TNCs and other pirate ride-sharing taxi companies have to be regulated. Left unregulated, they will create havoc and chaos on the streets of every city they are operating in. In one word - their pirate business model is based on redirecting local profits offshore. It's sad to see regulators allow this crime to take place daily all over. They can regulate the
beast now, or face dire consequences 2-3 years
down the road. And those won't be pretty...

I've endured years of rude dispatchers, long waits, and cab drivers who do not know how to get to my house (it's on a weird section of 15th that no one seems to know how to get to), but refuse to take directions from a woman and then drive around the block several times, jacking up their fare. Cab drivers are hostile when you want to use a credit card because they will have to pay taxes on that income. Boo fucking Hoo. Uber X is simply a much, much better experience with more accountability for both the driver and the passenger. They take cash out of the equation, are easy to access, fast and on time. The drivers are really nice and interested in the best route to get to the destination. I know there's a deeply entrenched system that's favored cab drivers but they have abused that privilege. I will be so bummed if they take my Uber X away. Is the City Council going to do something to improve the customer service of cab drivers when they gut the ridesahres?

@1 - where do you get this idea that car sharing is based on moving profits offshore? (I'm not being rude, genuinely interested).

Regarding your opinion that not regulating these services will result in chaos: Unregulated share taxis, which are somewhat similar to the ridesharing services, are common in almost every city in the world. They effectively serve a demand, and don't result in chaos. For the most part, I'm not incredibly pro Laissez-faire, but this is one area where a non-regulated market is able to effectively deliver a service.

So, we'll have more taxis with horrid service who on the weekends won't even service your neighborhood if you don't live within a 4 mile radius of downtown Seattle and fewer of the cars that will actually make some commitment to show up on the weekends.

BTW, why no requirement for the traditional taxi's to clean up their service? Nothing about the taxi company's needing to train their drivers or provide a more standardized level of service to the general public?

@Andy50 - "Left unregulated, they will create havoc and chaos on the streets of every city they are operating in" -- Can you elaborate about this "havoc and chaos" you're referring to? You sound completely ridiculous.

I drive a taxi, though I don't own one, so while I do have an interest in this whole thing I'm not necessarily married to the notion of a taxi per se. I'll set aside all the issues for drivers for the most part, because if we're honest I don't think anyone cares about anything but how this affects them personally.

From a consumer point of view most of what you're losing is price predictability. Taxis have a meter with rates set by the city/county, so you should be able to have a pretty clear idea of how much a trip will cost you and (theoretically and legally, YMMV if your driver is an asshole) no gouging when it's busy. For-hire cars are a little more opaque in that they are allowed to set their own rates, which is I'm sure the the original rationale for the prohibition against them picking up people hailing them on the street (i.e. if you call them, they tell you how much the trip will be and you can decide if you want to pay that, if you jump in the car outside of the stadium after a football game in the midst of busy traffic you don't really have an opportunity to find out the guy is charging you $50 to take you to Cap Hill or to negotiate). Town cars are basically in the same boat as For-Hires as far as the consumer is concerned (though they generally charge more, apparently because they have leather seats, are painted black, and are more likely to open the door for you). All of these are still regulated in that the drivers have to go through background checks where they are fingerprinted, their cars are inspected on a regular basis, and they're required to carry large commercial insurance policies. The drivers are, for whatever it's worth, "trained" as well, though I can tell you that the training is pretty minimal (feel free to take that up with the city/county, but be aware that increased standards there will drastically decrease the pool of qualified drivers and probably reduce availability).

The TNCs currently set their own rates, have drivers that are subjected to a relatively weak background check (no fingerprints, basically just a public records check against your driver's license and social security number) and no mandated training. Their cars are not inspected, though the cars do tend to be relatively nice (probably because the services are fairly new, give it a few years and you'll see a lot more UberX cars in just as bad a shape as your usual Prius taxi). I'm not personally familiar with their insurance situation. What you gain from the TNCs is a generally superior dispatch experience, though that is replicated to a great extent by the existing apps put out by the cab companies, those generally don't have the sort of market penetration as something like Uber. Believe me, I wish everyone would use the app for calling a Yellow cab. It dispatches via GPS, and I don't like having to drive farther to pick you up any more than you like waiting for me to get there. They also certainly have a perceived superiority in driver attitude and ability (I have no idea if that's a real quantifiable thing or not, but it is definitely the perception at the moment).

