City Officials Looking To Limit Uber Vehicles
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Those who have experienced services like Uber or Lyft have all but snapped their fingers and had a car at the front door.
"Three minutes, three to five minutes," one rider said.
As CBS2's Emily Smith reported, there's a good chance you're now seeing something different.
"It's going to be a seven minute wait, so and so is on the way, but it's to be expected when something is doing so well," an Uber user said.
Due to an increase in demand Uber had planned to add 10,000 drivers this year, but with some legislation expected to be approved by the city council and the mayor a cap will be put on Uber and other fo rhire vehicles for one year to study the impact it's having on traffic and congestion.
Uber insists that more than 20 percent of its customers are in the outer boroughs and just 6 percent are in Manhattan.
Assemblyman Michael Blake called it a serious economic problem.
"We can't move forward in this manner. We are talking about 10,000 jobs being lost," he said, "Here we have a situation where we want to have a study and put a cap on opportunity. A cap on work."
Uber supporters frame this as a minority issue, WCBS 880's Peter Haskell reports. Blake was part of a strategy session in Harlem.
City Officials Looking To Limit Uber Vehicles
"They say it is an economic justice argument," Blake said. "This is a jobs argument, this is a fairness argument, this is an equity argument."
Officials who are looking to limit Uber's growth point to increases in traffic and pollution -- but Blake doesn't buy it.
"It's fear mongering and it's fear tactics, it's not rooted in facts," Blake said.
"For us it's very simple. It's about democratizing an industry that has locked out whole segments of our city," Rev. Franklyn Richardson, National Action Network, added.
Uber Executive David Plouffee is a former advisor to President Obama. He wonders about the politics.
"Obviously the taxi industry has been a large contributor to political officials here," Plouffee said.
The Mayor's office sent a statement calling the job loss claims inaccurate and misleading.
"The proposed policy applies only to new vehicles, not to new drivers. It would not prevent new drivers from entering this industry, nor would it prevent them from transferring between bases," the statement said.
Uber does offer a carpool service providing one vehicle for multiple riders at a low price, but under the new proposal or cap it won't be as easy to provide those types of services. Wait times and prices are also expected to go up as demand increases and supply does not.
