Who’s Trying to Destroy Ride-Sharing Services This Week?

Apparently not regulating
ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft as harshly as Chicago does
taxi services is a violation of the rights of tax drivers. That
“interesting” argument, pretending the expensive regulatory
protection schemes of taxi services is something being forced on
them and not something the industry itself wants to limit
competition, is the basis of a lawsuit filed in Chicago to try to
fight ride-sharing companies.

The lawsuit though, is actually quite blunt about protecting the
taxi industry’s assets, not reducing oppressive regulation. Via

Bloomberg:

Chicago-area taxi operators claim in a lawsuit that the city is
violating their rights by allowing the unregulated ride-share
services run by Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. to operate on
its streets.

The failure to apply taxi and limousine rules to the two San
Francisco-based companies threatens to devalue the more-than 6,800
operating permits issued by the city, which have a total market
value of $2.38 billion, according to a complaint filed today by the
cabbies and their trade association in federal court in
Chicago.

That puts the value of each operating permit at $350,000.
Furthermore, Bloomberg notes, “Not enforcing the taxi rules against
the companies violates federal constitutional guarantees of equal
protection under the law and breaches the taxi operators’ contracts
with the city, according to the complaint. It also enables
unregulated drivers to discriminate against the elderly or poor who
may not be able to use a smartphone to summon one of their cars.”
Hey, those elderly and poor folks might be able to afford a
smartphone if they didn’t have to pay so much for taxi services,
thanks to the city-taxi permit racket.

A spokesman for the city of Chicago’s law department said the
lawsuit has no merit, while Uber shot back, “After years of
neglecting Chicago drivers and passengers alike, the taxi industry
has resorted to name-calling and frivolous lawsuits.”
Unfortunately, Uber’s also working with Mayor Rahm Emanuel to
create a new regulatory system, so we’ll just see if just end up
with a second form of protectionist rules to ultimately make it
harder for newcomers to compete with Uber and Lyft.

Meanwhile, a group of lawmakers in Georgia have introduced a
bill to increase regulations on taxi services in order to control
the services. Peach Pundit
analyzed the legislation:

The bill, filed yesterday, would add a host of statutes related
to “transportation referral service provider[s]” (ie. Uber, Lyft).
It would allow the Department of Public Safety to license
individual drivers, charging them up to $100 annually, and adds a
number of other compliance regulations, including a requirement
that they obtain “either a certificate of public necessity and
convenience or medallion.”

“Certificates of public necessity” make up the system by which
existing businesses and service providers are given veto authority
by the government to prevent competition. The Pacific Legal
Foundation just recently
won a lawsuit to block this system from being used to prevent
the creation of new
moving companies in Kentucky.