NYC Council Considers Cap On Ride-Sharing Vehicles
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — A new proposal to ease traffic congestion in New York City would put a cap on ride-sharing vehicles.
The massive growth of for-hire vehicles like Uber and Lyft has some city leaders ready to roll on a number of possible crackdowns.
The extra vehicles are blamed for driving traffic congestion up and pushing wages down for those taking New Yorkers from place to place and borough to borough.
"Of course they're adding to traffic," Herb Carlo of Whitestone, Queens, told CBS2's Dave Carlin. "It's unfair for Uber or Lyft to be in this market when individuals paid millions of dollars for a medallion."
Mayor Bill De Blasio says something must be done.
"We have more and more evidence a huge number of these for-hire vehicles like Uber cars, for example, are driving around empty," de Blasio said Friday on WNYC's "The Brian Lehrer Show."
Before the end of August, the New York City Council could approve a bill to make New York one of the first cities to cap the number of ride-hail vehicles by freezing new licenses for 12 months.
Some app-based drivers say a cap is wrong. And Uber released a video advertisement that portrays the cap as an attack on outer-borough residents, including minorities, seen in the ad as trying to hail yellow cabs that pass that them by.
"I really rely on the Ubers more than the yellow cabs," says Steve McAdams of Flatbush, Brooklyn. "I'd rather see more."
Politicians will spend the rest of the summer debating whether the higher number of drivers zooming past the demand for them warrants drastic action and what is the right way to deal with it.
The vote on the city council's ride-sharing cap could come as soon as August 8.