The Fight Between City Hall And Uber

Mayor de Blasio is pushing city legislation that would cap the growth of "for hire" taxi companies like Uber.

In an editorial in the New York Daily News, de Blasio said the city needs, "to manage the huge increase in new vehicles to keep streets moving."

He also called for Uber cars to be more wheel chair accessible and for the company to add an MTA surcharge, as yellow cabs do.

Uber New York General manager Josh Mohrer said the mayor is playing politics since yellow cab owners are among his biggest campaign contributors.

“What started [out] solely about congestion and traffic is now about a wide variety of things. We welcome that conversation. We'd love to have it with City Hall. We will not do it with a gun to our head and a bill to limit our growth just because,” said Mohrer.

There are two bills that could be voted on in the Council at its meeting Thursday.

One bill would require the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission to study a recent spike in “for-hire” licenses since 2011. According to the TLC, the number of licensed black cars nearly tripled over the past 18 months — from approximately 10,000 to more than 28,000.

The other bill would significantly restrict the number of new for-hire licenses the city can issue until the study is complete or the end of August 2016, whichever comes first.

Uber has been fighting back against the proposed legislation, launching a full-scale media campaign including mailers, commercials, a feature in its app that shows how wait times will increase and allows users to send a note to the mayor’s office.

The company has also been making race part of the debate.

“This bill, which would prevent us from adding any more drivers onto the system, would basically be killing 10,000 jobs and would predominately be coming from communities of color,” said Mohrer, who added that Uber’s 26,000 drivers come primarily from communities of color.

Supporters of the cap accuse Uber of adopting a divisive “race strategy” based on false claims about potential jobs impacts.

“What about what it's already doing to destroy the livelihoods of tens of thousands of immigrants and people of color and immigrants already working in this industry?” said Bhairavi Desai, head of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, who plans to rally in support of the cap with other groups at City Hall on Monday.

It’s not clear whether the legislation will actually come up for a vote at Thursday’s Council meeting, since support for the bills is still divided. It’s also possible that if the bills do come up, only one will pass.

Manhattan Council member Ben Kallos said he supports the study, but opposes the cap.

“The New York City Council has an obligation,” said Kallos, “to look before it leaps.”