For the past several months, the ridesharing company Uber has been in a heated battle with New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio over a proposed cap on the number of new drivers.
While both sides have negotiated a ceasefire for now, there’s little doubt that future tensions will arise, especially considering the immense pressure the taxi cartel has been placing on the government to preserve the value of its medallions.
Now, a new study by the Manhattan Institute’s Jared Meyer suggests that low-income and minority neighborhoods would be hurt the most by any future government intervention in the company’s operations. Uber cars are more likely to service poor communities than taxicabs, making transportation much more accessible and affordable in the Big Apple.
From Meyer’s executive summary:
UberX growing fast in low-income neighborhoods. Of UberX rides in noncore Manhattan and non-airport zip codes in December, 60 percent were in zip codes with median household income below the noncore Manhattan median—up from 54 percent in January.
UberX serves predominantly nonwhite, as well as predominantly white, neighborhoods. In the 29 noncore Manhattan and non-airport zip codes with one or more UberX pickups per household, black households constituted 29 percent of all households, while the average for all 146 noncore Manhattan zip codes was 27 percent. The aforementioned 29 zip codes included neighborhoods ranging from Greenpoint and Park Slope—where less than 5 percent of households are black—to Crown Heights and Harlem, where more than 75 percent of households are black.
The irony of the whole situation is that Mayor de Blasio has made his political career largely about fighting for the poor. Yet his supposedly “progressive” policy would regress New York City into an pre-smart phone era where low-income New Yorkers would have fewer transportation options.
Meyer powerfully summarizes what the horrendous consequences of de Blasio’s proposal could have been in a piece for the New York Daily News:
If a cap on Uber’s growth had been put in place in January 2014, there would have been over 200,000 fewer rides provided by the service for lower-income outer-borough residents in December 2014, as the ride totals in these months for below-median zip codes were 32,000 and 256,000, respectively. These expanded transportation options for outer boroughs should not be removed by city bureaucrats worried about Manhattan traffic.
It’s no surprise that a well-paid politician would be out of touch with the transportation realities of low-income New Yorkers. For the sake of accessibility, let’s hope he wakes up to the needs of the very constituents he claims to represent.