You should know the Transportation Committee at the City Council is holding a hearing today on the newly enacted TLC rules to control congestion and the growth of For-Hire Vehicles (FHVs) like Uber and Lyft. In advance of the hearing, I am introducing a bill that would mandate the all FHVs are connected directly to a central monitoring system – just as all taxis are connected.
It is important that you know this legislation is necessary because the TLC rules fall far short of effectiveness and fairness precisely because the agency is relying on companies like Uber (with a long history of falsifying data in order to mislead local governments) to supply its own compliance data. The TLC does not give taxi owners this kind of generous oversight. Why the double standard?
When Streetsblog asked the Mayor’s spokeswoman how the city would be able to get accurate data from Uber and Lyft, she said:
“The TLC will be able to monitor companies’ cruising empty data through the same satellite mapping technology used today. The data are collected every two weeks. But it’s entirely up to the companies themselves to remodel how they do business in order to meet the threshold,”
When asked by Streetsblog how the companies will do it, Anglin pointed out that “Uber and Lyft are successful because of their technology.”
“Trust them?” This is not the proper way to do accurate oversight.
Taxis, apparently not as trustworthy as the multi-billion-dollar corporate predators, all have a city mandated computer monitoring system that connects them directly with a central TLC computer. We do not have to ask medallion owners for their data because it is supplied directly in real time.
My dear reader it is time for the double standards to end. We need to move quickly with a legislative mandate that creates regulatory parity between the FHV sector and the taxi sector. The current rules for taxis and FHVs are separate but not equal.
I am Councilmember Rev. Rubén Díaz, Sr. and this is what you should know.
