My Sample Ballot for the May 7th Election Has 1 item: Lyft & Uber

I pulled my ballot for the May 7th election from VoteTravis.com, and I was pretty surprised that Proposition 1 was literally the only thing on the ballot. I guess a lot of folks are going to be single issue voting!

May 7th Ballot Pct 156A - Vote For Prop 1

There's exactly 1 item on my sample ballot for the May 7th Election - Proposition 1, the Lyft & Uber ordinance. #VoteFORProp1 and vote FOR ridesharing! Published by Skylar Buffington. 2 Views, 0 Likes on Docs.com.

You can read the ordinance, order a Voter Registration card, or volunteer to help with Ridesharing Works for Austinā€™s campaign at http://www.VoteProp1.com/


Also, please feel free to comment with a link to the campaign against ridesharing in Austin, but I havenā€™t been able to find it yet.

Actually, there is no campaign ā€œagainst ridesharingā€ in Austin.

Prop 1 is not a vote for or against ridesharing. The vote is for/against repealing legislation our elected representatives passed.

A vote against Prop 1 keeps the rules passed by our current council. A vote for Prop 1 overturns those rules, reverting to the ā€œtemporaryā€ rules agreed to by a previous council (with no fingerprinting required).

Here is a ā€œNo on Prop 1ā€ website; there may be others as well: https://www.ourcityoursafetyourchoice.org/

@LFranklin, Liz, Iā€™ve been having trouble finding where in the original ordinance it mentioned that those rules were temporary. I did find the sections that required the 10-1 Council to review the regulations in the spring of 2015 (which, I think, they missed). Do you know where that part is?

In December, Austinā€™s City Council set aside the recommendations from the diverse group of stakeholders that came together to create Austinā€™s model Ridesharing rules. The R Street Institute, a national 501c3 Policy Research organization, gave Austinā€™s ridesharing rules an [A Rating] (http://www.ridescore.org/report/austin) two years in a row. Hereā€™s an in depth account of the process that stakeholder group followed and how ridesharingā€™s detractors managed to push this all the way to a public vote:

The petition that forced this election was funded almost entirely by Uber and Lyft. They spent around $50k in December alone, and another $2.1 million in the first three months of 2016.

So itā€™s more than a little misleading when the author of your linked article says ā€œThe petitionā€™s success serves as a remarkable, and likely unprecedented, rebuke of one of the Councilā€™s key initiatives, all the more so considering the fact that neither Uber nor Lyft marshaled their considerable social-media prowess for purposes of challenging the Councilā€™s vote.ā€

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2016/01/21/ridesharing-works-petition-had-financial-help-from.html

http://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2016/04/33665/

The purpose of Prop 1 is to overturn legislation passed by our elected representatives. It is not a vote for or against ridesharing, and those of us voting No on Prop 1 arenā€™t ā€œridesharing detractorsā€.

I want Austin to have plenty of transportation options, and I think Prop 1 is neither the only nor the best path to gettting there.

In my opinion, the most honest way to frame the choice is between regulations the taxicab companies wrote versus regulations a lot of people tried to write together (including the taxicab companies, who were spectacularly unhelpful in the process).

http://m1ek.dahmus.org/?p=1143

As somebody who had to deal with cab companies from the regulatory side, I urge you to vote YES on Proposition 1.

mdahmus,

Is the citizen representative quoted in your blog post the same person who wrote the article Skylar linked to? Asking because the author in each piece mentions a background in consumer-protection law.

Actually, the petition did not force an election. The City Council had the opportunity to enact the rules asked for by over 65,000 Austin voters. No one was paid to sign the petition. Youā€™re right that Lyft and Uber made it convenient and easy for folks to do the right thingā€¦ Just like ridesharing.

