Comments

1
there's nothing complicated about my choosing and wanting to use Uber and Lyft.
3
Experience with traditional taxis in Seattle over the years:

80% horrible. Dirty,unmaintained jalopies - drivers totally incompetent, dangerous & clueless.

Experience with the new guys:
90% great. Clean, nearly-new cars - courteous drivers who actually show up, drive well, and know where they are going.

The only problem here is the butthurt of the incumbents and their decades-long abuse of the bullshit oligopoly.
4
good job Goldy! you tried valiantly to explain what a nightmare Gordian knot this issue is. now lets see how many fair-weather libertarians comment to say that there should be no regulations whatsoever.
5
I'd normally defend the cab driver because the system is sorta unfair to them... BUT THEY SUCK. Horrible customer service (your cab will arrive in 10-30 minutes... unless they decide to pick up another fare on the way over. and no, we won't send out another cab if the original guy flakes.) ... generally incompetent/clueless drivers (I should never have to give a driver directions to any address within city limits... and you shouldn't have to whip out a Garmin to figure out an address in downtown 10 blocks away.).

Cabs are indefensible. I'd be fine with doing away with them entirely.
6
the cabs are regulated for a reason. I can't remember what it is, but it's a good one. I can see their point.
7
My main problems with taxis in this city are dispatch at all hours (don't even get me started on how they require a street address) and the lack of adequate cabs during peak hours. If the council figures out a way to fix either of these problems, I'll be bowled over.
8
Look somethings the free market is good to handle, cabs and such, and something the government is better for, health care.
9
License all kinds of for hire drivers and cars without a cap. Drivers pay a reasonable fee that covers the cost of administering the program and pass a background/criminal check. Similarly, charge a reasonable fee for each for hire vehicle, requiring it to pass a regular vehicle inspection. Limit the number of licenses for vehicles that are allowed to pick up hailed fares. Increase funding for enforcement of non-permitted vehicles picking up passengers on the street.
10
"State-licensed limos and town cars (on which there is no cap) would still be limited to pre-arranged rides, and barred from picking up street hails"

This sounds like exactly what Uber should be characterized as. Pre-arranged via smartphone, no cap. Why does there need to be a separate, capped category for ride shares?
11
This must be a difficult position for Goldy: at one hand the giant intrusive government he loves says it needs to control cabs while on the other hand the readers of the Stranger like ride shares.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

The answer is simple: stop licensing cabs and instead just require them to register with the government for a small fee (like $20 or something) Let as many people get into the business as possible to lower prices and create competition.

This reminds me of the commuter vans in NYC: a bunch of immigrants started their van service and the government did everything to squash them. How DARE those immigrants service their community without government permission (rolls eyes)
13
Either you drop all the licensing fees and regulations for taxis, to even the playing field, or you apply the same regulations and fees to companies like lyft and uber.
14
@10 "Uber should be characterized as. Pre-arranged via smartphone, no cap"

I can do the same thing with an app call Taxi Magic, many other cab companies offer their own app, but are still subject to fees and regulations.
15
@11, I love how stupid your conservatives are. I love how you refuse to understand that liberals, hell even most socialists aren't anti-business and demand government control everything. I love how you refuse to understand there is a balanced way to do things in a civil society and when people show a desire for balance you freak out.

That said, I like Uber far more than the cabs in Seattle. And even with the rise of rides-hare programs the taxi services are spending more time crying foul than improving service.

And to people who think asking that cabs be clean and the drivers being reasonably hygienic is somehow racist go fuck yourself.
16
@15
First, I love how everyone who disagrees with the Seattle Marxist/liberal establishment is labeled "conservative." I'm a left-libertarian with anarcho-capitalist sympathies, not exactly GOP material.

Second, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and has feathers and waddles like a duck...yep, it's a market hating, anti-individual rights liberal/Marxist duck.

And yes, asking the NYC commuter vans to pay absurd fees to the government just so they can keep serving their working class immigrant community is indeed racist.

Likewise, while forcing Uber and Lyft to pay huge fees to the government may not or may not be racist, it is corporatist. Taxis are a larger company (the equivalent of corporations in this instance) and ride shares are the upstart. Just as corporations use the federal government to keep down new competition by getting the government to pass regulations that hurt new competition, the Taxi companies in Seattle are trying to get the city government to use regulations to keep the ride shares from competing.

In a free-market situation they would all be allowed to compete with out having to beg the government for the right to run a business and consumers would have a choice. This would bring down prices, force better quality of service, and be better for everyone...except maybe the biggest companies.

Just goes to show you how liberals always end up helping the corporations they claim to hate so much. But then again, their hero, Obama, is himself just a corporate-owned hack and yet they still worship him. Pathetic.

Please wait...

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