"We are obsessed with our city’s identity and sense of community, and we are particularly wary of outsiders who come in promising to change us.... A collision of communitarian social activism with Ayn Rand-style technology disruption was probably inevitable. 'Wrong fight. Wrong time. Wrong town,' said Ron Marks, an alum of the old punk rock scene who had a role in 'Slacker.' To be clear: The city never told Uber and Lyft to leave. But it did insist that they play by our rules and have drivers be fingerprinted, just like cabbies — particularly after the police investigated at least seven alleged sexual assaults by ride-share drivers in 2015. Instead, the companies responded by helping to put Proposition 1 on the ballot: They would be absolutely exempt from fingerprinting by the city. Period. That was the second mistake. They arrogantly confused a convenience for a few as a necessity for the many.... Uber and Lyft have claimed they will reduce the nation’s traffic, but in Austin they just added to the aggravation...."
From
"How Austin Beat Uber" by Richard Parker, who I thought was
the tiger in "The Life of Pi," but who is actually the author of
"Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America."
Well, not only is "The Life of Pi" one of my all-time favorite books, but
"Slacker" is one of my all-time favorite movies. So my first question is, which one was Ron Marks? He played the role of the Bush Basher, who's just a
guy we see in one little scene, ranting about Bush:
Anyway, obviously, Austin thinks it's special. It is special! And one thing about it is the traffic is horrible — not just way overcrowded, but aggressive as hell. The other drivers want you the hell out of there. I am not surprised these people voted against Uber drivers crowding them in their fiercely guarded car space. I know all about the highway version of the "sense of community" they have down there.
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people voted against Uber drivers crowding them in their fiercely guarded car space.
Uber cars take less space on the road than personally driven cars or cabs? Seems unlikely. They should have thought about parking.
I just left Austin permanently after 40 years. The main reasons were three: Terrible traffic. Awful summer temperatures. Socialist city government.
Here in civilized Kenosha, WI, there is hardly any rush-hour traffic, plenty of parking anywhere, we stay cool in summer, and we have Scott Walker leading the way out from under the few remaining strictures of socialism. Imagine the pleasure in regaining use of plastic bags, the option to purchase hard booze on Sunday in a grocery store, experience of cooling summer rain, four seasons, and green grass. We can freely water our lawns and wash our cars. And we can work for or ride Uber and Lyft.
And Madison, Chicago and Ann Althouse are not far away.
I'd don't have time to read the article, so just tell me: Did the damn' Ubers scare the carriage horses?
From "How Austin Beat Uber" by Richard Parker
Did Austin win? Uber & Lyft are gone. Both companies will continue to make plenty of money elsewhere. People who want to drive for those services or uses those services in Austin are out of luck. Who won? People who wanted Uber & Lyft to conform or leave.
Going along with your Slacker quote, why should we conflate people who voted on the winning side of the Prop 1 question with "Austin" as a whole?
Prop 1 lost by 12 points (56 to 44). Turnout was 17% .17 * .56 = 9.52%.
Althouse: This is the dumbest comment you have ever posted. completely without substance with fumes of latent liberal vacuity. Congrats.
Rick said...Uber cars take less space on the road than personally driven cars or cabs?
Part of the ordinances the city council passed last Dec (and that Prop 1 would have removed) prohibits cars from stopping in the road to pick people up. I have definitely seen Uber drivers do that (leaving a venue last night, in fact) and it is definitely annoying. In total fairness, though, we've all seen cabs do similar things. They ordinances also required cars to show that they were for hire/picking people up, again sold as a means to help others identify which cars might pull over and stop to drop off of pick up, I guess.
The ultimatum was Uber and Lyft’s third and fatal mistake. We don’t take kindly to threats. Right before the election they announced that if they didn’t get their way they would maroon all the customers and leave. As my friend Mark Seiler said, “That just brought out my inner gorilla.”
Self-admitted thug.
Hilarious. 2 things liberals love(Austin, Uber) at each other's throats. If I'm a liberal techie type, who do I side with? Oh god fuck....
Austin Uber /Lyft drivers are all from greater Austin. Traffic won't change one bit. There will just be 0 people "sharing" a ride with other folks from Austin now. Furthermore, share ride drivers aren't what Austin doesn't want. What Austin doesn't want is to be bullied by disrespectful slackers from California.
