Uber vs. Taxis in NYC's L Train Crisis

This summer New York City confirmed plans for repairs on its L Train, which runs between Manhattan and Brooklyn, that will require the train to be shut down for a year and a half starting in 2019. New Yorkers are prediciting an "L Train Apocalypse" given that line currently serves heavily populated Brooklyn neighborhoods and will drastically increase the commute times of Brooklynites working on the other side of the river in Manhattan.

Uber and the city's many taxi services now find themselves in a race to replace the L Train, seeing potential for a massive revenue boost as many commuters in wealthy neighborhoods like Williamsburg seek to minimize their transportation time. Uber has announced plans for a new feature called Commuting Together, designed to match riders with other commuters who are already driving in the same direction, allowing many car owners to make money for a drive they would be making anyway. Uber hopes to get Brooklyn residents to work in the 18 months that they are without the L Train while also decreasing rush hour traffic on the already-congested Williamsburg bridge.

New York taxi services, however, are lobbying for industry regulation to limit Uber's growing foothold in the city. "Uber's absurd proposal is a street safety hazard waiting to happen," said David Baer, president of the Committee for Taxi Safety, a lobbying group supporting the taxi industry. Baer also cited Vision Zero, a traffic safety program adopted by NYC mayor Bill de Blasio in 2014 to decrease risk for pedestrians, as a policy infringed upon by Uber's innovations. As the above cited Newsweek article points out, the proposed regulations would require Uber carpoolers to "first spend three months getting a license from the Taxi & Limousine Commission, get special license plates for their vehicle, spend thousands of dollars on special commercial insurance, and take over 40 hours of training classes." The taxi industry's lobbying for regulation is a case of rent-seeking. As Stigler points out, lobbyists often point to public interest claims (Uber puts our pedestrians at risk) as justification for industry regulations. While driver and pedestrian safety are of high importance, the taxi industry is seeking extreme regulation to prevent Uber from dominating in the chaos that results from the L Train closure.