

Houston City Council gives green light to Uber, Lyft - danelectro
http://abc13.com/news/houston-city-council-gives-green-light-to-uber-lyft/245069/

======
hellbanner
Houston has their downtown lights turn green sequentially if you travel the
speed limit. Nifty: [http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-
texas/houston/a...](http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-
texas/houston/article/Traffic-light-timing-keeps-congestion-in-
sync-4551668.php)

~~~
shliachtx
I've heard about this before but never seen it in writing, thanks. It is
pretty neat. Do other cities not have the same?

~~~
diafygi
Austin does. Also, feeder roads along highways are a great Texas feature, too.

~~~
Doches
Wow, I didn't realise that feeder roads were a Texas-specific thing. How do
other parts of the country handle commercial properties that face highways?

~~~
skilesare
It is bizarre (and a bit frustrating) to drive down a NJ turnpike and miss
your exit. You have to drive 15 miles to the next one to turn around. And most
urban centers are miles from the exit. No stores around. I like the latter,
not so much the former.

------
baddox
I don't know anything about Houston, but compared to the issues faced by car-
sharing companies in some other large cities, Houston's government seems
remarkably sane.

~~~
_delirium
I used to live there for some years in the '90s and still visit semi-regularly
because family live there, and in my own experience (which may not to apply to
all neighborhoods), nobody cares about this market in Houston, because
everyone drives their private cars. So it's kind of a meh, do what you want.
There is a very small public-transit system, and a smallish number of taxi
drivers who mainly serve business travelers (there's a fairly big convention
business, and a lot of oil & gas business travel). I never once took a taxi in
4+ years living there, and nobody else I knew did either. I rarely even _saw_
a taxi, much less contemplated something as New-Yorkian as trying to hail one
on the street. So I think the average Houstonian has basically no opinion on
"disrupting the taxi market", because the Houston taxi market is not a major
player in Houstonians' lives. I'm sure the taxi drivers do care about this
kind of thing, because the business-travel market is non-negligible, but
that's more of a back-room lobbying kind of discussion; the average Houstonian
doesn't take taxis and won't take Uber.

~~~
FlailFast
Speaking as someone who who lived in Houston for the last two years, I
disagree about Houstonians not wanting Uber/taxis. Yes, we all have cars, but
I can't tell you how many times I would have preferred not to drive on
Friday/Saturday nights (as a 20/almost 30-something). We wind up driving
because, as you say, taxis were rare, and when they were around they were all
pretty awful. Not living there now, but I'm very much looking forward to
visiting Uber/Lyft.

Also, as an aside, I knew someone in Houston who was in city government, and
it's amazing how some of these dynamics work. Basically, this change was
blocked by the yellow cab lobby for the last two years, and only for the price
of about $5,000 of campaign contributions per city council seat. Local
politics are insane.

~~~
_delirium
I don't think it's taxis being rare that's the problem. You _could_ always
call a taxi or a car service, and occasionally I'd see people do that from
bars. Which seems to be the basic model here too, call a vehicle to a location
and wait for it to arrive. And business travelers already take car/limo
services to the airport when they're being reimbursed. But most people avoid
taxis/cars because it's expensive, and because you've always got your own car
anyway (and parking is easy/free). Maybe in a smallish area around Montrose or
Rice Village it'd work, but I don't see people taking Uber/Lyft to most of the
city, unless they really cut the prices (which doesn't seem to be their
strategy). If you're going downtown and live in Clear Lake or Bellaire, you
_could_ today avoid driving and pay ~$100 in round-trip taxi/limo fare. But
nobody does. Or, you could in the future pay ~$100 to Uber/Lyft for the same
thing. Will this entice more people? My guess is not many.

~~~
nilkn
Suburban commuters of course won't use taxis or Uber. But Houston is
experiencing an urban revitalization. Almost everybody I know either lives in
the loop or wants to.

For folks in the loop, having easy transportation to/from bars, for instance,
makes Uber pretty attractive.

~~~
_delirium
Interesting; I haven't seen an in-town movement in my social circles. If
anything the opposite: big movement outwards, to areas that used to be
considered _way_ out but are now becoming part of the city in a huge exurban
development boom. People who used to live inside Beltway 8 are moving to areas
that I used to think of as farmland but are now apparently big growth areas,
along the I-10 corridor towards Katy in the west, and along the I-45 corridor
towards League City in the southeast. The "energy corridor" around the
Westlake area in particular seems to be an center of activity pulling growth
out along I-10 westwards.

~~~
msandford
It's happening both ways. The finance and finance-related things are all
downtown and the inner-loop is gentrifying. So is the East End (in a BIG way).

BUT because the oil companies are moving their operations west (BP and others)
and north (Exxon) people are also migrating those directions.

You would think this would mean that real-estate prices in the donut between
the loop and the beltway would be pushed downward but it's not happening. The
population seems to be growing faster than the "city" expands so prices are
going up everywhere.

------
cwyers
I am down in Houston about once a month for work, and I am thrilled by this.
My experience with Uber has been much more pleasant (and less expensive) than
with a cab.

Coincidentally, the smartphone app you can use to hail a cab in Houston (and
other markets, I think) has renamed itself from TaxiMagic to Curb, and the
branding and UI seem a lot more modern and frankly Uber-like.

~~~
smkelly
There is also Yellow Cab's Hail A Cab app, but it is terrible. Well, it is
great once you manage to register and login, but the actual registration part
is nearly impossible last I had to.

~~~
justizin
Why bother when you can just call 415-333-3333 and let it ring for 45 minutes
while you walk in the general direction of home? ;)

------
McKayDavis
And at the other end of the spectrum: the state of Hawaii has told UberX and
Lyft to stop all airport service until they obtain permits and pay fees.

[http://www.civilbeat.com/2014/08/state-to-uberx-and-lyft-
no-...](http://www.civilbeat.com/2014/08/state-to-uberx-and-lyft-no-more-
airport-rides/?cbk=53e208aa91317)

------
dominotw
Please tell me AirBnb is still far being legal.

~~~
undata
...why?

