New York City gives up in Uber cap dispute

Uber also quickly responded with a clever addition to its phone app that explained to users why cars would be unavailable in the future if de Blasio got his plan put into place.

The city council had been on the verge of introducing a cap on the number of vehicles Uber and other auto services could have on the road. The agreement softens a New York City Council bill that aimed at curtailing the ride-hailing service’s growth over concerns about increasing congestion on city streets caused by ride-hailing services.

City Hall reached an agreement with Uber on Wednesday after an attempt to limit the rapid influx of its cars across the five boroughs, Manhattan in particular. In New York, drivers of the city’s iconic yellow cabs feared that they were being overtaken by Uber. The arrangement requires Uber to release a trove of data which the city has been seeking for its analysis. “This is one of the few growth areas in New York City’s economy, why would you do anything to stifle it?”

“We look forward to a real partnership with the for-hire vehicle industry along with genuine data-sharing that will give us a better picture of their impact on our streets”, New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said in a statement. Uber undertook a large-scale publicity campaign to fight the proposal, and brought in A-list support from celebrities such as Kate Upton, Ashton Kutcher and Neil Patrick Harris.

Uber and de Blasio have been engaged in a mad back-and-forth over the past week.

Uber says it is attracting 25,000 new customers each week and is having to hire hundreds of drivers just to keep up with demand. “Uber will share information for the study above and beyond what has previously been provided, with safeguards to protect privacy”, said First Deputy Mayor Anthony Shorris, who took over negotiations while the mayor was in Rome for a conference. It’s all a powerful reminder that Uber, which is a worth more than 70 percent of the corporate giants on the Fortune 500, and is now fighting similar battles against regulation in nation’s around the world, is a fairly unstoppable juggernaut. This morning, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo openly opposed the cap in a radio interview.

De Blasio was jeered at City Hall on Thursday by yellow taxi drivers who yelled that he “caved” to Uber.

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Though Ydanis Rodriguez, the chair of the City Council’s transportation committee, said Wednesday that supporters of the bill had the necessary votes, several prominent Democrats have expressed opposition in recent days.