A new policy adopted by the City Council on Thursday that relaxes the regulations for ride-hailing companies Lyft and Uber is set to take effect April 1, but there may not be companies left in San Antonio to regulate by then.

The revisions to the vehicles-for-hire ordinance, approved in a 8-2 vote, eased regulations the council had originally adopted in December and were meant to persuade Lyft and Uber to continue operating in San Antonio. But after the vote, Lyft and Uber said the revised policy was still too burdensome and that they would halt operations in San Antonio before it started being enforced.

Both companies said they want to stay in San Antonio, and council members say they want the companies to stick around. But a gulf exists between the city and the companies on the details of the policy, seeming to put the situation at a standstill.

“Without significant revisions to the ordinance before implementation, we will be forced to make the difficult decision to pause Lyft’s operations in San Antonio,” spokeswoman Chelsea Wilson said in a statement.

A key disagreement is how extensive a background check a driver needs to get a permit. The regulations adopted in December would have required drivers to pass a city-reviewed background check, including fingerprinting. The policy approved Thursday allows drivers to start operating once they pass the company’s background check, but still requires them to pass the city background check within 14 days.

Both Lyft and Uber argue that extra step is unnecessary, placing a burden on drivers who have already passed a rigorous company review. At the meeting Thursday, driver Brian Starnes said he was checked against sex offender and criminal registries and that his driving history was scrutinized.

“The notion that Uber drivers are somehow a public safety nuisance does not hold water,” Starnes told the council.

But many councilmembers appeared unwilling to make additional concessions to Uber and Lyft, known as transportation-network companies, or TNCs. Mayor Ivy Taylor, who helped negotiate the revised rules, said that fingerprinting was part of “basic public safety requests.”

The members who voted for the revisions generally said they thought the new policy struck a balance between supporting innovative companies and preserving public safety. District 2 Councilman Alan Warrick said that the ordinance was not the one that either side wanted.

But, he said, “this will be the best ordinance for the people of San Antonio.”

For the past year, Lyft and Uber have been operating in San Antonio essentially unregulated. The council sought to address that with the rules adopted in December, which were set to take effect last Sunday. But after Lyft and Uber warned they may leave San Antonio, the city delayed implementation so the council could rewrite the rules, as they did Thursday.

Once again, taxi drivers and their allies crowded into the chambers, urging the council to leave the original regulations in place. They took a two-pronged approach, arguing the revised policy would give TNCs an unfair advantage over taxi companies and that a looser background check exposed passengers to risk.

“Y’all want to throw it down the drain,” Robert Gonzales, owner of National Cab, told the council about the December regulations. “This is compromising public safety. This is compromising the safety of your constituents.”

The council is scheduled to review the TNC ordinance and its effect on the businesses in September, and it’s unclear if the threats by Lyft and Uber will bring both sides back to the table before the April 1 implementation date.

“The ball is in their court,” Taylor said about Uber immediately after the vote, just before Chris Nakutis, Uber’s general manager for Texas, told reporters the company would cease operations.

Nakutis said more than 1,000 Uber drivers had made at least one trip in San Antonio and that the council “killed a means for them to make money.”

District 6 Councilman Ray Lopez and District 3 Councilwoman Rebecca Viagran, the chair of the council’s public safety committee, opposed the new TNC ordinance that the city had put together, saying they preferred the stricter policy adopted in December.

“My focus has been and remains that we, as a city, would maintain a level of safety and fairness,” Viagran said. “I believe we have that now.”

District 4 Councilman Rey Saldaña was not at the meeting because of a previously planned business trip, but wrote in a letter to his colleagues that he supported the revisions.

The revised proposals means that TNC drivers no longer need to have excess coverage of $200,000 during the “gap” period — when drivers are logged on to the companies’ mobile apps but have not been matched with a passenger. Drug testing will now be random instead of required to get a permit.

John Bouloubasis, president of Yellow Cab San Antonio, told the council they “got it right the first time” with the rules they adopted in December. But in a statement after the vote, he softened his criticisms. He said the new policy had “gaps and loopholes” but that it “maintains the fingerprint check, insurance and vehicle inspections, which were the must-have public safey elements of December’s ordinance.”

djoseph@express-news.net

Twitter: @DrewQJoseph