Chicago Aldermen To Consider Compromise Plan To Regulate Ride-Sharing Companies
(CBS) -- Both sides of Chicago's rideshare debate hope a compromise will keep Uber and Lyft cars rolling here.
CBS 2's Derrick Blakley reviews the watered-down rules up for a vote this week.
Mayor Emanuel praised the new proposal as compromise that works.
"Whether (riders) want to do a taxi or they want to do ride share, they'll have a level playing field across the system," he said Monday.
The proposal retains requirements that drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft obtain chauffeur licenses. But it drops controversial requirements for fingerprinting drivers, in favor of a study about whether it's needed or effective.
"This is an honest compromise to move forward and make Chicago once again work through the issues and come together," Emanuel says.
Also dropped is a controversial mandate that 5 percent of ride-sharing fleets be wheelchair-accessible.
"For people like me who can't transfer into a standard car, there's nothing available for me," says Adam Ballard of Access Living.
The organization opposes the compromise, which gives the companies six months to come up with a plan to serve all the disabled.
Ride-sharing companies have lobbied furiously against any new regulations and threatened to leave town if the rules were too rigid.
"This council should be about the future. Ride-sharing is the future, and unfortunately, the taxicab industry is the past," First Ward Ald. Joe "Proco" Moreno says.
The taxi industry has lobbied just as hard to regulate ride-sharing companies, and they're concerned that there's no fingerprinting or drug testing.
The ride-sharing companies say, they're serving minority communities historically deprived of taxi service while providing hundreds jobs for residents there.
Mayor Emanuel promises a vote on the compromise at Wednesday's City Council meeting. Uber and Lyft are urging passage.
