It's Time to Welcome Uber to Jacksonville

[Intuition Ale Works]

My understanding is that Uber is operating within the existing regulations until the changes go into effect.

Uber hoped and asked that the mayor would go ahead and sign the new ordinance  into law before FL/GA but he would not.

Unless the mayor vetoes the new ordinance, it will become law after the next City council meeting which is next tuesday.

I am very excited as a business owner and a private citizen for Uber to get in this market.

[Tacachale]

^I am too. And the mayor won't veto it, but he tries to avoid signing anything he possibly can. Too busy taking us to the next laser with level focus I guess.

[ProjectMaximus]

Too busy taking us to the next laser with level focus I guess.

I heard he's busy looking for his passport.

[tufsu1]

Interesting article on how Uber has grown and the challenges they have faced in other cities

http://nextcity.org/forefront/view/the-black-car-company-that-people-love-to-hate

[thelakelander]

^You beat me to it. I was just about to post that.

[urbanlibertarian]

From Slate:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/24/uber_regulation_of_course_it_should_be_regulated_and_it_is.html?wpisrc=burger_bar

Of Course Uber Should Be Regulated

By Matthew Yglesias

In response to this Aaron Weiner piece about "ubertarians" (i.e., me) let me say that while Uber CEO Travis Kalanick may be a big Ayn Rand fan, I think it's pretty obvious that Uber does in fact need to be regulated. And regulated pretty heavily.

After all, here's the business: You've got people cruising around cities in medium-sized metal boxes capable of traveling at high speeds and powered by burning gasoline. Left unregulated, these vehicles would poison the air and crush huge numbers of innocent pedestrians. Which is why it's good that the federal government regulates what kind of automobiles are considered safe to drive and regulates what kind of vehicle emissions are acceptable, and it's why state and local governments regulate both who is allowed to drive cars (with driver's licenses), under what circumstances (with drunk driving laws), and of course what you're allowed to do with a vehicle (with road rules). These are important things for the government to do. And in fact if I was dictator of America, most of these rules would be stricter. Penalties for drunk driving and other moving violations should be much stricter, fewer teenagers and vision-impaired old people would be licensed to drive, gasoline taxes would be higher, etc.
The regulatory issue around Uber is whether the rules governing rides-for-hire need to be drastically different than the rules governing driving-yourself-around.

That's a question that's been given new salience by the yuppie-friendly business model of Uber. But it's something that major cities have wrestled with for years. In New York, "gypsie cabs" have long prowled the streets of the outer boroughs while "dollar vans" have offered bus-like service for routes that the Metropolitan Transit Authority doesn't deem worthy of service. In all these cases, public safety rationales are raised as reasons to make it illegal to drive a van or a car in exchange for money. And my answer is always the same: Of course there are significant public safety concerns about people driving vans. But the concerns are essentially the same whether it's a delivery van or a dollar van. You need rules about what's an acceptable vehicle, who's an acceptable driver, and what's an acceptable way to pilot the vehicle.

But you don't need rules that specifically discriminate against rides for hire. The right way to think about this panoply of rules is that it's all part of a regulatory structure designed to make single passenger automobile traffic and one-car-per-adult the normative American lifestyles. Anything you want to do around driving yourself is presumptively legal, and anything you want to do around hiring someone else to drive you is presumptively illegal. That's a worldview that's bad for the environment, bad for cities, bad for the poor, bad for many classes of physically impaired people, and all-in-all bad for America. But by all means, regulate cars-for-hire. Just regulate them the same way you regulate the other cars.
Matthew Yglesias is Slate's business and economics correspondent. He is the author of The Rent Is Too Damn High

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/24/uber_regulation_of_course_it_should_be_regulated_and_it_is.html?wpisrc=burger_bar

[urbanlibertarian]

From Reuters:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/13/idUS327484426620140113

Angry Protesters Attack Uber Car in France
Mon Jan 13, 2014 12:31pm EST

For two Uber customers in Paris, their ride was not at all what they expected.