The current proposal will require the TNCs to be inspected and the drivers licensed. I don't really see that affecting UberX very much, because based on my own anecdotal observation many if not most of their drivers are former taxi/for-hire/towncar drivers who are driving for UberX more or less full time. Regular Uber obviously won't be affected because it dispatches licensed towncars/SUVs, which are already subject to regulation. This will probably hurt Lyft quite a bit though, as their model seems to be much more reliant on random people who drive for a bit of extra cash. The hassle and expense of obtaining licenses and having their vehicle inspected will probably lessen their appeal for drivers quite a bit. Another point in the proposed rules (if I understand them correctly) would allow taxi/for-hire drivers to work for TNCs in their own cars or while driving a taxi/for-hire, which would provide the consumer with more options through those services, and more potential fares for traditional taxis. I don't really think you'll see much improvement in the quality of drivers at any level (I have no idea why so many taxi drivers seem to act crappy to their customers relative to other sorts of drivers, but that is certainly the perception and I don't see anything about the proposed rules that would change that).

Personally, I'm waiting to see how it shakes out. With the rules as proposed, I'm strongly considering experimenting with the TNCs to see how much business I can get through them. If I can get enough business via the TNCs alone driving my personal car, I'll probably stop driving a taxi and buy a towncar so I can charge higher rates. Likewise, the surge-pricing model with Uber is very attractive and might lead me to drive exclusively for them on the weekend even if the TNCs are not enough for me to get by on during the week (which, if lots of other drivers end up thinking along the same lines, will lead to less availability of relatively cheap cabs on the weekend and leave you paying some multiple of the regular rate when you're trying to get home from the bar). With the TNCs being legitimized there's potentially not really any reason to subject yourself as a driver to the greater regulatory scrutiny and expense of driving a taxi so that you can be legally obligated to charge less money. If I find that I can't make a decent living either way, I'll find something else to do. I expect if the barrier of obtaining a for-hire license does not adequately limit the number of drivers working relative to the business available that you'll find fewer and fewer good drivers who treat their customers well, as those will be the drivers most able to obtain other employment (and also because people who are broke and desperate tend not to be real friendly).

Imposing a cap hurts one of the benefits of the TNCs. I suspect many people sign up to drive for a TNC part time and have other work, maybe only part time, and want to drive now and then to earn a bit extra.

If there's a cap, then that model wont work. You'll pretty much have to drive full time or you'll be wasting your slot. (Or, maybe that's ok.)

Here's another idea on how to impose a cap. Let the cap *not* represent the number of licensed TNC drivers. Instead let it represent the number who are logged into their system at any moment. In other words, if there are 300 logged in, no one else can log in till someone logs out.

Frankly, though, I don't think we should be protecting an industry that is changing. This isn't the same thing as setting a decent minimum wage for services that are needed. The cap is more like setting a minimum wage for services that aren't so needed. Better to embrace change.

"There are no easy solutions."
I've got an easy solution, Goldy - the gov't pulls its nose out of the taxi regulation game. Require that the drivers are licensed and insured just like everyone else, and tell them to pay taxes on their income like everyone else. Transactions will be governed by the UCC, just like every other business transaction in the USA. That's it. Seattle will be a better city for it.

@12 As I've previously written, Seattle and many other cities already tried deregulating their taxi industries about 35 years ago. It didn't work. So nearly every city re-regulated their taxi industry in the wake of their failed free market experiment.

So what's wrong with the taxi companies adopting some XXI century technology and improving their attitude and customer service to compete with the upstarts?

I know it's easier to cry the blues to politicians and captured regulators, but better products win in the long run anyway. So why not get used to it?

Boycot yellow, orange and any other taxi.

@14, some would accuse you of being racist by even suggesting such a thing. How DARE you!!!!!! And Goldy, it's not 35 years ago. It's today and it's time the taxis in Seattle figure that out.

The entire reason these businesses work is because the cabs suck. Period. I travel all the time and have the worst experiences with cabs (waiting way to long for the ride with no idea when they will show up, arguments about payment type, dirty and smelly cabs, drivers on their phone the entire trip, stole CC numbers because they have paper machines to collect the data, etc etc etc.).

None of this has happened with the multiple ride share companies. Taxi's need to tech up, man up, and provide an equivilent service. Currently they do not which is ENTIRELY why other services have shown up.

Not sure why there is a taxi lobby for a program that is throughly broken and should not have the say the do.

@10 - I completely disagree with you on knowing the cost ahead of time. I have many cabbies drive me around in my own city to bulk up the charge, whereas an Uber has the fee already set before I get in the car. AND its negotiable. Just face it, the cab industry is outdated and shady. These other services did it better and you guys are just pissed you didn't do it better before someone else.