Texas is a really big empty space. Austin ought to make room for a few more drivers.
Now, the REALLY stupid thing is that this deal was sold as being "for safety." The same city council just this March passed a "ban the box" law ("Fair Chance Hiring" ordinance) which applies to any businesses with more than 15 employees and prohibits the employer from asking if applicants have a criminal record. For Uber & Lyft, though, they passed last year an ordinance requiring any contractors driving for those services to have their fingerprints taken and run against criminal databases...to ensure people working for those companies don't have criminal backgrounds.
So, yeah. It's not crazy to see the ordinances as motivated primarily by animus against Uber & Lyft. But, you know, that's fine--the city doesn't want 'em, and they left. The companies put forward some numbers showing that drunk driving accidents & arrests decreased when the services became active in the city, but hey, there was a vote and the companies lost. Local area, local control--if you don't like it, vote 'em out or leave. It's not ideal, but pushing decisions like that down to the lowest jurisdictional level (cities as opposed to counties, counties as opposed to states, states as opposed to the national gov) is what federalism's all about.
I have two kids working in Austin. My wife and I use to worry when they went bar hopping on sixth street (as is their wont) but for the last several years not so much. They religiously take Uber home and we sleep much better at night.
That is until last Monday.
This is not PR bullshit. This is real.
"Uber cars take less space on the road than personally driven cars or cabs? Seems unlikely. They should have thought about parking."
I don't understand your point. People driving in Austin do not like having to share the road with anyone. They will aggressively, possessively crowd you out, preventing you from changing lanes or merging in the normal manner. Uber and Lyft drivers are just out there doing more driving, making more traffic. Those are people doing extra driving to make money and to help out people who don't have their own cars. I think the regular citizens with cars don't like that.
"Althouse: This is the dumbest comment you have ever posted. completely without substance with fumes of latent liberal vacuity. Congrats."
You're welcome. I like to post things I think are are particularly dumb. It's one of the main things I do. Didn't know this one was all that especially dumb, but nice to know I hit a high.
"Texas is a really big empty space. Austin ought to make room for a few more drivers."
There is no room on the roads they have there and the way the place is constructed there is no way to make more room. It's a closed box of traffic craziness and everyone knows it will get worse and worse. It is the worst traffic situation in the country, I've been told.
Ann Althouse said...
I don't understand your point. People driving in Austin do not like having to share the road with anyone...Those are people doing extra driving to make money and to help out people who don't have their own cars.
The alternative to not taking Uber isn't staying home it's taking a cab or driving yourself (some people with cars take Uber so they can drink or to avoid expensive parking). Hence there's still a car on the road taking up the same space as the Uber car would have.
"There is no room on the roads they have there and the way the place is constructed there is no way to make more room."
Why would Austin be unique in this regard? They don't seem to have unique physical constraints like lakes or mountains.
My wife and I voted for Prop 1 (Uber/Lyft), but they ran a terrible campaign, and it's no shock that they lost. Having said that, I despise the City of Austin and their paternalistic attitude toward its citizens. I voted for Prop 1 because I like to think I'm old enough to assess risk on my own, without having the City do it for me. Today they City announced that they'd be setting up a Hotline to help the suddenly unemployed Lyft/Uber drivers find other work, and they've also announced that they'd like to "level the playing field" and see about letting more people drive taxis in Austin. The taxi companies are not amused.
I love Austin, but sometimes I don't like it very much.
Ann Althouse said...Uber and Lyft drivers are just out there doing more driving, making more traffic. Those are people doing extra driving to make money and to help out people who don't have their own cars. I think the regular citizens with cars don't like that.
Maaaaybe, but if you look at the demographics of Uber & Lyft users in a place like Austin I'd bet most of them own their own cars (as opposed to users in, say, NYC or San Francisco). Additionally if you're taking Uber to some event (or even just a restaurant) you might car pool together in an Uber vs. meeting your friends at the event, so the total # of cars on the road at any given time could be lower. Parking is better, too, since you're not taking up spaces at the location.
