Brooklynite here. In theory, I want to be behind taxi drivers. They're a local business owners with ties in the community, and I would rather support them than a Silicon Valley startup with a questionable stance on privacy and poor treatment of their workers.<p>In reality though, taxis need to fix a few issues:<p>1. I don't need to be able to hail a cab anywhere--I can't really hail Ubers, either. But if I call a cab, I'd like to have them show up within, say, 15 minutes. The reality is that the explicit promise given by dispatchers is usually an hour, and after an hour, the taxi often doesn't show up. And if I am in an inconvenient area, the time I <i>most</i> need to call a cab, that increases the chances of lateness or no-shows. This could be fixed by fining taxis for lateness or no-shows.<p>2. Auto-playing ads in taxis. The last thing I want after a long day is a screen yelling at me about some TV show I would rather have a root canal than watch. Unfortunately, it seems more likely that Uber will add ads than that taxis will get rid of them, and I don't see a way to prevent this. Advertising ruins everything.<p>3. Taxis that will actually take you somewhere inconvenient without a fight. When I lived in Flatbush, most cab rides started off with me having to threaten to call 311 to get them to take me home.<p>4. Racism. As a white person in a black neighborhood, I've watched black people try to flag cabs and almost universally the cabs just drive past empty. I've gotten in the habit of flagging cabs for black people, and even after the cab stops, sometimes when they realize that it's a black person getting in the cab instead of me, they drive off.
When I moved to New York a few years ago all it took was a handful of taxi rides to figure out that Uber will eventually put them out of the business. I've had drivers lie about not knowing where to go, intentionally take longer routes, and lie about credit card machines while trying to get rides from New York to Brooklyn, or Brooklyn to Brooklyn. To add insult to injury nearly every single cab is filthy and smells horrible, while costing the same if not more than an Uber ride.<p>There's just no comparison here.
So, for context, yellow taxis run "anywhere" but in practice, they are somewhat rare anywhere but lower Manhattan and at the airports.<p>Green taxis, a new category, are only permitted to pick up hails outside of lower Manhattan. They're useful for going between outer boroughs but are reluctant or unwilling to take you to lower Manhattan because they can't pick up a hail there.<p>There is also another, long-standing category known as "car service", where a central dispatcher reached by phone sends you a towncar/minivan/SUV either at a scheduled time (say, for an early flight or your regular work commute), or as soon as possible. Like Uber, they may have an "account" for you so you don't need to provide payment information to the driver, but nowadays many of them have Stripe too. Prices are arguably better for airport rides than cabs.<p>I live in Central Brooklyn and my impression is that there are far more Uber "U"s than any of the other categories, at least in my neighborhood.
Having lived in NYC pre-and-post Uber, the difference in Manhattan traffic is astonishing.<p>Manhattan 2006: <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-2475317-stock-footage-new-york-ny-circa-march-looking-down-a-manhattan-street-it-is-easy-to-see-why-the-yellow.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-2475317-stock-footage...</a><p>Manhattan now(ish): <a href="http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.12078243.1469201706!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_1280/image.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.12078243.1469201706!/ht...</a><p>If you were to teleport a Manhattanite from 2006 to 2016 I think they'd be shocked to see the large number of non-yellow cabs on NYC streets.<p>Regardless of how you feel about Uber-the-entity, the mark it's made on NYC streets is undeniable.
I'd love to see a similiar study for Chicago. The cabs here are, at best, customer hostile and at worst dangerous. My wife is sexually harassed by drivers or is on the receiving end of political talk. Complaint calls go ignored and every cab request is a like playing psycho whack-a-mole. One time I had to walk out of my home with a weapon to make sure my wife was able to get out of her cab safely as the driver kept pressuring her to get out a block away and to be 'helped out.' Oh, the CPD couldn't care less about these kinds of things.<p>Worse, there's a $1 'gas surcharge' for every single ride that was voted in a few years back when gas prices got high. So, a 8 block ride in a Prius means I have to pay an extra $1 in gas? Its incredible how corrupt the entire system is, especially considering how the meters here run on both time and distance and a tip is expected. What should be a $5 ride via a sharing service like uber, turns out to be $10+ with tip and charges. That's on top of inconveniences like loud auto-playing ads in the back of the taxi and constantly being pressured to pay cash or with the driver's swipe account on their personal cell phone (not sure if this is easily read by card reader apps, but shortly after I do this I often have fraud warnings).<p>Thus far our uber rides have been pretty low stress and problem-free. Its mostly younger people from the suburbs looking to make some extra cash. I think driver screening and taking complaints seriously is something uber can do to differentiate itself. I'd say a good 25% of cab drivers in the city have serious mental health issues, if not are wanna-be criminals, and should not be allowed behind the wheel. I think the narrative of safety is often ignored with the cab vs uber debate, but its important to many.