@ 13 Uber and such aren't really regulated now and seem to be working pretty well.

@17 The taxis are teching up. Check out the Flywheel and Taxi Magic apps. Yellow Cab is lagging, but they are in the midst of upgrading their dispatching system, and will have a new app out by the end of May.

There is nothing magical about the technology that requires the industry to be unregulated for it to work. And there's nothing magical about the technology that it suddenly makes regulation unnecessary.

Taxis serve customers that TNCs do not. They are required to take cash, and scrip. And there can never be any surge pricing that prices customers out of the market. Nobody is trying to do away with TNCs, but we need to find a solution that allows traditional taxis to survive.

Dateline, 1902: The Seattle buggy-whip maker and wheelwright guilds demand that the city establish a cap on the number of "auto-mobiles" or "horseless carriages", lest thousands of people be thrown out of work.

@13
Ah, Goldy, that happened in 1979...how many app supported ride shares where around in 1979?

In other news: letting meat go untreated with salt or smoke results in spoiled meat and food poising. The government should require that all meats sold be either salted or smoked, so says a study written 200 years before refrigeration.

And that experiment didn't last long enough. If prices are high it is only a matter of time until a competitor comes around with lower prices and a different businesses model to challenge the status quo.

An example is cell phones: they were EXTREMELY expensive when they first came out back in the 80s (and they were HUGE) and now, without government interference, they are so cheap that even homeless people can afford them.

Just require all cars for hire register for $20 a year or something and let people figure this out for themselves.

Just as I don't want government telling me how much I should spend on a first date (I'm giving Goldy an idea for a new law to support)I don't want government telling me how much to spend on a ride or how I can get said ride.

@20
You're right, there is no technology that makes regulation unnecessary: it is common sense and ethics that makes most regulation unnecessary and immoral.

Unless it's preventing aggression against someone's property, the environment (everyone's property) someone's body or preventing fraud, the government ultimately has no business telling me, you are anyone else, what to do.

Just as you may claim that "for the good of society we need to control cabs, wages, etc" some conservative may say "for the good of society we need to control consenting adult's sex lives, what substances they use etc."

The only difference between extreme Seattle liberals and extreme Mississippi conservatives are the parts of our lives they want the government to manage. Both are equally authoritarian.

lyft winds up being a cheaper, better experience every time. anyone care to make a case for the taxi industry that isn't complete bullshit? i'd love to hear it, and haven't so far in this thread, or anywhere else.

@21
LOL! That was a good one!
Such wit and truth rarely appear in anything associated with the Stranger. Kudos.

@13, goldy, you continually cite this 35 year ago failure, ignoring the fact that things are pretty different now. Uber X and lyft are operating in a regulation vacuum at the moment, and the world is not to be ending. In fact, things seem better (for the consumer anyway) than they have ever been. I stipulate that deregulation failed 35 years ago. I reject that it is obvious that the regulation would fail in the current climate considering competition from these young hungry services, and how technology has made finding fast, cheap, friendly, efficient, safe rides easily available right from your smartphone. That was something that did not exist 35 years ago, and it's germane, and you ignore it over and over again.

"Add to that the sudden flood of unregulated (i.e., illegal) TNC vehicles into the market . . ."

Because a new thing can't possibly be legal if it isn't regulated? I'd love to see you make that argument to Brendan Kiley.

People are so locked into their "I like this! Fuck everything else!" attitude that I'm not sure there's room for an honest debate.

@10

Great post. Nice to get some first-hand information amidst the noise.

@28
You could say the same thing about people advocating for unregulated sex between consenting adults without government intervention. People like I, and they don't want to negotiate.

Just as it's their bodies and government has no business telling them what to do with it as long as they aren't physically hurting anyone, businesses too should be able to do what they want as long as they aren't physically hurting people, the environment, or committing fraud.

Fact is, competition isn't a bad thing. The cab companies will either adapt and offer things their competitors cannot (like marketing to tourists, having contracts with hotels etc) or die off and their employees will find other jobs...maybe even for Lyft or Uber.

goldy is a 35 year ago failure.
let the free market decide this.

I'm no taxi expert, but I gotta say my limited exposure to them (I've only used taxis 4 times) has been pretty bad. The first time I waited about 30 minutes in the freezing cold at 2am for the cab to show up, paid $40 to go 8 miles, and got my credit card double-charged for the privilege. After another three experiences that weren't quite as bad (but still feature mysterious fares twice as much as what I make per hour), I now always plan my trips with the bus system in mind. I have no empathy for the taxi system as it currently works; they're overpriced, too slow, and don't give a rat's ass about the customer. Regulation may not have failed the industry, but it has failed this consumer.

