Chicago’s efforts to cut down on traffic congestion has resulted in an increased tax on particular ride-hailing trips by Uber and Lyft.
The proposal from Mayor Lori Lightfoot increases Chicago’s tax on single-passenger trips and lowers it on shared rides, while adding surcharges on weekday rides downtown. Those raises will resent in $40 million in new revenue for the upcoming fiscal year.
But Uber and Lyft says this will hurt low-income users of the service.
More on the story from a recent Reuters report:
Earlier this month, the city’s first female African-American mayor accused Uber of trying to resist any kind of regulation by stirring up racial tensions.
Uber rejected her claims and said alternative proposals it offered would spare lower-income communities in Chicago’s South and West sides from higher costs, while raising more money for the city’s budget.
Reuters’ analysis of data that ride-sharing companies are required to disclose to Chicago shows fares for shared rides in the city have risen significantly over the past year, while fares for single riders have remained stable.
Ride sharing is still a work in progress
As Craig recently wrote about, Uber will start a pilot audio recording program in Brazil and Mexico next month and apparently expand the offering to the U.S. “soon” afterward. It’s an initiative that’s aimed at combatting the string of reports related to drivers committing murders and sexual assaults.
I can’t say I find this as invasive as Craig thought it. And, likewise, I don’t think it is too invasive for communities to set their own tax standards for what makes sense to them: in fact, I think it makes great sense to tax single-person rides over shared ones.
I’ve taken plenty of single-rider rides before and know how convenient having that option is, but by and large, it is important to consider how rapidly-expanding technology like ride sharing apps affects a given space.
