
Lyft lobbying to prevent Portland from regulating impact of ride-sharing - cozzyd
https://humantransit.org/2019/02/lyft-lobbying-to-keep-cities-from-governing-themselves.html
======
joecool1029
Honestly, I would much prefer everything get regulated at state level.

I live in NJ. There are 565 municipalities here. Every single one has
different regulations. For example, if one were to pick up a prearranged
regular fare from Terminal A at EWR (Newark Liberty International), they might
not know that this terminal is in the City of Elizabeth. The city sometimes
has plainclothes detectives write $783 tickets. For prearranged pickups by
non-airport taxi, not solicitation.

Uber and Lyft got regulated under a statewide 'rideshare' law here. Townships
and cities can't ticket them for doing pickups. Taxis have to know all the
regulation of every municipality they operate in. In the above example,
Elizabeth wrote a ton of tickets for rideshare drivers before the statewide
framework into effect.

I'm aware large cities provide unique challenges and can understand why NYC
for instance should be allowed to regulate their own taxi/livery situation,
but for the rest of the state it doesn't make sense to have every little town
have different regulations.

Edit: Seems someone did write a petition that even covers the nuance of
allowing some larger municipalities a little oversight
[https://www.change.org/p/new-jersey-governor-help-the-
taxi-i...](https://www.change.org/p/new-jersey-governor-help-the-taxi-
industry-taxicab-crisis-in-new-jersey-legislation-needs-to-be-changed)

~~~
woodpanel
Echoing you concern and somehow related: in Germany it is almost impossible to
get state of the art software infrastructure on the road for customers of
public transit because of the fragmentation of transportation providers.
Municipalities run their own systems and while not all of them are actively
sabotaging attempts at increased coherence, none of them has any incentive to
increase coherence either.

If it weren't for the state-run federal railway system, that runs also
commuter railways in all German cities (and thus can enforce pressure) I
reckon there would even be no software to calculate a ride from one end of the
country to the other. And there would certainly be no product like the
BahnCard, were you can use all of Germany's public transit for ~4.200 € /
year.

~~~
adrianN
Japan has bunch of different rail providers that run parts of the network. I
wonder how the interoperability problems are solved over there.

~~~
klodolph
Well, sure. But long distances are usually covered by Shinkansen, and shorter
distances are often covered by one of the regional JRs. All of these are
supported by JRS
([https://www.jrs.co.jp/english/](https://www.jrs.co.jp/english/)) which run
IT and the railway information services. You only need to buy one ticket for a
JR trip even though several companies may be operating the trains you use.

For more local service, there are also private railways and various metro
systems. They sometimes have agreements to allow transfers between them, like
the two Tokyo subways. So if you are going to use two different subway systems
in Tokyo, you buy a transfer ticket and have to pass through a gate in the
middle of your trip to transfer to the other system.

~~~
CaptainZapp
_They sometimes have agreements to allow transfers between them, like the two
Tokyo subways._

That's a pretty gross understatement.

There are more than a dozen companies operating public transport systems in
Tokyo alone and it's all interconnected. They don't only seemlessly
interconnect (via PASMO or SWICA smart cards), but they also share common
designators for their station labellings.

 _So if you are going to use two different subway systems in Tokyo, you buy a
transfer ticket and have to pass through a gate in the middle of your trip to
transfer to the other system._