@30 In San Francisco at least, fully one third of medallion taxi drivers have either converted over to uber/lyft or are part-timing it there. I'd love to know the numbers for NYC.

(N.B. San Francisco taxi regs are byzantine even by the standards of such things: the number of medallions is capped, subleasing medallions is largely illegal, and the city imposes a $100k "transfer fee" if you try to sell a medallion, the price of which is also set by the city. Unsurprisingly, medallion cab service here is so notoriously poor that it's a regular part of stand-up comedy routines by comedians from other countries.)

Capping TNCs, taxis, et. al. just puts more drunks on the road. I can't believe no one has brought up this issue yet in this debate. I happen to think people should have every option possible to get home safely.

@28, yeah, because if anyone doesn't agree with you, lord knows they aren't making an honest argument. Only people that agree with you know how to make honest arguments.

All that said, though I think the "35 years ago failed" argument sucks, I'm not at all sure that total deregulation is the correct course.

Thanks to the cab driver who contributed his/her thoughts. The part about surge pricing inducing drivers to come out when demand is high is critically important. Capping the number of drivers would neuter this incentive. We need more drivers on weekends and fewer during the week. That might mean that most drivers don't do the job full-time, which seems to scare the traditional companies, but restricting the business to essentially guarantee that it is a full time job for a select few has truly failed consumers.

#12: "Transactions will be governed by the UCC, just like every other business transaction in the USA." There is no provision of the UCC that is material to a transaction in a service like providing rides. You have no idea what you're talking about.

We wouldn't be having this discussion if the existing taxi system worked: clean cabs, polite and knowledgeable drivers, and enough cabs on the street to meet demand. Fact is, none of these descriptors apply to the current situation.

I hear a lot about protecting existing drivers. That's like "protecting" fast-food workers. Current drivers are at the mercy of their cab owners. Shut 'em down!

@28 your such a dishonest shit bag sometimes.

unregulated /= illegal

Having a "honest debate" includes being open to the fact you might be wrong. Its not just liberal fundie jargon like you and the mayor think it is.

If you can't see the difference in the city, driving, the economy and technology from now to 1979, your truly the idiot people paint you as.

@23 "The only difference between extreme Seattle liberals and extreme Mississippi conservatives are the parts of our lives they want the government to manage. Both are equally authoritarian."

Quite so.

@30
Your libertarianism, as usual, fails to notice the commons in all your free market rhetoric. We need to protect our air quality, capacity of the roads, our aggregate wait times. Adding cabs circling for fares increases road congestion, polluting the air and reducing the output of the city. Adding 20 cars circling King St Station or Benaroya Hall is a recipe for downtown gridlock.

See this nice story about how increasing NYC taxi medallions may make life worse for NYC as a whole:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/3…

SideCar claims it has nearly 1,000 drivers on Seattle streets. I think a cap would be a miscalculation. http://www.geekwire.com/2014/sidecar-rai…

SideCar claims it has nearly 1,000 drivers on Seattle streets. I think a cap would be a miscalculation. http://www.geekwire.com/2014/sidecar-rai…

@42
Actually, as a left-libertarian and a green libertarian, I believe in protecting people's property...and nature is everyone's property and hence government should do more to protect it. I actually want MORE environmental regulations and controls. That, and polluters should be jailed, not fined. After the first four CEOs go to jail for their companies polluting, you will see a drastic decrease in the amount of pollution I'm sure.

But I doubt car services and taxes would add a lot to gridlock. The economics of it just don't pan out. After awhile the market would be saturated and cabs would go under anyway and you would get a natural cap on the amount of cabs.

And in NYC, the government is picking favorites by allowing more taxis on the streets while at the same time capping pedicabs that are run by people peddling them and are a lot more environmentally friendly.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/united-s…

As we see, once again, government is to blame.

@42
Actually, as a left-libertarian and a green libertarian, I believe in protecting people's property...and nature is everyone's property and hence government should do more to protect it. I actually want MORE environmental regulations and controls. That, and polluters should be jailed, not fined. After the first four CEOs go to jail for their companies polluting, you will see a drastic decrease in the amount of pollution I'm sure.

But I doubt car services and taxes would add a lot to gridlock. The economics of it just don't pan out. After awhile the market would be saturated and cabs would go under anyway and you would get a natural cap on the amount of cabs.

And in NYC, the government is picking favorites by allowing more taxis on the streets while at the same time capping pedicabs that are run by people peddling them and are a lot more environmentally friendly.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/united-s…

As we see, once again, government is to blame.

