Supporters and critics of ride-sharing services Uber and Lyft packed the Hillsborough County Public Transportation meeting today in Tampa, though many had left the County Center by the time that PTC Executive Director Kyle Cockream unveiled the results of a study regarding those companies later in the morning.
Lyft and then Uber began offering rides via their app in the Tampa Bay area in April without being certified by the PTC, whose job it is to regulate for-hire vehicles in Hillsborough. As a result, PTC agents have been issuing more and more citations to Uber and Lyft drivers in recent months, but it hasn't deterred the two ride-sharing companies from continuing to offer their popular services, which often provide faster and cheaper rides than the established cab companies.
"I'm disappointed this is still a burning issue," Ambassador Limousine CEO and founder Ken Lucci lamented while addressing the PTC. Saying he had been gone from the area for the entire summer, he was disheartened to see that the issue had yet to be resolved between the regulators and the two San Francisco-based companies.
The main issues of contention in Tampa echo the issues taking place across the country. Those are the concerns by regulators regarding the type of insurance Uber and Lyft driver carry, and the quality of the background checks that they are subjected to vs. the established cab companies.
"Nobody here is opposing change, but we need change to be regulated and supervised," said Vincent Tolbert, a longtime Tampa cabbie who now owns Silver Fox Cab Company. Looking over at the various Uber and Lyft drivers in the audience (who were easily distinguished by their pink Lyft T-shirts), Tolbert said they needed to get certified and get a background check. "I'm not against you," he assured them. "But you're going to have to abide by the rules."
But Lyft driver Michael Wilson argued that it was time for the PTC to give the public more choices in transportation. "It's sweeping across the country, and we have to deal with that," he warned lawmakers.
Seth Mills, an attorney who has represented cab companies in Hillsborough County for years, offered the familiar talking points of the industry, saying that unlike Uber or Lyft, certified cab companies in the county were required to pick up fares 24/7, 365 days a year, regardless of where the call came from.
But Channelside resident Mike Hammonds rejected that thinking, saying that he's been taken advantage of by cab companies for years. He referred to being charged $20 take a short ride from Ybor City to Channelside, of being told by cabbies that their credit card machine doesn't work (it's supposed to), and that he's been rejected for getting a ride because of its short duration.
Although PTC officials had complained earlier in the summer that neither Lyft nor especially Uber seemed at all interested in negotiating with them, they said there have been more regularly attended meetings in recent weeks.
But those meetings haven't come to any grand compromise. And that's still the case after Cockream read aloud the results of a study his staff has been working on all summer regarding this issue. On the vexing issue of insurance, Cockream said that the ability to set standards in the state lies in the hands with the Florida Insurance Regulator Commission, who the PTC has reached out to for guidance. Cockream says their response is expected soon.
Regarding background checks, both companies boast that their policies are extremely intense. Katie Franco, a spokesperson for Lyft, boasted that its reviews are so thorough that only one out of every four applicants gets selected to drive for Lyft. But Cockream said that the PTC uses "Level 2" background checks which he says are "standard in the industry." He says they work more efficiently than what the ride-sharing services currently use, and offered to do such checks for Uber and Lyft drivers.
Uber turned the heat up on the meeting before it began, sending out mailers over the weekend to supporters of their service and telling them to contact PTC chairman Victor Crist and County Commissioner Al Higginbotham, saying they were impediments to the free market. Both men, as well as Tampa City Councilwoman Yolie Capin, criticized the company for doing so.
"I will not be strong-armed, bullied, pushed around by a special interest or the lobbyist of a special interest group when it comes to the safety of the public or the welfare of the public," Higginbotham declared towards the end of the meeting, which lasted nearly three hours — half of that taken up with public comment.
Referring to his 1995 hunting accident that injured his spinal cord with resulting medical bills totaling $900,000, Higginbotham said Uber's tactics were "unacceptable."
Crist was more light-heartened about being singled out, saying the mailer showed him lacking hair in the photo. He also at one point in the meeting put on a Lyft-style mustache, saying that he had once dated a woman with a mustache. "I'm sorry about that," the Lyft driver who addressed him said.