I remeber exactly that. But that was around the year 2000, where it was really
difficult to use public transport without a guide as a foreigner. Today, with
a smart card, consistent and unique labelling of every station, regardless who
operates it, and all ticket machines talking perfect English it's a breeze.

~~~
delfinom
>There are more than a dozen companies operating public transport systems in
Tokyo alone and it's all interconnected. They don't only seemlessly
interconnect (via PASMO or SWICA smart cards), but they also share common
designators for their station labellings.

Perhaps they are more culturally motivated to present customers with the best
experience unlike trying to fleece customers for every dime in America. Just
saying.

There's a chance if you don't integrate your transit with the other guy, they
may pay more to use yours and spend 2 hours traveling. Win!

------
r_klancer
Of interest to HN.

 _Specifically, the bill Lyft has proposed and is attempting to pass would
eliminate the ability of every Oregon city from taking the following common
sense steps to protect TNC passengers:

    
    
       ...
       - Collecting local data, which is critical for understanding congestion and climate impacts.
       ...

_

TNC providers are not eager to reveal any more of their data than they have
to, for reasons of proprietary advantage. Similarly they understandably don't
want to take on the operational cost of having to comply with many local
requirements. (I work in data at a tech company; I can sympathize with their
point of view.)

Yet if urban mobility ultimately becomes a good provided by tech monopolies,
we want to make sure local governments are in on the loop with respect to the
knowledge and data those companies have, and have some leverage to enforce
local requirements.

Applications to current issues regarding privacy regulation, antitrust and
tech monopolies, and the potential rollout of autonomous vehicles are left as
an exercise for the reader.

Also, recommended: "Inside the Transportation Data Tug of War" \-
[https://www.move-forward.com/inside-the-transportation-
data-...](https://www.move-forward.com/inside-the-transportation-data-tug-of-
war/)

------
dvtrn
I've complained about this here before after Uber and Lyft did the same thing
in Texas
([https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2017-03-14/lege-f...](https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2017-03-14/lege-
for-sale/)), states certainly have an interest in legislative preemption when
there's a good and prevailing cause for it, I won't argue the legal merits
there, but I think this warrants serious consideration beyond the surface when
voters (as was the case in Austin) decide on municipal code and business
effectively 'buy' preemption or else threaten to take their ball and go home
([https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-05-13/our-city-
our...](https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-05-13/our-city-our-
headache/)).

~~~
pbreit
Shouldn't legislation be more reactive than preemptive? Isn't the Uber/Lyft
worst case scenario that traffic gets a little worse?

~~~
vkou
The worst case scenario is also that fixed rate, lottery availability taxi is
completely replaced by highest bidder availability.

Depending on your value system, this can be a good, or a bad thing.

~~~
SilasX
That’s only how it works in theory. No city actually has a blinded lottery
system for equitable pickups. In practice, drivers just discriminate on who
looks likely to tip more when demand is hot, and this is very hard to police.

Price controls rarely have this ideal outcome.

------
pdx_flyer
Calling Portland "dense" is hysterical.

As a Portlander, I can say we are a terrible example of what NIMBYism does to
efforts to lower housing costs by adding density.

Our city has a decent public transit setup and if the focus was on adding
usable density with improved transit options, rather than people trying to
protect neighborhoods, we'd be much better off.

I am fine with Lyft wanting this regulated at the state level. It seems like a
weird hill to die on for Portland.

~~~
SilasX
“Less dense than than optimal” does not imply “density effects don’t matter
for city management as claimed in the letter [eg for scarcity of road capacity
or pickup points]”.

~~~
pdx_flyer
Well, the city has done very little to move density forward. They continue to
approve buildings that are mostly overpriced, poorly built, studio apartments.

The other problem is that the commute pattern in Portland isn't into downtown
only. There are people who commute from the east side of town, through
downtown, through the tunnel (or one of the other limited transit options over
the hills) to Beaverton or Hillsboro to work at Nike, Intel, etc. The
efficient public transit options for that commute simply don't exist. It can
take 1.5+ hours to do that via MAX and bus.

~~~
SilasX
Which, I agree, are important issues, but don't obviate the mayor's reference
to municipalities' need to manage the problems of density (rather than be
overridden by voters that don't encounter such problems).

------
cheriot
If America's urban areas were good at "geometry" they wouldn't have so much
parking and such shitty transit.

------
syntaxing
I feel like every state should mandate accessible data similar to Taiwan's
approach ([https://data.cdc.gov.tw/en/](https://data.cdc.gov.tw/en/)). New
York has a similar program but does not have the hackathon or incentives for
people to use the data.

------
kodablah
Color me naive, but I'm always confused why those troubled by the lobbying
criticize the influencers instead of the influenced. The influenced aren't
some innocent party here. Surely it is more reasonable to act in the best
interest of your company as a lobbyist than it is to act against your
constituents as a politician. Where is the scathing letter directed towards
the writers/signatories/supporters of the bill in question? The reason you see
this one is simple PR as a city lobbies for their way at the state level just
as Lyft lobbies and they know anti-big-company is an effective tactic.

If the city of Portland has a problem with the state of Oregon, then that's
where the politicians need to hash out their issues.

> Specifically, the bill Lyft has proposed and is attempting to pass [...]

Lulz...what kind of terrible spin is that. I would be ashamed if I voted for
this guy. Lyft doesn't pass laws.

~~~
eganist
> I'm always confused why those troubled by the lobbying criticize the
> influencers instead of the influenced.