@42 Actually, I'm a left-libertarian and a green libertarian, and so I believe in protecting people's property. And nature and the environment are EVERYONE'S PROPERTY, so government should actually do MORE to protect it including MORE environmental regulations.

I love how the same people who would flip out if someone said Sawant was just like Stalin because they call themselves socialists are the same people who think all libertarians are the same and are 100% ignorant to the multiple kinds of libertarians there are.

As for cabs, I doubt they would cause that much gridlock. After awhile the market would be saturated with cabs and some would go under, creating a natural cab on the amount that exist.

The real issue with NYC is that the government has capped the amount of pedicabs while allowing more motorized taxis. So this zero-emission alternative is killed by the government while cars are okay. Once again, government picking favorites is bad for people and the environment.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/united-s…

I drive for Lyft in San Francisco, where Lyft began and where we have no caps on the number of rideshares.

Capping the ride shares would destroy one of the most economically delightful things about them: they provide convenient part-time income with no strings attached. They help artists and musicians survive, as well as people who are trying to get a business off the ground (e.g., I know a fledgling attorney who drives Lyft evenings while she tries to get her practice off the ground). I'm a stay-at-home mother these days, and I drive very part-time (typically after I take my kids to school, I drive the rest of morning rush hour).

Taxi drivers tend to be full-time, and they have to earn out their gate fees. Lyft drivers tend to be doing something else and drive when demand is high (rush hour, weekend nights) to make ends meet.

Capping drivers will end part-time employment for artists, musicians, entrepreneurs whose business isn't profitable yet (and who aren't eligible for VC cash), etc..

Another point which Goldy may not realize is that rideshare drivers cannot survive if they aren't motherfucking charming as all get out as well as highly competent. In order to drive for these services, we have to maintain an extremely high rating from passengers. Drivers are purged from the system if their rating drops below 4.6 stars.

Meanwhile cabdrivers in my personal experience tend to be rude. Sometimes their English is not good enough for me to communicate my destination. Once a cabbie had such road rage he left me in the cab to start a shoving match with another driver at a red light.

Cabs created scarcity by keeping the number of medallions low, so customers had little power. We had to take whatever cab we could get and be grateful for it. But with ridesharing, the passenger has control. By rating a driver 3 stars or below, you ensure you will never be matched with that driver again -- and if enough passengers do that, the driver is purged from the system again. Very different from the cab service.

I realize that this is not something mandatory, requiring drivers to keep insanely high customer ratings, but it could be made mandatory. Goldy and other writers who cover this seem to think that only cabs are safe and that when you get into a rideshare you're putting yourself at risk, but the reality is that only the more fabulous rideshare drivers can succeed. Too many unhappy passengers, and that driver is purged.

@49, uh oh, you made some good points before Goldy could get around to declaring your arguments dishonest.

I'm outraged by the cab companies' sense of institutionalized entitlement, as if they have permanent ownership of all paid car rides.

The last time I took a cab, I had arranged the pickup with the dispatch the night before. I said it was to take me to the airport to catch a flight. The cab was half an hour late. I called dispatch twice during that half hour wait and they were rude and disinterested. When the driver showed up he never bothered to acknowledge the lateness or even say hello. If I had not built in an extra hour (because I knew cabs are like this) I would have missed my plane. This is what happens when a service has no competition.

Also, arguments about safety are always trotted out to scare people about peer-sharing innovations. I agree with @49, the star-rating systems are effective at pushing bad drivers out of the system. I've been in yellow cabs whose drivers did terrifying things in traffic. The Lyft drivers I've ridden with drive a lot more conservatively. And I'm not really that worried about serial killers signing up with Lyft in order to have access to victims.

And why all the tears shed over cab drivers needing to earn an income -- as if the rideshare drivers are doing it for a smile? My friend drives for Lyft, and that's what puts food on her table sometimes. People drive for Lyft because they need the money, not because it's their hobby.

Surge pricing can be dealt with by NOT having a cap, so that more rideshare drivers will make themselves available where the need is higher.

Times are changing and cab companies don't own the fucking streets.

Here's what I vow: if the taxi and for-hire operators succeed in restricting me from using Uber and Lyft, I will never again -- ever -- use a taxi in Seattle.

Today I use taxis where there is a taxi stand (hotels, the airport, etc) and Uber for restaurants and house-to-house. If this stupid, cynical attempt to use the government to protect an inferior service from competition succeeds... Fuck it. I will get rides from friends, I will take the extra 40 minutes to use light rail plus bus to Fremont, I will just drive more. Taxis will never get a cent from me with this tactic.

