Ride-hailing giants Uber and Lyft face a problem in Washington, D.C.
Ironically, it’s the same problem that taxi companies faced when Uber and Lyft arrived on the scene: new competition. Uber and Lyft made their mark by offering more reliable and cheaper rides than taxi companies. But for more than a year now, another ride-hailing firm, Empower, has been disrupting the local market by offering generally cheaper rides than Uber and Lyft.
Open Empower and compare driver availability to that of Lyft and Uber and you’ll see that the app is booming in Washington. Drivers like Empower because it allows them to set their own prices and keep their own earnings after paying a monthly subscription fee, which varies by ride-earnings bracket. Riders like Empower because while vehicle interiors and driver politeness are less reliable than with Uber and Lyft, and Empower’s time-to-rider-pick-up estimate is at least 25% exaggerated, Empower generally offers significantly cheaper rides. Losing drivers and riders to Empower and thus a lot of money, Uber and Lyft are not happy.
Uber has hired expensive public relations firms to lobby against Empower as unsafe. While they point out that Empower is not approved to operate in Washington — although Empower drivers must complete background checks — they leave out that Uber and Lyft were not approved to operate in many locales in their early days. Put simply, Uber and Lyft want Empower’s competition gone or at least neutered.
In turn, they are hoping for the formal confirmation of Jonathan Rogers, the acting director of the Department of For-Hire Vehicles. Rogers’s office has favored greater regulation and enforcement against Empower. His office did not respond to a Washington Examiner request for comment. He was supposed to face a public roundtable hearing Thursday morning toward his confirmation.
Then democracy started posing problems.
When more than 1,000 Empower drivers registered to join Rogers’s confirmation hearing virtually or in person, District of Columbia Councilwoman Brianne Nadeau simply canceled it. The explanation given was that “the number of witnesses registered to testify at the roundtable has exceeded the number of attendees allowed on a Zoom webinar under the Council’s license. … Written testimony, however, is still welcome. We will include public comments received through the Hearing Management System page for this roundtable in any relevant committee reports.”
Neither the Public Works Committee, the mayor’s office, nor Nadeau responded to a Washington Examiner query as to why the meeting wasn’t simply restricted to its Zoom capacity or a larger Zoom capacity purchased. Considering, however, that the public and political saliency of in-person and video testimony is obviously more compelling than written comments submitted to the “Hearing Management System,” it’s no surprise that Nadeau and the council canceled the meeting. They feared that robust democratic scrutiny would be an obstacle to their agenda.
To his credit, Rogers wants to make it easier for wheelchair users to find an affordable ride. The problem is that he does not appear to want to make it easier for all residents to find an affordable ride and all for-hire drivers to make a better living. At the conclusion of an internal hearing earlier this week, the For-Hire Vehicles Advisory Council excitedly announced that no public comments had been submitted. This, one council member said, “probably means everything is going well!”
Or perhaps no one knew you were holding the hearing? Only in Washington could politicians congratulate themselves for the absence of public comments in one meeting and then cancel another meeting on the same issue that same week because too many members of the public wanted to offer comments!
Sadly, this situation is just the latest example of disdain from the DC Council for those who live in the district. Take, for example, the absurd dichotomy between how it would treat residents seeking a cheaper ride and how it treats the legions of all-terrain vehicle drivers who storm down the busiest streets, and the National Mall, every summer without any regard for lives or road traffic laws. The ATV drivers are almost always ignored by the police, who, thanks to the genius DC Council, aren’t allowed to chase criminals in most scenarios, even though their threat to public safety and the rule of law is patently and proudly advertised.
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Washington, D.C., taxpayers have to deal with some of the highest tax rates in the nation: $3,500 plus 8.5% of everything over $60,000 — higher for those making more than $250,000. Hard-working businesses might have to struggle daily with criminality — something Nadeau notably doesn’t care about. Oh, and the 911 call center remains defined by staff members who don’t show up, incompetence, and cronyism.
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Still, as here, the DC Council seems determined to remind city residents that things can always get worse.
We need a bit of D:Ream.