I don't think many people object to Uber because it puts more cars on the road. They might object to Uber because it makes traffic worse (with lots of stops, blocking traffic lanes to drop off/pick up at random places, etc) and they might say that Uber drivers are particularly bad (not knowing the neighborhoods/routes well, distractedly driving trying to find people and staring at their GPS/Uber app). I HAVE seen some arguments that Uber & Lyft are bad because they give people an alternative to public transportation (an alternative young non-poor people prefer) and in that way lower demand for public transportation and encourage overall car use--but that's one of those 2nd order/long term arguments that most people don't care about in other circumstances/as applied elsewhere.
A surprisingly-large number of people seem to buy the "fairness" arguments against Uber--that taxi companies have to comply with X expensive regulations & restrictions so Uber should have to, as well. I'm not sure what other explanation there is for some of the regulations these places are trying to put on Uber (about marking their cars, etc) since, as I said, I don't buy the "it's for public safety" line.
"...and the way the place is constructed there is no way to make more room."
City Council wants it this way. It's hard to go east-west/west-east in Austin. In the early 70's TxDOT, which was flush with cash, offered to build some wonderful crosstown expressways to connect Mopac with IH 35. The city fathers said, thanks, but no thanks....if we build roads more people will move here....stifle the roads, stifle the growth." So only two of the crosstown expressways ever got built, and that took another 20 years.
The tree-huggers have controlled the Council since at least the mid-60's, and the city is the worse for it. I hate the way the city government tries to control my life. No plastic bags is a good example. Makes some liberal feel good about himself, but doesn't help the dump at all.
Ooh, sorry to get off topic, but I heard an NPR story yesterday about colleges struggling with the question of whether to mark students' transcripts to show sexual assault/student misconduct accusations or convictions. The consensus seemed to be that most schools will start doing that soon if they aren't already.
My mind immediately went to the fact that the current US Attorney General is pushing for companies to no longer ask about the prior criminal history of employment applicants. The Austin city council passed an ordinance designed to to the same thing--it's a big Leftist push since it follows from their belief that the criminal justice system unfairly targets minorities (and since it's true that a criminal conviction does make it harder to get a job).
So we're at an interesting place; there's extreme tension between two groups the Left claims to be protecting--women on the one hand (who will be endangered if schools and future employers don't know about someone's history of being found guilty of sexual assault, etc) and minorities on the other hand (who the Left insists will be harmed if employers take criminal records/a history of being found guilty of some wrongdoing into account when making hiring decisions). Who will win?!
"They will aggressively, possessively crowd you out, preventing you from changing lanes or merging in the normal manner."
I thought this was the norm, at least during rush hour. It's the norm in Texas. Is there some magical place where merging onto a freeway during rush hour isn't at least a little frightening?
"Is there some magical place where merging onto a freeway during rush hour isn't at least a little frightening?"
I've heard the people handle it with aplomb and human decency in L.A.
What Austin doesn't want is to be bullied by disrespectful slackers from California.
But they don't mind being mindless progressives like broke Californians. Its just snobby elites from Austin, nothing new.
Austin is in the middle of nowhere and has room to burn. There is no good reason for it to have a traffic problem.
I've heard the people handle it with aplomb and human decency in L.A.
Is this the first joke you've ever made on the site? I can't specifically recall any others.
It's very unusual for two consecutive cars to crowd you out in LA. Almost everyone makes an effort (if they're not wasted/distracted) to make things flow smoothly. There is plenty of cutting (use of exit only lane in an illegal way with intention to cut in at hte last moment), though.
The road rage I've seen around Tampa Bay/Orlando is way more extreme.
As Scott Adams keeps telling us, people are not rational. They know uber is a better deal, they know uber is plenty safe, they know uber saves lives, they know that uber stops to let people off just like they want their cabbie to do...but they got their panties all twisted up because the ad campaign was too aggressive.
Scott Adams for the win again.
Ann Althouse said...Uber and Lyft drivers are just out there doing more driving, making more traffic. Those are people doing extra driving to make money and to help out people who don't have their own cars. I think the regular citizens with cars don't like that.
Also arguing against the idea that Prop 1 lost because people didn't want Uber & Lyft in Austin at all is the city council's repeated claims that they don't want Uber & Lyft to leave (that they're happy to have the companies operate in Austin)--they just want the companies to comply with their ordinances. None of the ordinances (as far as I know) directly restrict the # of Uber or Lyft drivers (in the way some city's taxi medallion prgms restrict the # of taxis) so if you take the city council at their word their ordinances aren't designed to reduce the number of cars on the roads.