Brooklyn has always been underserved by Taxis. Brooklyn has traditionally been the domain of "black cars" which are premium private livery services. So this isn't saying very much. Also he author states:<p>"October 12, 2015 marked the first day that Uber made more pickups in Brooklyn than yellow and green taxis combined."<p>First of yellow cabs don't operate in Brooklyn, the only way to get a yellow cab in Brooklyn is to happen to catch one who just finished dropping someone off on a Manhattan to Brooklyn fare and happens to have his "on duty light on." The will generally on put this light on if they aren't too far into Brooklyn as they don't want to continue further in.<p>Yes there are geen "Boro cabs" that were introduced in 2013 but even these underserve much of the outer boroughs so again this says less about Uber and more about the Boro Taxis failings in Brooklyn. Source:<p><a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/new-yorks-green-cabs-stay-close-to-the-city-center/" rel="nofollow">http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/new-yorks-green-cabs-stay...</a>
I'm going to give my two anecdotal experiences that caused me to no longer feel bad about using uber over taxis.<p>When I was in Miami, I decided to use a cab from the airport instead of an uber, because the cab was already there. The seatbelts in the back seat didn't work, which the driver assured me was legal in miami. It is legal, but definitely not preferable. He drove me to my hotel, told me the price was 35 dollars, which seemed a little steep, so I checked the meter and found that he hadn't run it. I guess he drove me to the hotel and thought to himself "That felt like about 35 bucks".<p>When I took an uber from my hotel to the airport a few days later, it was 10 dollars, and the seatbelts worked fine.<p>The second one, just a few weeks ago, is only related to price. Richmond airport taxi ride to short pump, 70 dollars. Uber from short pump back to the airport? 30.<p>I understand that uber is operating at a loss, but that still makes it cheaper for users, so just because it's likely going to cost more in the future, isn't going to stop me from using it now.
As someone who lived in Manhattan and just moved to Brooklyn, I can totally see why Uber is more popular than taxis.<p>For one it usually costs less. And two, depending on where you live there is no guarantee a taxi is around the corner. Uber is more convenient.
I don't know about Brooklyn, but when I was traveling in India, Uber was a lifesaver.<p>In the past, you had to leave your dwelling to venture out into the streets, looking for the auto-rickshaws ("tuk-tuk"s). Then you had to haggle with them about the price (no one used a meter). Then, only if they felt like it was worth it, they'd agree to take you there.<p>With uber, you tap the app and the ride appears outside your door. No haggling about the fare. Since Uber pays them by the ride (and not the distance), it's in their interest to get you to your destination faster. And my Uber app that I installed in US worked flawlessly. All in all, it made taking taxis a totally different experience.
In China, Didi (acquired Uber China recently) drivers is more than ten times as the taxis: 14 million vs. 1.35 million. It operates in more than 360 cities.
Uber really doesn't have that great of a value proposition in NYC IMHO. While Uber provides a huge value add in most markets via markedly lower rates and the convenience of not finding a taxi, this is not the case in NYC. Drivers still need to be licensed by the taxi commission so rides end up being more or less the same cost all in with the 20% tip as a normal yellow cab. More importantly, a cab is often the worst way to get from point a to point b in Manhattan. The subway and/or the bikesharing program, Citi bike, are generally the fastest ways to get around from 8AM to 8PM. Even if a cab/uber is going to be your best option, cabs are generally always available within a minute or two of waiting on any Manhattan corner while Ubers usually take 5-10 minutes to arrive depending on traffic and the time of day. It really boils down to population density. NYC is simply too dense to give Uber a logistical advantage like the majority of its markets.
Why should I care if Uber succeeds? I care if drivers succeed, whether taxi, Uber, Lyft, bus, or otherwise. How are the drivers doing in NY? (I don't need the Uber PR version.)<p>Uber goes out of its way to say it doesn't care about workers, my community, or our rules. Why should I care about them?
Are there really only ~2x the green cabs in Brooklyn? They're everywhere in Astoria/LIC in Queens - maybe because of the airports?<p>Edit: also worth noting that green cab drivers often drive for Uber/Lyft as well. It makes a lot more sense for them since they're typically owner-operators.
I use Uber when I occasionally take taxis in Boston, but I <i>never</i> used in NYC. It takes longer to hail an Uber and squint at a hunch of license plate numbers in the dark looking for your driver than it does to hail a cab. There's cabs everywhere.
As somebody who lives in a suburban/ruralish area where cab service was practically nonexistent (one or two cab companies, with maybe a half-dozen vehicles total, to service an area of 100+ square miles), Uber has been a godsend.