Instead the obstinate City Council chose again to ignore their constituents and waste nearly $1M in Taxpayer funds to have an election. I tried to convince the Council to spend the money on real research.

https://medium.com/@RisingSkylar/do-your-homework-austin-ef7a1efb119

I shared Jeff Kirkā€™s story since he was on the original committee that wrote the regulations. I also thought itā€™d be a little weird to share my own article, but since it seems like you discredit his credentials, hereā€™s my perspective:

https://medium.com/@RisingSkylar/how-austin-killed-ridesharing-f66d1a3e0ca9

Thank goodness Lyft and Uber have continued to give the people a voice since City Hall is too busy representing the entrenched firms that have controlled ground transportation in Austin for decades.

Yes, itā€™s the same person.

Skylar, I wasnā€™t discrediting his credentials; just wanted to know whether these were two accounts from the same person or two separate individuals. Mdahmus, thanks for clarifying.

If you view regulatory capture as the most important issue at stake, I understand voting yes on Prop 1. But the regulations in question werenā€™t enacted simply to line the pockets of cab companies. The taxi industry will fight to protect its own interestsā€“just as Uber doesā€“yet regulations also serve the public interest, so itā€™s worth looking at what we lose as well as what we gain when we eliminate those rules.

For example, voting for Prop 1 means Uber has a larger pool of drivers, potentially lowering the average cost of a ride. It also means more drivers fighting for a smaller piece of the pie, more churn & fewer experienced drivers. So it strikes me as fundamentally dishonest when Uber pitches Prop 1 as an economic boon to low-income workers and others struggling to get by.

I find the framing in your last paragraph to be less than completely honest. Much of uberā€™s expansion of the driver pool is in the form of part-time drivers who want to provide rides when the existing cab companies were the worst at serving customer demand (cab companies didnā€™t want to have enough cabbies to serve late night or festival demand and then sitting around not making money the rest of the time). Itā€™s not necessarily the case that adding ā€˜peakingā€™ uber drivers results in a smaller piece of the pie; it actually has been shown to have resulted in more service provided than under the previous model (the pie got bigger, in those terms).

If the quality of the regulation is most important then we should go with either Uber/Lyftā€™s national background checks or DNA samples. Fingerprints are well known for being inaccurate and putting the wrong person behind bars. To see just the tip of the iceberg google ā€œinnocence project fingerprintsā€.

With Prop 1, weā€™d be ceding regulatory advantage to a company that already (1) has a huge pool of drivers willing to drive for wages that arenā€™t even guaranteed to cover the driverā€™s operating expenses, (2) urges folks to buy new cars so they can become Uber drivers, and (3) uses subprime financing to encourage those with bad credit and/or low income to take on debt.

I think this is a really bad deal for Austin.

Iā€™m so sorry for the delayed response, and Iā€™m really thankful weā€™re having these conversations here in the FAN forum.

In general, I agree with your perception of Uber, @LFranklin. In fact, I donā€™t drive for Uber because I donā€™t share the same values with that company, and I refuse to earn them a profit. As of now, Iā€™ve completed 2 rides with Uber and 2,148 rides with Lyft. (But hey, everyone makes mistakes.)

In November, John Zimmer, Co-Founder of Lyft, stated in an interview that Lyft had reached 45% market share in Austin, the highest of any market they operate in. I also recall that about a month ago, Sherpashare (an app that helps independent workers manage finances) showed that Lyft had somewhere around 60% of the market share. Although Iā€™m not sure how these calculations were made, I am sure that there are plenty of folks in Austin that avoid Uber altogether. Letā€™s not burden an entire industry with nonsense just because we donā€™t like the way that Uber does business.

Iā€™m also a bit confused about the part about being willing to drive for wages that arenā€™t guaranteed to cover operating expenses. For a lot of folks, the operating expenses of a vehicle are a sunk cost. They already have all the tools necessary to be a Ridesharing driver, and theyā€™re able to earn a fair amount using those assets to provide a desperately needed service in Austin. It hardly seems like anyone is getting a bad deal.