Now, of course, I just said that's true if you take some politicians at their words...and I'm perfectly willing to believe that they'd couch their arguments in those terms to avoid legal challenges they might face if they openly admitted "we're passing these laws to make it more difficult and more expensive for particular companies to do business in the city."
In my opinion it is an ongoing thrust to try and force uber/lyft and whomever comes up with the next plan to hire employees instead of independent contractors. Uber is smart to fight this, if they had to hire people the model blows up.
Rick said...
I've heard the people handle it with aplomb and human decency in L.A.
Is this the first joke you've ever made on the site? I can't specifically recall any others.
Well, in fairness, it's easy to handle merging traffic with apolmb when no one's moving move than 5mph anyway. (Study: LA Worst City for Gridlock)
Full disclosure: I'm typing this from my desk at work while I wait for traffic to die down so it won't take me an hour and a quarter to drive the 20 miles from here to my house.
Slacker: Madonna Pap smear. That's all I remember of it, but boy do I remember that.
"we're passing these laws to make it more difficult and more expensive for particular companies to do business in the city."
I believe Councilwoman Ann Kitchens took $5,000 from the taxicab companies while campaigning in the first 10-1 election. Every time I see her bloviating on TV or in the paper about how the fingerprinting was all about safety, I recall that " an hones politician is one who stays bought."
Traffic in Austin is nasty, however. My wife and I changed our work schedules to 4-10's so that we could arrive at 6:15 and leave at 6. This makes the morning drive much easier. Evening drive is variable. And being off Fridays is sweet.
In many locations municipalities are trying to stop the surge pricing, i.e., real time supply/demand pricing. That is something worth fighting for.
But fingerprinting? Why does Uber care so much about the scope of its background checks? They should pick their fights more carefully.
"So we're at an interesting place; there's extreme tension between two groups the Left claims to be protecting--women on the one hand (who will be endangered if schools and future employers don't know about someone's history of being found guilty of sexual assault, etc) and minorities on the other hand (who the Left insists will be harmed if employers take criminal records/a history of being found guilty of some wrongdoing into account when making hiring decisions). Who will win?!"
Obviously, they'll pass a law for secrecy of all criminal histories EXCEPT for sex assaults by white males.
I remember watching Slacker and being surprised that Texas has a Madison, only bigger.
There is nothing special about city government protecting the fat cats that own the taxi medallions.
If you personally require a fingerprinted driver, then just don't use Uber. It's called "a choice" and Austin is appearantly against having a choice most other people in the nation are now enjoying. Stupid leftist control freaks.
"a convenience for a few as a necessity for the many"
Has a familiar ring to it.
Austin is not Texas. It is, like Madison, Boulder, and Berkeley, an outpost of the 60's. They will change their mind. If they don't, the Texas legislature will find a way to do it.
Here in San Juan we have perhaps the worst taxis in the US. They are politically connected and influence a lot of votes so have more power than they should.
Our government does next to nothing right or well but they nailed this on. They invited Uber and Lyft to start serving San Juan and eventually the entire island. I understand it starts Monday.
Taxi drivers are all upset, not least because the permits they paid $20,000 for are now more or less worthless. That is not what govt charges. They just don't issue any new ones and if you want to drive a cab, you buy the permit from someone who has an existing one.
There is a permitting system for Uber but apparently anyone who has a car and insurance etc. that meet standards can get one for a reasonable cost.
I probably take a cab once every 3-4 years but HOORAY!!! for Uber and the govt..
John Henry
Austin is a dry, scrubby, homely little city. Its smug, cliquish, self-entitled citizens are exactly like Texans elsewhere, except that they vote Democrat in elections. That fact gives progressives who lack discernment (but I repeat myself) the warm fuzzies.
Honestly, though, Austinoids don't deserve the esteem. They lack souls. A weekend in Austin is like hanging out on the set of The Walking Dead, except that the zombies get drunk.
Being Texan ought to be classified as a personality disorder in the DSM 5. If that were the case, though, everyone in Austin would apply for SSI, the lazy zombie bums. Of course they don't want Uber or Lyft. They would be driven around by people who work for a living, and nothing could possibly creep out an Austin resident more than that.