Bribery tends to be a crime because we haven't found a way to short circuit
_en masse_ the human tendency to submit to influence.

> Lulz...what kind of terrible spin is that. I would be ashamed if I voted for
> this guy. Lyft doesn't pass laws.

Considering your comment, I shouldn't be surprised that you would be
dismissive of the idea that directing influence means exerting greater control
over the legislative process; it's only the technicalities (i.e. Lyft is not a
legislator) that differ. The statement holds, and I think many of us would
appreciate a more dignified rebuttal to the article's point rather than
"lulz."

~~~
darawk
> Bribery tends to be a crime because we haven't found a way to short circuit
> en masse the human tendency to submit to influence

Contrary to popular belief, lobbying and bribery are in fact not the same
thing.

~~~
pbreit
What's the difference?

~~~
darawk
Seriously? Lobbyists are paid to talk to politicians. They represent interest
groups, and make their case in DC and other places. They do make campaign
contributions, but that does not represent anywhere near the same level of
influence as an actual person to person, quid pro quo bribe. There are actual
places in the world where bribery is rampant, and if you lived in one of those
places, you really wouldn't need to ask this question.

~~~
moosey
Local level bribery might not take the same forms that it takes in other
countries, but the top level bribery is easy to see. We have massively
expensive elections that are used to direct money towards a massively
expensive system of 'election contractors' all of whom were elected officials
at some point that now receive dark money via this system.

Of course, compared to our lobbying system, where people like Joe Lieberman
now work, taking money to inform other elected officials that if they play the
game right, they'll also make millions from corporations 'lobbying' the
government. They'll help to make sure that you have a long career with lots of
attention by funding your campaigns.

Lobbying sounds great, but like many things, we've perverted it.

~~~
darawk
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying lobbying is great. I'm merely trying to
keep some perspective that lobbying, while not ideal, is still much better
than actual bribery.

------
googlemike
Really odd comment sentiments here. I fail to see how this is a good thing as
opposed to alarming.

------
ikonst
Many of the bullet points are somewhat vague, but one is strangely specific:

> Prohibiting companies from charging passengers with disabilities higher
> prices during busy times.

First of all, what constitutes 'disability'?

How will passengers identify themselves as 'disabled' to the apps?

How would the companies store this highly private information? (think medical-
info grade, not credit-card grade)

What will indemnify the companies from claims of discrimination, claims
possible in light of the companies being aware of users' disabilities,
information they never wanted to keep in the first place?

And finally, not to make it the main topic, but who would pay for this? That
"surge pricing" you pay is, in turn, being paid to the drivers. The drivers
are "chasing the surge'.

~~~
thomaslangston
I would assume the definition of disabled at play here is related to the
equipment of the car e.g. wheelchair lift, or service required e.g. driver
getting out of the car to help someone in or out of the car.

~~~
ikonst
So it's not a status but just a per ride assessment -- if you appear disabled
when the driver comes to pick you up, he should ask not to receive surge pay
for that particular ride?

------
a_imho
How is Lyft different from any taxi service?

~~~
beerlord
Because its much better, and so attracts more people to the service.

Uber has a great potential to be used as public transport, with dynamic route
pathing based on supply and demand. Something traditional public transport
could never do.

~~~
anth_anm
Uber is a disaster as public transit. It's functionally little different than
just having everyone drive themselves. Not needing parking is a big benefit,
but it's still a bad idea.

~~~
beerlord
It is functionally very different because:

-You dont have to drive around and find a park (less congestion and real estate)

-You can pool your trip with another user (Uber Pool)

------
wutbrodo
It's worth noting: as much as a low-quality source like this frames their
headline as if devolving control to local government is an unalloyed good, the
interplay between the policy of nested polities (eg city, state, federal) is a
much more complex issue, and one that people come down on the other side of
fairly often (as a simple, dramatic example, the repeal of Roe v Wade is
considered to be a nightmare scenario for many here, and yet it's precisely a
case of federal law restricting the ability of local govts under the aegis of
protecting individual rights[1]).

I'm not expressing approval or disapproval of Lyft's actions, but I think it's
worth pointing out what a low-quality source this is, given its reliance on
leaning into the reader's biases right from the headline. Low-effort advocacy
like this is almost never the best way to understand a topic, just as a
libertarian think tank's hypothetical "Lyft protects consumers from
authoritarian local govt's" headline wouldn't be.

