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Mar 6, 2014 at 6:04 pm
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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Amazing...talk about capped supply and (formerly) unmet demand.
Has anyone analyzed whether any of these trips would have been served by a traditional taxi?
Or is this a completely "new market" which wouldn't exist without sharing services?
How many of those 900 have a legitimate City of Seattle business licenses and are paying B&O taxes on their earnings?
(Freeloaders!!!)
The nature of these services allow there to be a lot more active drivers over the course of a month than there might be on any given evening. It's never been clear to me if the city council meant to cap the number of approved drivers or the number of active drivers at any moment.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitic…
The Council’s pro-regulation decision went along the following lines:
The number of drivers that each Transportation Network Company (e.g. UberX and Lyft) can have active at any one time is 150.
The Council did not limit the number of TNC’s that can operate in the city, and placed no overall limit in the number of drivers, just those active at a given hour.
http://www.seattlemet.com/news-and-profi…
the council's compromise solution (put together by city council member Sally Clark)—a cap on the number of cars allowed on the road at one time—a squishy limit that frees up the rideshare companies and their drivers to sign up as many cars and drivers as they want.
caps are stupid. we don't cap bars or bartenders or doctors or accountants or actors or artists or servers or restaurants or dentists. why cabs?
it's outrageous that if two thousand people need a car ride for pay Saturday at 11 pm, the number of taxis and ride shares are so limited you can't get one! this means people know they can't get a taxi or ride share, so they drive downtown instead of taking the bus. then they drink and drive home! and if there's tons of availability of taxis and car service you have fewer people owning cars thus capping taxis and ride shares really hurts the environment.
as to insurance. almost nobody has enough. 20% of all drivers of all cars have zero insurance. the majority have just the limits mandated by law which are far short of what is really needed. and of course ride share and taxis and whatnot all of us really should have to register our insurance on line. if someone offers you a ride as a friend for no pay, you should be able to look up online does this car really have live insurance. I see no reason for commercial drivers to have more than any driver; it will just cost them more since they may put more miles on the vehicle each year. so yes totally beef up the insurance required to three million every car and require online registration and totally actually enforce it, drive down the uninsured driver costs that way too, but don't cap people who want to pay for rides. you can pay someone to mow your lawn, why not give you a ride? are we going to limit the lawn mowing industry next? if we did they wouldhave powerful lobbyists, public relations firms playing the race card on us, tales of woe if we lift the cap just like taxis do but in each case it's just a horribly bad idea.
lil darwinian isnt it?
That's my main complaint about taxis in this city. During peak times, you're looking at a wait of 30 minutes to an hour, which is unacceptable. If the council can't figure out a way to fix that problem (kicking the asses of the incompetent taxi companies would be a good start) within the regulatory framework, then maybe the caps are past their usefulness.
Taxi service is Seattle leaves a lot to be desired, but I'm not convinced "ride-sharing" is the answer. All transportation companies should be subject to the same rules with regard to taxes, liability insurance and safety inspection. Lyft, UberX and the others have a entitlement mentality which alarms me. They're secretive and refuse to divulge basic information about their operations. They are being funded by huge venture capitalists. Nobody should be making a shitload of money on transportation services. I'm also bothered by the fact that, unlike traditional taxis companies, these services use price gouging during prime time.