BY JACOB PALMER | OB DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR
Portland’s cab companies urged city hall for consideration as officials weigh new rules for Uber and other ridesharing companies.
BY JACOB PALMER | OB DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR
Portland’s cab companies urged city hall for consideration as officials weigh new rules for Uber and ridesharing companies.
The Transportation Fairness Alliance, comprised of Radio Cab, Portland Taxi Cab Company, Broadway Cab, Union Cab PDX, Green Transportation and Sassy’s Cab Company, expressed concern about uniform regulations applying to the fast-charging app.
“We’re OK with competition; we believe Portland deserves choices,” Radio Cab superintendent and TFA spokesman Noah Ernst said. “What we don’t want to see is a competitor come in and not comply by regulations and put an unlimited number of cars on the street. We think those things compromise safety.”
READ OUR PREVIOUS COVERAGE OF UBER’S PORTLAND INVASION HERE
The group in the square insisted it was not targeting one rideshare company, hashtag moniker notwithstnading, #PDXuberprotest
From the taxi supporters:
PDX peeps hate taxis here because of their poor response times. Regs keep them from beefing up # of drivers #PDXUberprotest
— Steve Howland (@showland886) January 13, 2015
Letting free market decide (i.e. allowing Uber) comes with its own consequences such as too many drivers and poor pay #PDXUberprotest
— Steve Howland (@showland886) January 13, 2015
To those a little more jaded:
For many Portlanders this might be the first time they’ve ever seen a portland cab, unsurprisingly all out of service. #PDXUberprotest
— Johannnnnnnnnn (@JohannBenedikt) January 13, 2015
Uber agreed to stop operating in Portland until early April, when the company expects a commission headed by Steve Novick to have a framework established. The message of Tuesday’s event to the commission was that cab companies would like to see what they deem to be an equitable ruling.
“Make no mistake. We know there’s a need for more taxis on the road,” said Ernst. “Portland taxi companies are currently limited to a total of 460 permits issued by the City of Portland, which means that only 460 cars can be on the road at any given time serving the entire metro area. For many years we have been asking the City of Portland to issue us additional permits. Perhaps the newly formed task force will evoke this change we’ve been seeking.”
“Every cab company up here has requested additional permits … some haven’t gotten any since the 70s.” #PDXUberprotest pic.twitter.com/Ol8YAWes6h
— Jacob Palmer (@_JPalm_) January 14, 2015
In Boston, Uber proved it can in fact work with cities as the company and the city of Boston struck a deal allowing for greater data-sharing.
From Tech Times:
In a blog post, Uber says it will be sharing what it calls “smart data” with city officials of Boston to provide insight that will help the city create and enforce policies that will ease traffic congestion, improve public transportation, manage urban growth, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The announcement may rankle privacy advocates, which isn’t surprising, given Uber’s numerous privacy controversies in the recent past. This is why the ride-sharing company got out of its way to point out that it will be sharing anonymized trip-level data with city officials in quarterly reports.