Major taxi unions in the French capital staged protests Monday against startup Uber and other independent car services for "unfair competition." The local taxi drivers feel that their jobs are threatened by new services such as Uber, French newspaper Le Monde reports.

But the protests turned violent when taxi drivers apparently attacked the Uber van that was transporting Kat Borlongan, co-founder of consulting firm Five by Five, and Eventbrite CTO Renaud Visage.

Attackers tried to get in the car but our brave @uber driver maneuvered us to safety, changed the tire on the freeway and got us home.

— Kat Borlongan (@KatBorlongan) January 13, 2014
"They also tried to open the doors, but fortunately our driver had locked them," Visage told The Verge. While their van didn't have any visible Uber branding on it, the protesters were attacking vehicles from all types of independent operators.

Uber confirmed the incident in a statement on its website. "That taxis chose to use violence today is unacceptable, that they chose to strike is their business," the company said. "However, Parisians also have a choice when it comes to moving around in their city, and today's incident certainly discourages Parisians from choosing a taxi for their next ride."

The attack comes just days after a separate incident involving union workers at a soon-to-be shuttered Goodyear plant in the French town of Amiens, who held two executives hostage as they sought to negotiate bonus and severance packages.

Uber has faced legal and political pushback as the company expands, aiming to disrupt traditional transportation services. Uber is in numerous cities across 26 countries globally. It has been available in Paris since 2011.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/13/idUS327484426620140113

[simms3]

Flywheel is a an app that does the same thing as Uber Taxi (your city has to have Uber Taxi, most smaller cities like Jax just have Uber X and Uber Black), and it has the support of the taxi unions.  Unfortunately, thus far it's only in SF, LA, and Seattle.

Those I know, including myself, who take cabs frequently use Flywheel instead of Uber.  The cab drivers often thank me in person because Flywheel skims less off the top for the driver and they receive a higher tip (which I can set...anywhere from 0% to 25%+).

That said, I was just in Paris and it's a super easy city to hail.  The cabs are often brand new Mercedes, so for me I actually preferred to hail a cab there than to use an app or Uber X.

[ben says]

Just used Uber for the first time...downloaded the app in Bogotá, Colombia. Lifesaver!!! In a city where almost no cabs are metered, nobody speaks Enlgish, and wait times for a regular cab can take an hour (worst traffic I've ever seen, on par with Beijing), this app had us in a cab, paid for, with GPS tracking within 6 minutes of buzzing them.

Clean, efficient, worthwhile.

If anyone needs a referral code, PM me your email or cell so I can send one your way...in full disclosure, I get $40,000 Colombian pesos if you download the app w/ my code and ride! 

[TheCat]

I used Uber in Jacksonville coming off of a bus ride back from Atl. It was awesome. Easy. And Cheap.

[urbanlibertarian]

Isn't consumer choice a wonderful thing? ;-)

[ben says]

First time using Uber in the states. Great experience. $10 USD from downtown to San Marco. Picked up in under 3 minutes.

[TheCat]

So, who's been using Uber on the regular or irregular?

What are your thoughts thus far?

[FSBA]

I've used Uber a few times. No complaints so far. Far better service than I ever had using Gator City.

[ben says]

So, who's been using Uber on the regular or irregular?

What are your thoughts thus far?

2-3x per month.

I'm a fan.

The quality of driver isn't as high as international drivers (used Uber in Bogota, Paris, Madrid, and Amsterdam)... the 5 Jax drivers I've had talk too much, cars dirtier than compared to other places, don't know good routes and blindly follow GPS.

Also, drivers I've had elsewhere try to coax out good reviews from riders by doing things like providing bottled water, snacks, letting you pick the radio station, and generally not talking your ear off. Haven't seen that in Jax.

But again, all things considered, I'm a fan.


EDIT: had far better service/drivers with uberX than the regular uber. Kind of the converse of most places.