Four days after Mayor Bill de Blasio made his case for temporarily capping the number of Uber vehicles on city streets, that controversial plan has been taken off the table for at least the next few months, city officials said Wednesday. Despite Uber placing a “de Blasio” tab in its app, showing users potential wait times for rides if the mayor’s bill passed, de Blasio stood his ground, saying, “No company’s multi-billion-dollar political war chest gives it a blank check to skirt vital protections and oversight for New Yorkers”.
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In its vicious counter-campaign, Uber has accused De Blasio of bowing to the city’s yellow-cab union.
Instead, Uber has agreed to participate in a four month study to determine how its New York City fleet impacts traffic and the environment.
The city and Uber came to an eleventh hour agreement.
Sensitive to any notion that Mr de Blasio had capitulated, aides on Wednesday noted that a cap could still be revisited.
“We are pleased new drivers will continue to be free to join the for-hire industry and partner with Uber”. While the cap’s supporters argued that the cap was not about Uber but about all car-service companies, including competitors like Lyft and Gett, it’s not a surprise that Uber was the only company that met with government officials to resolve the dispute. While most Islanders have cars – they need them to get around – Uber is an easy way to return to Island late at night or travel within the borough without driving drunk.
First Deputy Mayor Anthony Shorris said the city would also undertake a sprawling review of the entire vehicle service industry, with an eye to raising revenue for mass transit services and making improvements for disabled passengers.
The move comes the day before a City council vote, which could have seen the cap imposed.
In pushing for a cap, the de Blasio administration cited concern over increased congestion on Manhattan’s clogged streets.
“The last thing you should be doing, if you’re trying to create jobs in a city, provide more economic opportunity, have more environmentally friendly transportation options – this is the exactly wrong thing to do”, Plouffe said in a “CBS This Morning” interview this week.
This afternoon, both sides announced their agreement to study traffic in the city through the end of November.
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It has about 25,000 vehicles on its books in New York – more than double the number of yellow taxis. In the past, Uber has been defiant about cooperating and handing over its data, but just this week, the company released its hourly ride numbers.
