said there are about 440,000 yellow cab rides a day, compared to between 20,000 to 30,000 Uber rides. Indeed, a recent study by Uber shows that 51% of its drivers work 15 hours or less per week.

Oddly enough, some Uber drivers also support a cap on the number of cars allowed on the road due to concerns that its growth has dampened their earnings.

"It's crazy now to make a living," said Jesus Garay, who quit Uber a few weeks ago because he was having a tough time making money like he did before Uber became so popular. "There's an influx of so many drivers flooding into Manhattan," Garay said.

Garay's concerns echo the very same complaints that led to a cap on taxis in 1937. After the Great Depression, a flood of unemployed people took up driving taxis in hopes of making some extra cash, which led to violent protests and demands for increased regulation.