The City Council could vote this week on Mayor de Blasio’s proposal to temporarily cap the number of Uber cars on city streets. Local City Council member Margaret Chin is right in the middle of the fierce debate over the idea.
The Council is actually weighing two bills. One would place a one-year moratorium on fleets with 500 or more cars. The other would authorize the city to conduct a study on the most effective ways to regulate the rapidly growing app-based car industry.
Many members of the City Council have been targeted by Uber in an aggressive campaign that’s included Facebook ads, robo-calls and mailers. One argument: the proposal could be a jobs killer. As Capital reported today, Chin is not at all pleased with the company’s tactics. “I don’t appreciate it but I’m not going be bullied,” said Chin “We want to do the study so we can document what is the impact on air quality, noise and public health. We are not killing jobs. People who have licenses can renew and people can apply for new ones.”
Chin is an original sponsor of the proposal. You can read the whole article here.
UPDATE 5:09 p.m. The mayor and Uber announced this afternoon that they’ve reached a deal in which the company agrees to a four-month study of its impact on city streets. The Council will not vote on a proposal that would have limited Uber’s growth in NYC to 1% over a one-year period. Before the deal was reached, Uber launched a major ad offensive, accusing the mayor and his allies of being beholden to the yellow cab industry.