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My vote isnā€™t based on how I rank the relative ethics of any individual company involved. The question is whether to keep the regulations the council passed, or replace them with the ones Uber/Lyft prefer. The argument I keep hearing is on this thread is that taxi companies wield too much power and influence, so I pointed out Uberā€™s actions to counter the assumption that weā€™ll be better off when Uber replaces taxis. If any of the facts I mentioned are incorrect, please point out them out.

Whether or not Prop 1 passes, the city has already carved out a regulatory niche for Uber/Lyft which exempts them from many of the regulations placed on taxi companies. Thereā€™s no limit on the number of cars they can operate; they donā€™t have to provide service to folks who lack credit cards; thereā€™s no upper or limit on what fares they can charge; they donā€™t have to accommodate the people without smartphone/internet access, etc etc. (Iā€™m not advocating the merits of each individual regulation, just pointing out that voting for/against Prop 1 wonā€™t produce a ā€œlevel playing fieldā€)

Uber/Lyft want to use their own methods for background checks that donā€™t require fingerprints. My understanding is that fingerprinting keeps potential drivers from signing up under someone elseā€™s identity.

Taxi companies act in their own interests. So do Uber/Lyft.

Cab companies shift as much of the costs onto drivers as they can. TNCs will do the same.

Voters should consider what outcomes we can reasonably expect from letting any industry set their own regulations.

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I agree with the focus on practical impacts of the possible regulatory frameworks.

Technology has changed quite a bit since the heyday of taxi companies and has enabled all sorts of innovations that government regulators would never have imagined. The lack of regulation on TNCs (by not operating as taxi companies) enabled them to adopt innovations and provide a much better - and in some ways, safer - experience for drivers and passengers.

While some rules are sensible ā€œlowest common denominatorā€ regulations, we run the risk of stifling competition and stifling safety and other innovations if the government dictates what some officials - not the market, and not innovative thinkers - believe are best for safety.

Ultimately, in practice, allowing Uber, Lyft, Get Me, and any other entrant employ their own background checks, provides more choice to our neighbors, whether they be drivers or passengers. If passengers donā€™t feel safe with the safety measures a provider employs, they can choose a different provider.

A vote for Proposition 1 is a vote for passenger choice.

I think itā€™s easy to place faith in free markets and ā€œinnovatorsā€ when you happen to be the demographic theyā€™re marketing to. But basic public safety standards should be set by elected representatives who answer to all of the public.

Yes, Uber/Lyft likely reduce the rates of drunk driving (though to what extent is unclear, since I believe the city also stopped towing overnight parked cars around the same time). But the issue of drivers sexually assaulting passengers continues to be downplayed.

Lowering the bar to entry creates a much bigger, more transient pool of drivers. Sexual assaults against passengers will increase, as assault is often an opportunistic crime. Many assaults go unreported, so women donā€™t have real-time knowledge to base their market decision on.

Fingerprinting seems a reasonable risk mitigation requirement in this situation.

Ultimately I voted no on Prop 1 because I prefer my regulations to be crafted and voted on by my representatives. Whether I agree or disagree with their bobble heads at least I know how to affect their behavior. ( vote them out or lobby them). Corporations writing regs is a dangerous thing. If Mr. Peabody showed up and wanted to strip mine Mt. Bonnell i do not think I would be persuaded, and I donā€™t think you would be, by the slick ads showing the coal miners loving on Mr. Peabodyā€™s corporate model.

A more accurate framing in my opinion is that the taxicab companies bullied our representatives into rolling back the 2014 regulations (which were a collaborative effort in which they were invited to participate but decided to obstruct). Regulatory capture at work.

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Exactly. Fingerprinting has gotten Lyft/Uber to leave San Antonio, and Lyft to leave Houston. The #1 taxi company in Austin is also the #1 taxi company in San Antonio and Houston.

Suddenly Austin needs fingerprintingā€¦

You havenā€™t seen the yard signs opposing Prop 1?