Uber Helps NYC to Raise Transportation Prices

News and Announcements Uber
#1

In a strategically lobbied request for more fees and taxes, Uber is trying to destroy the NYC taxi strangle hold by raising prices.

How can this be you ask?

Simple, Uber can make driving in NYC too expensive for taxi drivers while retaining the same price for their UberPOOL service, they can transfer passengers from one competitor to them.

The latest price increase comes from the "congestion surcharge" fee that all taxis and rideshare companies will need to pay for any car entering the city south of the 96th street interchange in Manhattan.

The new fee will add an additional $2.75 per ride to Uber and Lyft cars coming into the city, and $2.50 for taxis. UberPOOL will cost an additional $0.75 for each passenger's fare. This surcharge will raise the cost of a ride, and NYC residents are used to the expensive transport costs of their city.

The new law was passed as a late addition, but it is included in 2018 budget which is part of the fiscal year starting April 1st, 2018 and ending March 1st, 2019. The law was signed by NY Governor Andrew Cuomo minutes before the deadline, on Friday night. While the "congestion surcharge" was passed on time will only take effect in 9 months, which means that all visitors to NYC will pay this extra fee from January 2019.

Based on city data, the new surcharge will increase city income by $421 million a year. This money will go to fund the NYC Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).

Naturally, taxi drivers are not happy with this new surcharge. Understandably so, since Uber claims to have lobbied this into the budget by spending $100,000 on their congestion coalition plan. The reason that Uber took up this endeavor was to boost their UberPOOL service, taking into account that an additional $0.75 would be a boon to their service when compared to the $2.75 UberX ride. Since UberX drivers also perform Uber POOL rides, there is no real loss of these drivers. The only underdogs, again, are the tax drivers.

#2

…and once there are no taxi drivers? what next? AV’s are 20 years away (reality check). Uber drivers will be eventually regulated into the taxi leagues, so what we are doing is replacing one version of taxi driving with another. Bottom line, the public is enjoying a 7 year price reduction, that is the time it will take for the rideshare industry to bring prices back up to what they were before they entered the scene. On the way they destroyed an entire economy, creating a brief interlude where some countries regulatory boards (such as the US) fucked up a whole system without thinking about the consequences. When you look at Japan you get to see how regulated taxi services are not replaced by unregulated drivers. There is pride in professionalism in Japan. Ridesharing is a great economy, don’t get me wrong, and I am happy to be a part of it, but in al honesty, its a scam. Its a techie way of undermining years of regulation with an app that does the same as a taxi, the only difference between an Uber and a Taxi is that you cannot whistle for an Uber. The other difference is that for an Uber you don’t need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a “medallion”, or undergo certain driving exams as well as knowledge tests, you just take your car and drive.
Ok, nuff said…