New York’s city council has backed off of a plan to cap the amount of Uber cars allowed in the city. Over the past few days, the company had been fighting with Mayor Bill De Blasio over the proposal, with Uber putting out ads showing how much commuters’ wait times would increase with the cap, and the mayor comparing the start up to Walmart. Ouch.
Here’s how the fight went down, according to The New York Times:
The company had depicted Mr. de Blasio as a protector of the yellow taxi industry, whose leaders have been significant campaign contributors.
Amid the barrage, Mr. de Blasio had moved this week to portray Uber as a Wal-Mart on wheels, describing the company as a corporate behemoth and promoting the cap as a critical component of the traffic study.
“Uber is a multibillion dollar corporation, and they’re acting like one,” he told reporters on Monday.
The city council had been considering whether to put this cap into practice while undertaking a four-month study on transportation in New York. Apparently, they struck a deal with Uber not to do so while De Blasio was out of town. De Blasio hasn’t made any comment himself, though his spokesperson made sure to say that they still reserved the right to place a cap later on.
On the one hand, Uber has made transportation so much cheaper and more convenient, especially when the alternative is city cab services that refused to evolve with the times. On the other hand, there’s driver protests, sexual assaults, poor customer service and that time the company conspired to dig up dirt on critical journalists using their account details.
No matter what bad stuff Uber has done, however, winning this battle shows once again that the company is probably here to stay.
(Via The New York Times)