Uber and Lyft have dropped a financial bomb in their mutual effort to push Proposition 1 to electoral victory on May 7. Campaign finance reports filed on Friday revealed that both ride-hailing corporations in April contributed nearly $6 million to Ridesharing Works for Austin, the political action committee campaigning for regulations more amenable to the […]
Transportation Network Companies
Companies that provide transportation services through applications such as Uber or Lyft.
Posted inAustin
Reporter’s Notebook: On the case
No tweet too small… Each side in the Proposition 1 debate has accused the other of fudging the facts, and your Austin Monitor team is dutifully doing what it can to keep everyone honest. On Friday, for example, we noticed City Council Member Leslie Pool shoot out a tweet accusing Uber of electioneering at one […]
Posted inTransportation
Are Lyft’s free rides to the polls legal?
When she’s not driving for ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft, Sara Kaminsky works as a personal trainer. In fact, I exited her Toyota Corolla with a brochure for Shakeology, a weight loss program that helped Kaminsky shed more than 100 pounds over two years. I confessed that I needed to get in shape. “I could […]
Posted inTransportation
Updated: Uber threatens to exit Houston over regulations
In what promises to make a huge splash in Austin’s furious discussion of Proposition 1, ride-hailing giant Uber now says it could soon pull out of Houston. In a letter to Houston’s City Council dated today, Uber Houston General Manager Sarfraz Maredia claimed that regulations in that city “are some of the most burdensome in […]
Posted inCity Hall
Adler comes out against Prop 1
Mayor Steve Adler for the first time on Monday urged voters to reject Proposition 1, the ballot question that would rewrite existing regulations on ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft. “Today, neither Prop 1 choice is best for Austin because neither delivers by itself what we need,” Adler said at a press conference in […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Hi. It’s the Monitor.
Colossal clash of titans on Twitter… Even as the entire city of Austin is deep into the febrile delirium of a bitterly contested election that will determine the fate of several lines of city code, one can usually rely on the sanguine shores of social media to provide reasoned, measured and mature discussion of local […]
Posted inTransportation
The tricky art of linking Uber and Lyft to DWI drop
In both sides of the tug of war over what rules should govern ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft in Austin, everyone seems to agree that having more transportation options is a potential antidote for DWIs. “We are safer in this community if we have ride-share companies operating at scale,” Mayor Steve Adler told the Austin […]
Posted inCity Hall
Ride-hailing meets truth-hailing at Prop 1 presser
City Council members may have been overly optimistic that a 9-year-old’s karaoke machine could carry their comments to reporters. Nonetheless, they pushed on. Armed both with a “singing machine” borrowed from Mayor Pro Tem Kathie Tovo’s daughter and with printed versions of the two currently competing ride-hailing ordinances, five Council members gathered outside City Hall […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Could it be … Satan?
The devil is in the details… It may be a while before City Council members are willing to accept amendments offered to their resolutions by Council Member Don Zimmerman, no matter how inoffensive they appear at first glance. On Thursday, a discussion over a symbolic resolution to declare Austin a “compassionate community” was prolonged significantly […]
Posted inTransportation
Current city law not followed by Uber and Lyft drivers
Eduardo Gutierrez picked me up in his Ford Crown Victoria. I knew the make of his car and his license plate, plus I had an idea of what he looked like. But no sticker or emblem on Gutierrez’s car alerted me to the fact that he is an Uber driver. In this respect, according to […]
Posted inElections
Austin leaders speak out against Prop 1
With an election less than a month away, the perpetual discussion surrounding proposed regulations for ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft continues. On Tuesday, a group of prominent Austinites gathered on the steps of City Hall and came out swinging against the petition-driven Proposition 1 that they say would set a dangerous precedent. The Our […]
Posted inElections
Uber, Lyft reveal how deep their pockets go
Uber and Lyft have disrupted all previously held notions of what is normal for campaign finance in Austin after making jaw-dropping contributions to a political action committee fighting for friendlier regulations of the corporations’ ride-hailing services. Thirty days ahead of the May 7 election on Proposition 1, Ridesharing Works for Austin filed a finance report […]