[1] I know this is a complicated issue and I'm really not interested in
getting arguing it on its merits; it's just a convenient, widely-recognized
example that takes the jurisdictional form I'm describing here.

~~~
CaptainZapp
What exactly is low quality about the source? Apart from the fact that Mr.
Walker is without question an expert in public transport most of the blog post
reprints a letter from the city of Portland outlining Lyft's dirty tacticts.

The actual blog entry simply outlines the different requirements between dense
- and suburban city areas.

Your comment, smearing the original poster, seems to me vile and totally
beyond the point.

~~~
Dylan16807
Repeatedly stating that only city folk can understand a city is uh... rather
divisive and insults the reader's intelligence.

~~~
techsupporter
But that's not what the author wrote in context. He is pointing out that
representatives from rural and suburban areas propose regulations and laws
that benefit those types of areas and are often directly opposite of what
people in a dense area need or want.

That's not being insulting; that's the expected outcome. People should
advocate for what is suitable for the area where they live. (What that happens
to be and how to implement it is always up for debate.) But for a
representative of a rural or suburban area to insist that a city have the same
rules as--and no more than--a rural area is not feasible.

That's what the author was getting at within the context of those two
paragraphs. It's also the push/pull dynamic of cities and rural/suburban areas
that's been going on in state governments since time immemorial.

------
ineedasername
It seems like the tldr of Portland's objections is that rideshare services
result in a net increase of cars on the road-- the rideshare cars-- because it
makes taking a cab more convenient than mass transit. But it seems like an
inverse effect might offset this issue: fewer people choosing to own & drive
their personal vehicles because it's now more convenient to use rideshare
services an not have to worry about finding & paying for parking.

~~~
jerrysievert
burst traffic vs constant traffic, where burst can be defined as commute
times.

you can see the affect in downtown Portland, where car traffic was mostly
concentrated to burst hours with the rest of traffic being a relative trickle
of vehicles that weren't delivery or transit vehicles. now, it's a constant
stream of lyft/uber labeled cars at all hours, in addition the the burst
hours. anecdotally, no passengers most of the time (around 70%), seeming to be
between fares.

------
Kiro
The HN crowd has always been hypocritical when bashing Uber but praising Lyft.
They are the same kind of crooks.

------
subroutine
ITT there seems to be a lot of sentiment that city/county local governments
shouldn't be able to implement policy on anything but the most trivial
matters. As if politicians and corporations residing in other cities are
better suited to make impactful local policy. I dont get it...

Then again I am still scathing from a similar case study in my home town of
San Diego, with Airbnb. Our city council passed some policies to regulate
whole-home short term vacation rentals in residential areas. It limited whole-
home short-term Airbnb/VRBO rentals to 6-months per year (you could still rent
out a spare room or granny flat on Airbnb as much as you want).

Airbnb wasn't having it. They hired a gazillion signature gatherers to brute
force a public ballot measure. I'm talking about a signature gathering army;
they were such a presence/nuisance it led to absurdities like Trader Joe's
filing a lawsuit against Airbnb [1].

To be clear, Airbnb is killing San Diego's local renter market. Over the last
5 years, thousands of rental properties have been converted to short-term
Airbnb rentals. These images speak for themselves:
[https://imgur.com/a/UBJYbwr](https://imgur.com/a/UBJYbwr)

This is on the heels of an independent consulting firm warning that sd housing
and rental prices are rising at an alarming rate, and F grade in new housing
development (blame SANDAG?), and single-family home prices slipping out of
reach of median income earners (further saturating the apartment rental
market) [2].

The natural reaction was SD locals filling town-hall meetings for several
solid months, demanding city council take action (it was a sight to behold,
because, I mean, when do you ever hear your friends say 'I just got back from
a town hall meeting?'). And they did. And everyone cheered.

And then a week later it was all over.

The funny thing is; it won't even be a ballot measure. Airbnb understood that
if they got the minimum number of signatures, they could force san diego city
council to either (1) rescind the policies they just passed and start over on
new policy more favorable to Airbnb - it had to be since laws require
resubmissions after a petition to be _substantially_ different; or (2) no
policy whatsoever, until a formal ballot measure could be put in front of
voters (i.e. 2+ years of no policy & airbnb propaganda).

