During a panel discussion regarding modern transit technology this morning in St. Petersburg, HART interim CEO Katharine Eagan was anxious to correct state Senator Jeff Brandes when he said that within the next few years, share-riding services like Uber and Lyft will be competing directly for business with Eagan's transit agency in Hillsborough County.
"They're not our competition," she said flatly. "We can't compete."
To illustrate her point, Eagan went on to describe the cost for a disabled bus rider to utilize HART's Paratransit service (which picks up riders directly from their home) to go to the grocery store. For one thing, such a ride has to be requested a day in advance. HART then gives a ballpark time for when they can pick up the passenger, and must also set up a time to in advance for that passenger to be given a ride back home. Though it cost the customer just $4 one-way, the cost to HART is $35, or $70 for a roundtrip.
However, a ride from the same distance using Uber of Lyft is roughly a $6 one-way fare, or $12 overall.
"We are flattered to think we're competition, but this is a totally different universe, and speaking as a transit 'foamer' (i.e., she foams at the mouth, so devoted is she to public transit), they're really good at something and we're really good at something else, so why don't we find a way to work together?"
Eagan and Brandes were part of a panel discussion that also featured Hillsborough County Commission Chair Mark Sharpe, Tampa/Hillsborough County Expressway Authority Director Joe Waggoner, and Bakari Brock, Director of Business Development for Lyft (a representative from Uber was invited on the panel but did not appear).
Senator Brandes has distinguished himself as the biggest cheerleader in the Legislature for "disruptive" technologies like Uber and Lyft, and he continued to carry the flame for them during the hour-long panel discussion, one of several that were part of a half-day long transportation forum hosted by the Tampa Bay Partnership, including a lunchtime discussion about transit with the mayors of Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Lakeland.
"We need to be able to provide the services that communities want, and first-class cities provide these type of first-class amenities," Brandes said about Uber and Lyft, who have been operating without legal authorization in the Tampa Bay area since April.
And the St. Petersburg Republican, in a tough fight for re-election against Democrat Judithanne McLauchlan, predicted that Uber will not only be a direct competitor with transit agencies like HART & PSTA soon, but also with UPS and Federal Express as a delivery service.
"Uber announced the other day that they're hiring 50,000 drivers a month. I mean, how incredible is that?" he asked. "The role of the states is to let this stuff play out, and don't stifle innovation."
But Uber and Lyft have been at loggerheads with the agency that regulates taxi cab service in Hillsborough County, the Public Transportation Commission, who have cited drivers numerous times for driving without being certified by them. But when Christine Kefauver, the moderator of the event, asked Mark Sharpe about issues like regulation and safety, the Hillsborough County Commissioner Chair assiduously eschewed mentioning the letters "PTC."
"The challenge to government is that government works on a 1970s model, and technology is moving so fast," he said. "We have a difficult time keeping up. It's very important that government has a role, and I'm certainly not anti-regulatory, but I do believe the market will address many of these issue. I don't like it when government gets in the way and tries to impede new technologies, out of fear that this disruption is going to damage the status quo."
Concerns about the quality of the insurance for share-riding drivers and the reliability of background checks remain an issue with the PTC, though Senator Brandes easily dismissed those concerns by saying that they will be dealt with in due time.
Meanwhile, as this panel discussion was ongoing, a handful of taxi cab drivers from Tampa who have worked for years were just outside of the parking lot condemning Uber in particular for not playing by the same rules that they had to in order to drive a licensed cab.