Put Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) down as unimpressed with D.C. Taxicab Commission Chairman Ron Linton’s sting last week on Uber.
In a letter to Linton today, Cheh said that while she appreciates the chairman enforcing the District’s regulations over taxis and limousines, she found Linton’s efforts, which left a driver facing $1,000 in fines and the loss of his Lincoln Towncar for the three-day weekend, to be a bit much.
Cheh, who chairs the D.C. Council’s Environment, Public Works and Transportation Committee, is a fan of the app that hires off-duty luxury livery sedans at prices that are slightly more expensive than the city’s taxicab fare schedule:
Instead of impounding vehicles and issuing over $1,000 in fines, it seems to me that a better approach would be to encourage innovation and work with Uber and other similar businesses in order to bring them into compliance.
For his sting operation, Linton requested a car from Uber and asked for a ride to the Mayflower Hotel. The responding driver, Ridah Benamara, is based in Virginia, and out-of-district livery vehicles are not permitted to transport customers entirely within District boundaries. (In addition to operating illegally, Benamara was also written up for not providing adequate proof of insurance.)
In her letter, Cheh said she sees clear evidence of a demand for Uber’s services as an alternative to a taxi fleet seen as “mediocre and unreliable.” She also wrote if Uber is in fact breaking the law—Linton has asked the attorney general to look into the matter—that she would like to explore ways to make Uber legal.
The DCTC and Uber are still trading words, though, and Linton says he is still hoping to meet with the company’s representatives. The commissioner appeared on The Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU today and defended the Friday incident further. In his interview with Nnamdi, Linton repeated his explanation that in charging for time and distance without a visible meter, Benamara was guilty of taking an unlawful charge.
Most of Linton’s time in the studio covered a set of reforms to taxicab regulations that will be considered by Cheh’s committee later this month. Linton took several calls from drivers upset by some of the proposals in the taxi overhaul bill.
After Linton left the studio, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick dialed in to further defend his company. Kalanick repeated his stance that his D.C. team had done all their due diligence in setting up operations here.
“We can’t find any law that is even a gray area,” he told Nnamdi, adding that in his understanding, limousines in D.C. are allowed to charge based on a combination of time and distance. Earlier in the program Linton said that limousine prices need to be agreed upon by the driver and passenger before the ride; Uber, which charges a base rate plus distance and time driven, bills its riders after the fact.
Kalanick also noted that Uber and Linton were “going back and forth in the press.” Safe to say their exchange isn’t quite finished.
