Said Madison mayoral candidate Scott Resnick, about a new and bipartisan bill in the Wisconsin legislature that would authorize companies like Uber to operate throughout the state and block local legislation imposing various limitations of the sort Resnick and his opponent Mayor Paul Soglin have been showing enthusiasm for in their campaigns. Soglin said:
"The point is, Uber has got a lot of muscle, they’ve got a lot of money, they have a lot of influence, they’ve done this around the rest of the country, and they have absolutely the best, most vulnerable legislature in the country in Wisconsin to use their campaign dollars to get the legislation they want which is not in the best interest of the riding public. The public needs essential cab service every day of the year, every hour of the day.”
Posts
45 comments:
I thought everyone in Madison walks or rides a bicycle. When did the city government allow cars?
Soglin said:
"The point is, Uber has got a lot of muscle, they’ve got a lot of money, they have a lot of influence, they’ve done this around the rest of the country, and they have absolutely the best, most vulnerable legislature in the country in Wisconsin to use their campaign dollars to get the legislation they want which is not in the best interest of the riding public. The public needs essential cab service every day of the year, every hour of the day.”
Can someone translate that into English?
Madison residents simply float.
Unqualified progress increases inertia in the system.
Local administration failed so the state has stepped in. The details of the bill make sense to me. Are Madison's cabbies unionized?
Marty Keller said...
Soglin said:
The public needs essential cab service every day of the year, every hour of the day.”
Can someone translate that into English?
His bill requires that the TNC have somebody on duty. the State bill does not.
Uber drivers work when they see there is a demand. no demand, they turn off their phones
"Moderation and pragmatism" always ends up meaning the opposite.
The horror…the horror…offering a choice in transportation to those poor, abused Madisonians.
What's next? Choices in schools??? The horror.
Cities ought to buy back the taxi medallions when the let in competing services.
Think of it as a bond payment at maturity, of money they borrowed when they sold the medallions.
Bummer... The consumer won. That means the city also won ... Assuming it cares about the citizens.
When you can't win politically it must be the money. Money doesn't vote, people do. Excuse making.
All this newfangled stuff!
And why do we need this Internet? Why can't we just ring up Mabel down at the Central Office?
At least Mabel was in a union.
Rent seeking.
You can't buy cars on Amazon for the same reason: you can only buy cars through authorized car dealers because otherwise unscrupulous car salesmen might prey upon the public.
Every cartel upheld by government force argues that it's necessary to protect the public.
Adam Smith would understand. Is a free market safe? If the current method of crony Government regulated cabs lose the the monopoly they enjoy will it be a disaster? And whatever will happen when the Mayors lose fiefdoms?
First world problems.
"Cities ought to buy back the taxi medallions when the let in competing services."
Maybe so. The city was selling something (oligopoly rents) that no longer exists.
On the other hand, maybe it was just a temporary oligopoly rent. But I don't think the city advertised it that way when it was for sale.
Corporations=Bad
The Public=A Magical Repository Fueled By Tax Revenue
The People=Me, You, All Victims Of 'Them *May soon include monkeys, dolphins, and Rubella
Über=Corporation, Über=Bad
Buses and taxis and existing infrastructure run by The People and the virtuous people who care about The People=Good
Votes make the money tree grow, and are good for the environment, and the money tree has places for all The People.
"Not enough opportunity for graft" as Insty would say.
What's the mayors position on buggy whip manufacturers?
So... as usual, Mayoral candidates are all about the power of the Mayor's office, and the maintenance of a cozy Taxi Monopoly?
Competition is scary - after all, you can't milk Uber for nearly as much money as a Taxi Medallion scheme.
(If people really "need" 24 hour cab service then ... the non-Uber cab companies will have demand for their services and will thus provide those services, because people will pay them to do so.
The idea that a mandate is needed is typical politician thinking: that which is not mandated plainly won't happen, because only mandates make things happen.
When all you have in mandates...)
Apparently Mr. Resnick has never tried to get a cab in the "ethnic" part of town at 3AM...
When was it that cities became "little states" with nearly all the authority of a sovereign?
The public needs essential cab service every day of the year, every hour of the day.
Umm, isn't that what Uber does? I don't much like the company (anybody who hires Plouffe can bite me for all I care) but to pretend that they don't offer service 24/7 is insane.
"http://althouse.blogspot.com/2015/03/jackie-lied-erdely-lied-rolling-stone.html" just up and vanished. Chilling, I say.
I doubt chilling. The prof doesn't seem to be one to delete threads where people disagree with her vehemently.
The public needs essential cab service every day of the year, every hour of the day.
See, I just don't understand how cab defenders can keep on saying things like this. Maybe it's better in Madison, but in DC, if you need a car at night, you cannot depend on cabs. They might show up on time but they probably won't. I know someone who had to get to the hospital for surgery, who needed to be transported early in the morning, so she arranged for a cab. But of course, they're licensed and regulated so they never showed up and she had to walk. This is the world we live in! This is the reality!
