Uber And Lyft Are Threatening To Leave Chicago
By Emma G. Gallegos in News on May 26, 2016 5:37PM
Earlier this month, Uber and Lyft made good on their threat of pulling out of Austin when voters there passed a referendum requiring drivers to be fingerprinted and undergo background checks. During a heated City Council debate over a similar measure here, the companies threatened to pack up and leave Chicago, too.
Chicago's City Council on Wednesday considered a measure put forth by Ald. Anthony Beale that would require ride-hailing drivers to get a chauffeur's license. Drivers would have to pay a $115 fee, pass a one-day course, get fingerprinted, undergo a background check and have their vehicle inspected. No vehicles over six years old would be approved, and five percent of cars would have to be accessible to people with disabilities. After six hours of testimony yesterday, Beale's proposal wasn't voted on, but he vowed to amend his proposal in the hopes of bringing it to a vote by June 22.
The ride-hailing companies made the same argument to Chicago's City Council that they made in Austin: these requirements are too stringent for a workforce that relies heavily on part-time drivers, many of whom take up driving as a second job. These drivers shouldn't have to jump through the same sorts of regulatory hoops as a full-time chauffeur, the companies say.
Lyft vice president Joseph Okpaku told the City Council, "We cannot operate under a regulatory framework like this. If you can’t get part-time, casual drivers on board, the model fails . . . If you shut off the critical mass of drivers, the whole system starts to crumble."
Uber's Chicago general manager Marco McCottry told aldermen, "If this ordinance were to pass, ride-sharing as we know it would no longer exist in Chicago."
But Beale believes these claims are overblown, and that, essentially, they're playing a game of chicken. He told the Tribune, "That means they're always going to say 'we're going to pull out.' They're always going to go to the extreme to try to scare people instead of sitting down at the table trying to work something out."
The Illinois Transportation Trade Association, which represents the taxi drivers and taxi companies, has been gunning hard for Beale's measure, and has donated $35,000 to aldermen lately, according to the Sun-Times. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has sided with the ride-hailing companies. Perhaps realtedly, his brother is an investor in Uber, which is maybe worth $62.5 billion.
However, Rahm has tried to temper criticism that he's in the pocket of Big Ride-Hailing by pointing out he's pushed an effort to ensure that drivers pay their debts to the city—or at least get on a payment plan—before they start driving. It turns out 10,000 of the 90,000 drivers registered with Uber and Lyft still owe the city, according to Maria Guerra Lapacek, the city's business affairs commissioner. Ridehailing drivers owed the city $15 million for things like red light tickets, water bills, and parking fees; so far they've paid back $2 million.
Lyft and Uber are claiming that they're providing a service that cabs don't: service to underserved, minority neighborhoods. According to the Sun-Times, Uber driver Priscilla Beecham Joseph told the City Council "I live in the Austin community...Ain't no cabs coming over there. It would be like seeing a spaceship come down...I'm serving my people."