@48 So you favor undermining the livelihoods of full time taxi drivers for the sake of people who choose to earn a little extra money part time?

Perhaps I'm a bit paranoid, but I can't help but wonder "oh my gosh this is soooo complicated whatever shall we do?" tone is a strategy to avoid the obvious: that Goldy (and The Stranger's) pet new council member, who goes curiously unmentioned in this post, is taking the anti-transit, anti-urban, pro-drunk driving side, and explaining her position with a pathetic bit of demagoguery. (To be clear: I'm fine with painting a target on the 1% for the purposes of political rhetoric--but not to defend every damn position you take, whether it makes any sense or not).

That doesn't mean she was the wrong choice--O'Brien is easily my favorite council member and he's wrong here too--but I really hope The Stranger will be willing to consider she might be wrong occasionally, even if that means admitting they oversold her in 2013.

@53 - in their current state there is no business reason the taxi's should be protected and unless a significant change is made the taxis will not realize their full earning potential.

Which in my personal experience as a Sidecar driver is the far greater need for a really basic, clean, reliable, consistent, and convenient service than is being offered by the regulated cab companies and the City of Seattle as they are profiting business partners in this.

@48 &49
You are WAY too smart to be reading the Stranger.

@53
Who is "undermining their ability to make money"? What, the government for allowing competition to naturally arise?

So I guess the government should have banned electronic elevators, because of all the elevator operators that were put out of work? Maybe Government should ban take out, because it puts full time chefs out of work.

As I said, taxis will have to learn other ways to compete (taking cash, contracts with hotels, flat rates to airports, catering and marketing to tourists who have no interest in app based services etc) or get other jobs. That's the way markets work and if you don't like it you can always move to North Korea.

Also, raising the minimum wage would put my full time server butt out of work to, but that hasn't stopped you from advocating for it. Those who lives in glass houses...

@53 Goldy - Your comments about rideshare drivers who "choose to earn a little extra money part-time" show a total blindness (uncharacteristic of you) to today's economic reality. That phrasing is offensive to the legions of us who manage to avoid flat-out homelessness by scraping together independent contract jobs.

People who drive for rideshare companies are not "earning a little extra money part-time" anymore than are the workers at McDonalds. You sound exactly like the people who say that fast-food workers aren't really part of the grownup workforce... that they are all teenagers who just choose to take fast-food jobs to get pocket money for designer shoes.

It's time you and others who enjoy the privilege of having official employment became aware of the vast and struggling masses of us who find ways to make ends meet by doing contract work. Have you ever heard of Leapforce, Lionbridge, Butler Hill? E-lance, Textbroker, WriterAccess? Task Rabbit? Have you spent time on Craigslist "Gigs" lately? Or checked out places like "ratracerebellion"?

Somehow the powers that be remain oblivious to the fact that a huge sector of the economy literally survives by patching together odd jobs. There is nothing different about a taxicab driver paying their rent and a rideshare driver paying their rent. Except, you know what? The rideshare driver is probably hungrier and has less income security, so in a competitive marketplace they are motivated to be friendlier, more accessible and more prompt.

Goldy asked me, "@48 So you favor undermining the livelihoods of full time taxi drivers for the sake of people who choose to earn a little extra money part time?" That's a rather prejudicial way of phrasing it. I would put it that I am heartily in favor of a new industry which allows artists, musicians, teachers, deaf people (we have a LOT of deaf Lyft drivers, who have their own community within the larger driving community), stay-at-home parents, people who are starting businesses, and others who need flexible part-time work in order to get by in an extremely high-priced market. Lots of people drive for ridesharing while they look for a full-time job, and driving for Lyft or Sidecar allows them the flexibility they need in order to go on interviews and network while still scraping by.

I'm also in favor of people having more transit options. I used to work in SF's financial district, and I worked very long hours. Late at night I could try to get a cab (which would often be poached by another person), or I could combine walking and waiting alone late at night for a bus which ran very seldom. My life was a lot more difficult and dangerous, as a young woman before ridesharing came along.

If preserving the cab industry is so vital, why not subsidize cabs rather than cut off ridesharing at the knees? We subsidize farmers, for example, because we want that industry to survive. Subsidize the cabs which are accessible to wheelchairs, say.

@58 Thank you. And I'm sorry that Goldy, hell The Stranger is so out of touch with the reality many people in Seattle suffer through.

