NYC Extends Uber Cap, Moves To Limit 'Cruising'

NEW YORK — New York City's taxi regulators voted Wednesday to maintain a cap on the number of cars used by ride-hailing apps and restrict how long their drivers can cruise city streets without passengers.

The Taxi and Limousine Commission unanimously approved rules that will extend a freeze on most new for-hire vehicles, set limits on how long drivers can spend waiting around for fares in Manhattan's core and impose fines on companies that violate those restrictions.

The vote came almost exactly a year after the City Council passed legislation to stanch the flow of app-based cars onto the city's clogged streets, a measure that officials say is still necessary to keep powerful companies such as Uber and Lyft in check.

"Transporting passengers is a privilege," acting TLC Commissioner Bill Heinzen said Wednesday. "The app companies do not have an inalienable right to operate without intelligent regulation."

The commission approved the rules despite concerns from the ride-hail companies, some drivers and some City Council members that the agency needlessly rushed them.

Uber pointed to complaints from drivers that continuing the vehicle freeze would force them to lease licensed cars instead of owning their own, which is generally less expensive.

"We worry that the mayor’s rules will hurt drivers’ ability to earn a living and hope that we can work with stakeholders to limit the consequences for riders and drivers," Uber spokesperson Harry Hartfield said in a statement.

Under the rules, the TLC will continue to not issue new for-hire vehicle licenses as it has for the past year. The agency will evaluate whether it should issue more licenses in six months, as required by city law, and monitor the impact of the freeze on cruising in the meantime, according to the rules.

The regulations will still allow Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing firms to add wheelchair-accessible and battery-powered electric cars to their fleets.

They also set benchmarks for the app companies to limit "cruising" by their drivers, or the amount of time they spend on the road without passengers. The TLC estimates that drivers currently spend 41 percent of their time in Manhattan's core waiting for a trip or going to pick up a passenger.

By Feb. 1 of next year, the four major ride-hailing firms — Uber, Lyft, Via and Juno — must ensure working drivers have their cars empty no more than 36 percent of the time while in Manhattan below 96th Street. The threshold will drop to 31 percent on Aug. 1 of next year.

The cruising limits will apply from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekends. The regulations are the only way to cut down the amount of time app-based cars spend in Manhattan's congested core without hurting driver pay, passenger fares or wait times in the outer boroughs, the TLC says.

"We will not let big corporations walk all over hardworking New Yorkers and choke our streets with congestion," Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. "Our caps have resulted in increased wages and families finally have some relief. I look forward to putting these new caps into effect immediately."

Companies that flout the cruising rules will face potentially hefty fines of $350 for every 100 hours beyond the limit. For example, the TLC says, a company whose cars spend 925,000 of their 2.5 million hours in Manhattan's core cruising in March 2020 would have exceeded the 36 percent limit by 25,000 hours, drawing an $87,500 penalty.

Taxi drivers praised the continuation of the vehicle cap and the new cruising rules. Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and one of the freeze's most fervent supporters, noted that the "world didn't come crashing down" after the cap first went into effect. The number of ride-hailing trips has increased across the city, Heinzen said.

"No driver wins under the Uber/Lyft business model of flooding our streets with an infinite number of idling cars," Desai said in a statement. "But today with these rules, every driver won!"

But app-based drivers and City Council members wanted the TLC to delay its Wednesday vote.

Some lawmakers contended the taxi agency should wait until it has a new permanent leader before imposing such sweeping rules. The former commissioner, Meera Joshi, stepped down in March and de Blasio pulled her proposed replacement, Jeffrey Roth, from consideration for the job last month.

The Independent Drivers Guild, a labor group representing drivers for the four major apps, said there was a need for more information about how the policies would affect the industry's workers. The guild called on the City Council to hold hearings about those impacts and take action to further rein in the ride-hailing industry.

"The city is gambling with the livelihoods of eighty thousand low income New York families by rushing through these rules," Tina Raveneau, a guild member who drives for Uber and Lyft, said in a statement.