TLDR; a silicon valley company has more sustained influence on san diego
rental/housing policy than san diego elected officials

1\. [https://www.fastcompany.com/90231150/trader-joes-has-
filed-a...](https://www.fastcompany.com/90231150/trader-joes-has-filed-a-
restraining-order-against-airbnb)

2\. [http://londonmoeder.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/06/Regional-...](http://londonmoeder.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/06/Regional-Housing-Study-San-Diego-County-Final.pdf)

~~~
twoodfin
Or to put it another way, San Diego property-holders now have more control
over what they do with their property than San Diego elected officials.

~~~
subroutine
Right, if only that were true.

It's a bigger pain-in-the-ass to run a property as an STR compared to renting
to some local on a yearly lease, since tenant turnover always requires a
variety of owner/prop-manager/property interactions (cleaning, fixing stuff,
finding the right seasonal listing price, interacting with people unfamiliar
with the area, and a big issue of dealing with 'vacationer' collateral damage:
trashed apartment, pissed-off neighbors, etc.).

That final hurdle (the 'pain-in-the-ass bottleneck') is almost completely
mitigated in the current manifestation of Airbnb. We are at a tipping point
where corporations buy dozens, hundreds, of residential properties and
automate the entire STR process. Vacationers book online, they show up at the
STR and punch-in a pin code to open the front door (no need to shake anyone's
hand), vacationers stay for a few days, leave the STR in whatever state of
affairs, later that day some contracted cleaning staff shows up and cleans the
mess, washes the sheets etc, and resets the door-lock on the way out. Voilà,
fully automated STR. Rinse, repeat. And the more STRs the corporation owns in
a city, the lower the overhead cost per unit.

Here is one such company... Sonder.

[https://www.sonder.com/destinations/san_diego/search?ne=32.8...](https://www.sonder.com/destinations/san_diego/search?ne=32.87694%2C-117.08127&sw=32.674009%2C-117.285917)

If you take a look at the map of their San Diego offerings, you'll see a bunch
of pins on the map with numbers like <9>, <12>, <14>, up to <27> it seems. But
if you look closely, that doesn't mean they own 27 total apartments in San
Diego, that number means they own 27 apartments/lofts under that single pin.
Sonder is a Silicon Valley based company, waddayaknow.

------
scarejunba
I've seen the effect of San Francisco "governing itself". In many respects, I
would rather they didn't.

"Governing itself" isn't some magical good. The cost of incompatible laws in
jurisdictions can be large and invisible. Since the legislature ignores the
cost of laws, they are encouraged to complicate things as much as possible.

I'm on Lyft's side here.

~~~
spacegod
You want corporate interests to rule a city? That's not even remotely
democratic.

~~~
iamdave
_" Governing itself" isn't some magical good_

I don't think one who holds this particular stance is particularly concerned
with the merits of democracy. Call me on it, if I'm wrong, scarejunba.

~~~
Dylan16807
The topic is city level democracy vs. county or state level democracy.

A lot of housing and transportation problems are caused by the regulation
being too local.

~~~
anth_anm
a lot are caused by things like messed up state level property taxes.

California's housing problems are multiple levels of poor regulation.

------
rahimnathwani
After reading the article (including the letter which was reproduced within),
I feel an equally fair title could be:

"Mayor and Commissioner of Transportation lobby for the right to enforce their
own rules, not just state laws, on Lyft"

~~~
NeedMoreTea
How so? It seems like the mayor is reacting to lobbying by Lyft.

~~~
rahimnathwani
The state is considering a piece of legislation. The mayor:

\- wrote a letter and released it for publication by the press

\- gave interviews or quotations to journalists for publication

Both of these seek to influence state legislators, and the evidence is right
there in the article.

Where is the evidence of Lyft's lobbying?

And does 'who started it' matter? (I mean, if X did the first lobbying act,
does that automatically make them the party in the wrong?)

~~~
dvtrn
_Both of these seek to influence state legislators, and the evidence is right
there in the article.

Where is the evidence of Lyft's lobbying?_

I'd like to counter your question with a question: why shouldn't a mayor be
speaking up to influence state legislators if they believe legislative issues
could have an impact on their city? This is literally one of the primary
duties of being an elected leader at the city level.

~~~
Dylan16807
> why shouldn't a mayor be

...but nobody said they shouldn't.

~~~
dvtrn
I'm sorry, taking into context the comment I quoted from the chain it resides
in, from the way the person I'm responding to initially reacted to this post,
it looked otherwise at a glance.