But then what can anyone expect? Instead of pushing the city council to end homeless (like they did in Salt Lake City) they gave Slog space for two council members to talk about providing 100 lockers for the several thousand homeless in Seattle to share: for a small fee.

And let's not forget the Billionaire's Stadium Goldy and the rest of the paper all started to jack off to. No doubt hoping they'd get one of those sweet press box suites. Forget that the guy who was going to finance it (without tax payers dollars..LOL!!!) turned out to be crooked with his dealings in Sacramento. But that's okay because he wouldn't screw Seattle over,,,right?

But then you can look at the material The Stranger's ad folks send out to perspective businesses in their hunt for advertisers. The Stranger proudly proclaims that the bulk of their readership are 20 or 30 somethings who have a great deal of disposable income. You know, the Amazon crowd or the MS folks or the Bio-Tech people. Not really the contract labor types who are struggling to pay the rent. The Stranger's real demographic are the people who can pay $1500 a month for rent. And that's without having to pick up part time work.

So please excuse Goldy...he's just out of touch with us little people. But at least you can have a locker when you end up homeless after you can't supplement your income by driving people around!

@53: "So you favor undermining the livelihoods of full time taxi drivers for the sake of people who choose to earn a little extra money part time?"

You know Goldy, I'm so fucking tired of you. Talk about dishonest debate. By dumb fucking luck, you and I happen to agree on most topics (not this one!). And lord knows you are smart. But for someone who is smart, you are such a fucking dumb-ass. You and Rush are really cut from the same cloth; your favorite opponent is a straw-man, you vilify your enemies, and worse, vilify your allies who don't agree precisely with you. You are a fundamentalist, just exactly as obnoxious as all the other fundamentalists in the world.

Now, about taxis...
I'm generally pro-labor, I think gov regulation is more often good than bad, and I support the worker over the corp pretty much every time, and I gave a substantial donation to 15now.org. But the taxi industry and taxi drivers have disqualified themselves from the support of people like me through years of arrogant and horrendous service. So yes, if deregulation undermines the livelihood of those guys, so be it. They had their shot and blew it, and now they are in a panic. Sorry. Too late. I hope they are crushed. (And more sunnily, maybe a few can adjust their attitude and start driving for lyft or uber). If the city can stay out of the way long enough, the taxi companies may even have to improve their service to compete with the newcomers.

But the taxi industry and taxi drivers have disqualified themselves from the support of people like me through years of arrogant and horrendous service. So yes, if deregulation undermines the livelihood of those guys, so be it.

I have some sympathy with this view, but it's also not entirely the driver's faults. Because those hiring them had no reason to train them, since their de facto monopoly provided no incentive to do their job well. (I'll never forget the cab driver who dozed off on I-5, veering across a couple lanes until he jolted himself awake. Same guy also missed my exit and drove in circles for a while to run up the tab. When I called to complain the dispatcher blew me off.)

But here's the thing: the industry is worried, but the increased competition might just be more worrisome for the owners of the medallions than the drivers (sometimes but frequently not the same people). Felix Salmon explains:

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/20…

One of the reasons these TNCs took off isn't just crappy cap service but way too few cabs--adding virtually no licenses during 23 growth-filled years is obviously insane. But it's a testimony to the political power of those who hold a scarce good and exploit it. Most cab drivers don't have their own license. The present system allows those lucky enough to have one of these licenses (the city only charged $600, but they trade for 100K on the rare occasions they become available) to exploit cab drivers and take a big chunk of the fruits of their labor.
Having to either buy or pay rent to the owner of a stupidly expensive/scarce medallion is a huge impediment to making a decent living, as it creates a pointless, non-value adding class or rentiers. So while Goldy tries to explain his defense of the pre-TNC status quo as a stand for the honest working man/woman, the most obvious beneficiaries are the owners of a pointless and artificial little piece of capital, who have been exploiting drivers for decades:

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/transport…

The argument that the livelihood of taxi and for hire drivers needs to be protected and city government are the folks to do it is ridiculous. It won't matter what happens at the end of the day if the TNC's are savvy enough to know that city government has very little resources to enforce anything. Hence the ongoing battle between taxi and for hire drivers over illegal hailed pick ups. I am for leveling the playing field with more moderate regulation for everyone, not unfair advantages to an industry that is providing substandard service when the public has clearly demonstrated a preference for a better alternative. And let's no wet out hankies too much for the TNC's ability to hire high priced lobbyists. Both taxis and for hires have had some heavy hitters on their payrolls, including former Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis.

Goldy asked me, "@53: "So you favor undermining the livelihoods of full time taxi drives for the sake of people who choose to earn a little extra money part time?""