It's because cab service is so breathtakingly, spectacularly unsafe, unreliable, and all-around crappy that companies like Uber and Lyft have found a market.
Defenders of cabs have to grapple seriously with the crappiness of the service they are defending, not retreat into this fantasy world where cabs are safe, trustworthy, and reliable. We know we haven't always been at war with Eastasia -- we took a cab just last week.
So the trick for Uber is to craft legislation that makes it legal for them to compete in the current system, but hard for others to compete with it.
I hope Uber never comes to Madison. It is too complicated for you. I hope you ride around in puke stained taxis. If you can hail one. Call the dispatcher!!!
LOL
Screw you, Paul.
We citizens want CHOICE. Thought you Libs were pro-choice. Guess not.
The 24/7 rule was designed to limit competition. Deters a small company with only a couple cabs from entering market.
The local D-machine lefties in Madison are in turmoil. The yoots who increasingly don't own cars and live through smartphones want the services Uber and Lyft provide. This is a natural D constituency, Obama voters, but the local D machines will never win on maintaining the status quo on cabs, when that status quo is so pathetic. (Who is really being progressive on the issue?)
The Obama yoots have joined the right on breaking the monopoly, and the state-level D's know it. Milwaukee already caved to reality. Hence the bipartisan bill in the statehouse.
Yet another change that nobody foresaw four years ago.
"about a new and bipartisan bill in the Wisconsin legislature"
The two Democrat cosponsors are from Racine and Stevens Point -- places that I imagine have horrible taxi service.
Can you guess how the Dem caucus will split on these votes? It will be Milw-Mad Dems vs. the rest of them.
As someone who lives in the Madison suburbs, Uber will never serve me as they must be within 7 minutes to even count.
I can get plenty of rides within the downtown, but I have never seem an available ride in my part of town. The geography here makes Uber only useful for a small segment of the population.
Too bad they didn't let them come in and fail to serve most people instead of making a giant fight about something that wouldn't work well in the first place.
Mark -- maybe your neighbor will become a driver now that it is legal.
@ Temujin Thank you. Great take!
"Too bad they didn't let them come in and fail to serve most people "
Pretty sure that most people who want the service live in the denser metro areas, which are that way because more people live there. Which is where Uber drivers will be.
Stagecoach will still make a run out yonder every week or so.
I've had so many bad, even death-defying, rides in filthy, greasy, beat-up rattletrap cabs that I find it astonishing that a modern-day pol would try to defend that status quo in this industry. The cab industry is postoffice-like in its level of service. It is absolutely ripe for plucking by any competitor with even a minimal focus on customer service. Maybe others worry about the cab industry being driven out of business - I don't. It deserves it. And I'm speaking of the cab industry in damn near every city I've ever lived in. They are all alike, because they are all creatures of the same government crony-licensing scheme.
Let a thousand Ubers bloom. Let the customer reign supreme.
"The public needs essential cab service every day of the year, every hour of the day.”
-- I know people who swear they can more reliably get Uber at odd hours than other taxis. I've taken a taxi... once in the last five years, so I dunno.
Also: If the public NEEDS essential cab services, release more cab medallions in busy cities. The current problem is not enough are being printed, since there are clearly drivers willing to BE taxi drivers, if they are given the opportunity. Print more taxi licenses, you'll slowly meet the need for taxi service.
I'm surprised there's much of a constituency for banning Uber and keeping the taxi cartels. Most urban liberals I know--granted, not preening swampies but rather moderate liberals--tend to love Uber and think the competition is healthy, maybe leading to better taxi service to keep in business.
Though I'm betting the taxi drivers and their friends and families are more likely to vote based on this issue, while the pro-Uber contingent won't make it such a priority.
Nothing new.
Just try to get your locality to do something about all those ugly noisy wind power machines.
Can't. State preempted it.
This happens in what people call "the third world."
Pay to play.
Grease.
Payola.
" Uber has got a lot of muscle"
The kind you would use to drag passengers out of competing cars?
That kind?
Perish the thought that something new would be allowed in a Progressive city.
Ho! Progressives always Know Better, and like sweeping legislation to keep the peasants in lesser jurisdictions from voting for something wrong.
Payback is a bitch, aint it.
Madison taxi service: called for a cab to take me to the airport for an early morning flight. Guy gets to my far west side home and I bring suitcases out to the cab. Go back inside to turn off lights and lock up house. Guy is still standing there with my suitcases not in cab. He tells me he can not lift suitcases because he has a hernia.
So, after loading cab myself. get driven to the airport and pay a fare of $65.00 w/o tip. Dear lord, only cab fare that even comes close to that is cab fare from Newark to Manhattan!
Bring on the Uber!
Post a Comment