For all the talk about LA rush hour, at least it is relatively polite. (At least it was the two times I drove in it.) Slow but civilized.
The town I grew up in is now full of overly aggressive drivers. I think it needs a billboard, "You live in Arkansas now. Please calm down."
"For all the talk about LA rush hour, at least it is relatively polite."
You know what they say. An armed society is a polite society.
Beating Uber is like beating the power looms or the steam engine. Keep Austin weird.
Wait until the hip SXSW crowd arrives from LA, Seattle, NY, next spring and finds out there is no UBER to get around town, as they try to dash from one cool event to the next! Dumb move by Austin.
"I've heard the people handle it with aplomb and human decency in L.A... It's very unusual for two consecutive cars to crowd you out in LA. Almost everyone makes an effort (if they're not wasted/distracted) to make things flow smoothly. There is plenty of cutting (use of exit only lane in an illegal way with intention to cut in at the last moment), though."
LA traffic is horrible but there's definitely a code of ethics in play for the most part. Use your signal, ease over, they will almost always make room. We're all in it together. Though, people will seek to gain advantage it's not really personal.
Unlike the Bay Area, where I've found drivers to be aggressive way beyond LA. Lot more tailgating and such in both the Bay Area and Sacramento area than I ever saw in a lifetime growing up in SoCal.
The few people I've known who were tailgaters, though mostly oblivious to doing it, were from the bay area.
"LA traffic is horrible"
It's not too bad at 5 AM on the 405 when most people seem to be going to work.
How to beat Uber:
1) pass harassing laws
2) convince people that Uber vs taxis is "us vs them"
"I am not surprised these people voted against Uber drivers crowding them in their fiercely guarded car space. I know all about the highway version of the "sense"
You do know that an uber car takes at least one car off the road? That where it flourishes the DUI rates have plummeted.
Very out of touch. You may have been to Austin in your car a dozen times but you are comparing AUSTIN traffic and aggression with Madison dinky town Wisconsin.
When the hipsters wake up to the fact that Uber is gone they will throw a fucking fit. Hide and watch. Uber will be back
Taxis are vile
I've never been to Austin, but it sounds like the Ann Arbor of Texas.
"And here is where Uber and Lyft made their first mistake" ... They assumed that Austin was run and populated by the sane.
If it just had a Ypsi nearby.
Wife and I made a trip to Austin for a wedding recently - first time for both of us - and found the place insufferable and, yes, weird. But, the weirdest thing I observed was the huge homeless population which seems to be herded into specific areas where they camp by the scores - particularly around major underpasses it seems. That, plus the fact that the AirBnB, 1950s style crackerbox house we stayed in near downtown Austin alledgedly sells for several hundred thousand to half a million. Don't know whether that is a function of the traffic or "progressive" building codes, but in a state the size of Texas it is definitely weird. Anyway, I'm going to do my best to help their traffic situation by never visiting again.
"Is there some magical place where merging onto a freeway during rush hour isn't at least a little frightening?"
Rush-hour behavior in Puget Sound country is fairly civilized. The commute itself is horrendous, but most of us are smart enough to save our hatred for the DOT planners, who have undersupplied us with road capacity for a full generation now.
Ah, Austin; Uh, Austin.
"Rush-hour behavior in Puget Sound country is fairly civilized."
Perhaps, but I'll take LA traffic. The last time I drove from Redmond to SEATAC was the worse non-accident-impeded rush hour I've ever experienced.
I don't think you get the hippies/hipsters/counter-cultural types without the vaguely Leftist, collectivist and almost religious communalism/ indebted authoritarian Statism
Austin-Madison-Boulder-Left Coast-many a university town-Vermont...what am I missing?
Too many food bowls around the 'community's' tax revenue.
Does it matter that having uber and lyft probably reduces the number of cars on the road?
"Is there some magical place where merging onto a freeway during rush hour isn't at least a little frightening?"
Chicago. Best heavy traffic town I've driven in.
Austin is a two-bit, low-rent San Francisco.
I am not surprised these people voted against Uber drivers crowding them in their fiercely guarded car space.