I ask Goldy in return: "So you favor undermining the livelihoods of hundreds, if not thousands, of rideshre drivers for the sake of a few hundred cab medallion holders?"

It's pretty disingenuous to make it out that this is all about the poor immigrant cabbies (incidentally plenty of immigrants drive for Lyft and the other services). Who wins if the rideshares are cut off at the knees? The medallion holders. Not the public who want more transportation options. Not the many people who desperately need to make more money and need a flexible part-time to full-time job.

#40, *You're. If you are going to call someone an idiot, you may want to brush up on the proper use of "your" and "you're" lest you, you know, look like an idiot.

I have NEVER had my phone stolen, been sexually harassed, or been given the run around with ride sharing. Drivers are vetted, everything is connected so you can track down lost property. There is a GPS record of where you go, who drove you, the time you were in the car. I feel much safer in a Uber/Lyft/Sidecar than some random taxi.

The Seattle taxis offer a piss poor service (ever try to pay with a credit card?). Some asshole screaming in some foreign language into his blue tooth while running red lights is not an ideal taxi experience.

People who drive ride shares seem to be the Stranger's target audience, I am very surprised at the Stranger's stance on this. Artsy hipsters making side money = the average lyft/sidecar driver.

SF had a terrible problems with cabs so Lyft was created to fill the void. It allows people to make money, provide a desperately needed service and undercut the bullshit and useless taxi regulations.

For those crying about the taxi drivers losing their jobs, maybe if they improved their services people would return. This is not some anti-immigrant conspiracy rather it is society responding to being treated like shit by the government and the taxi companies.

The oft-cited Cato institute paper doesn't say that deregulation failed. In fact, it states that _sweeping_ deregulation must be accompanied by careful analysis (duh), and further suggests that _sweeping_ deregulation may not have been the right answer. It also suggests that drivers and consumers directly benefited from elements of the deregulation. So according to Zerbe (Cato), _some_ of the deregulation was good.

Zerbe notes that post deregulation, Seattleites didn't like the long unruly independent cab lines at the airport and amtrak station, and were happier to pay a higher rate to the airport as long as it was the same rate both ways. Fair enough. Zerbe's reasonable conclusion is that carefully planned regulation would have been better than a free for all. Nowhere does the Cato paper suggest that letting the city pick economic winners is in consumers' best interest, which is what the incumbent for-hire companies are asking for.

Additionally, the position of "protect[ing] the livelihoods of current for-hire drivers" is disingenuous. Many Uber drivers were yellow taxi drivers at one point. A more accurate phrasing would be "protect[ing] the livelihoods of current for-hire CAB COMPANY OWNERS". What precisely stops a for-hire driver from ditching his crappy car, dispatch gear, medallion, and company to move to UberX, etc?

Finally, the tradition for hire companies are indeed upping their game of late, but why is this? Prior to the arrival of Uber, etc. they were happy to rely on an outdated 1980's business model. (Recall the laughable "Seattle's finest taxi cab service" and "Satellite dispatch" comments on yellow cab's interminable telephone hold message.)

Presumably, the addition of new players to the marketplace has caused the incumbent monopolists to up their game.

I am very surprised at the Stranger's stance on this.

I have a feeling they'd be right where they obviously and clearly should be if it wasn't for Sawant. They decided to go all in on her; now they're not sure what to do with her now that she's a council member who does not, in fact, walk on water.

Goldy and The Stranger more generally have pretty good political instincts, but they get caught up in causes occasionally. I'm confident they'll learn to treat her like a fallible politician eventually, but I hope it happens sooner rather than later, so we don't have to the kind of nonsense we're being treated to here. (Seriously, Goldy: your comment @53 clearly conflates the interests of medallion holders with the interests of people trying to make a living driving. You're much, much better than that.)

http://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Driv…

I wish the council would force insurers to sell a part time commercial insurance product. That would actually make a difference.

The Lyft/UberX/Sidecar business model is an illusion. It is based on part time owner/drivers who cannot make enough money working 16 hours a week to meet their responsibilities such as carrying commercial insurance.

It is not a bug in the TNC business model that their vehicles are uninsured - it is a feature.

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2014/01/20…

The purpose of a cap is to make it possible for the transportation providers to make enough money to meet the obligations such as insurance - something that the TNCs have yet to demonstrate that they can do.

Currently we have widespread consumer complaints about the old-school regulated taxi industry because it didn't have motivation to improve until now. So expanded, updated pro-flexibility regulation reflecting new technologies seems to make sense for both drivers and consumers.