Uber has just announced a new partnership with New York City’s yellow taxis that will allow Uber users to hail taxis through the Uber app. With this deal, CMT and Curb, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commissions’ licensed partners, will combine their ride-hailing software with Uber’s. Riders will be able to order taxis through the Uber app, but not vice versa. For example, Curb users will not be able to order Uber through the Curb app. It should be noted that this is good for Uber, as they make money whenever anyone orders a ride through their app. Uber has been “hemorrhaging drivers” due to bad pay and bad working conditions, especially since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, so this partnership will certainly increase revenue for the ride-hailing giant.
This deal is surprising, however, considering the slander of taxis that Uber used to perpetuate in order to draw in more riders. However, NYC also has a limit on the number of rideshare cars that can be on the streets and it looks like Uber is looking to sideswipe this rule.
This deal is the first of its kind in the United States, so its outcome is to be seen, but Bhairavi Desai, the head of the Taxi Workers Alliance, is already suspicious. Desai believes that taxi drivers picking up riders through the Uber app will receive lower fares than if they were hailed on the street, though she also says that “we’re going to seize [the partnership] as an opportunity to negotiate proper terms for the drivers.”
I am immediately skeptical of this deal. It is eerily reminiscent of General Motors buying streetcar companies in the early 20th century and then running them into the ground. The landscape is different and New York City is much less vulnerable than something like Los Angeles in the early 1900s, but it is imperative that New York taxis don’t face the same fate as the streetcars did. Uber has already made it increasingly difficult for taxi drivers to pick up passengers and their treatment of their own employees and drivers doesn’t exactly set a warm precedent.
It should be interesting to see how this partnership affects drivers, both Uber and taxi, and riders alike. Hopefully, Desai will be successful in her venture to bring better conditions and pay for drivers. Uber has said that they are aiming to have every taxi globally on their app by 2025, so hopefully, they pay their drivers a living wage by then.