I'll assume there is zero evidence that Uber increases traffic. I do wonder how minimizing ride-sharing will help the green movement. I thought Progressives wanted us to carpool more. Apparently not.
Mind you, I'd be stunned if Uber isn't a company that overwhelmingly donates to Democrats.
I don't understand your point. People driving in Austin do not like having to share the road with anyone. They will aggressively, possessively crowd you out, preventing you from changing lanes or merging in the normal manner. Uber and Lyft drivers are just out there doing more driving, making more traffic. Those are people doing extra driving to make money and to help out people who don't have their own cars. I think the regular citizens with cars don't like that.
Professor, that makes no sense. With Uber, both people are sharing one car. Without Uber, there are two cars now. I don't see the improvement.
But fingerprinting? Why does Uber care so much about the scope of its background checks?
What bridge should they refuse to cross? If the regulation is pointless, why do it. Just leave and let them do without. I've wondered why more companies don't do that. "You want to pass this regulation. That is your decision. I am going to shut this down and end every job here. Have a nice day"
Michael K said...
"LA traffic is horrible"
It's not too bad at 5 AM on the 405 when most people seem to be going to work.
Inevitably, in LA traffic ,there's the one car that absolutely has to cross six lanes of traffic into the passing lane and then slow down.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435234/austin-uber-ban-bad
i'll just leave this here and see if you change your mind on this. given UT, 6th street, SXSW why would you not want them there. Have you ever called a cab in Austin?
1. Austin's put a requirement in place for prospective employers to NOT ASK if you've a felony conviction until the hire is imminent.
2. Austin has removed car-lanes from busy streets to make bike-lanes.
3. Austin wants to put bike lanes on all the highways to ease traffic.
4. Austin is installing "surge charge" toll roads (if traffic is heavy it costs more) where (didn't know this until I heard it from a city rep on the radio last week) the objective is not to improve traffic but rather to make it better for busses and emergency vehicles (didn't know that until I heard it from a city rep on the radio last week).
5. Austin citizens have voted repeatedly against light rail, but it will show up on the ballot again this year, and presumably until Austin citizens get it right.
6. I read Austin is the 3rd worst traffic in the US, but leads in complaints about it.
7. There are lots of very large nearly isolated neighborhoods where there's a limited number of accesses that limit potential for getting from one place to another easily, thank God for GPS.
8. Lived in a northern suburb for about 6 years, there are only three ways to get to Austin proper and one of them is I-35. The others are a toll road and a regular highway. No surface streets.
I've been told that the root of the problem is Austin refused to acknowledge development, and developers aren't urban planners. Large plots of land were made into housing with no thought about transportation.
Austin cast Uber's PR efforts as the big guy trying to run over the little guy, and it really took. People got mad. People who drive for Uber, people who use Uber voted against Uber.
So imagine if you owned a company on a razor thin profit margin (actually, Uber is hemorrhaging money at the moment) and the city you'd recently expanded into decided to put it's hands into your pockets, manage they way you do business, and customers in that city decided that was a good thing. Why hang around? Especially after you told them this would cause you to fold up shop?
"Ayn Rand-style technology disruption." What does that even mean? Is he referring to ATLAS SHRUGGED, where the Obama-like Wesley Mouch, the Hillary-like Ivy Starnes, and other repellent statists* cause widespread breakdown with their dopey economic policies?
*whom critics dismissed as caricatures until the real-life Left started coming up with real-life versions of them.
"Hre in Austin we love our horrible taxi monopoly. It's "weird" like us, just like every other big city!".
Screw Austin.
(Says the Portlander who mocks "Keep Portland Weird!" stickers as "Slavishly Imitate Austin!" - I don't want to "buy local" just because it's local.
Compete on products, service, or price. Not "I'm local, you should want to give me money!"
Screw all that, too.)
Fuck the New York Times and the fucking Ron Marks "original punk guy". I was the leader singer in the opening band the night punk started in Austin and I don't remember him there. Quite frankly anyone with the punk ethos should SUPPORT Uber and Lyft for overturning the established order. Yellow Cab is the noodly hippie band of hired cars. Austin used to be a fine town but it fucked itself up, not the least of which was failing to plan for traffic in their mad rush for suburban gold. No reason to go there no except for breakfast tacos at Joe's Bakery and cabrito at El Azteca.
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