Following in the footsteps of places like Paris, where taxi unions have a stronger foothold, the Seattle City Council voted last night to cap the number of Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar drivers in the city at 150 per car service. The decision was made by a 5-4 vote and will still need to ratified by a full council vote in March, but it marks a new move in this brave new world of cab-driver competition.
As the Puget Sound Business Journal reports, opponents of the ride-sharing services have characterized their cause as one of "cap[ping] corporate greed," even though in San Francisco and elsewhere there's yet to be that sort of anti-corporate sentiment around the ultra-convenient Uber service and the scrappier, fist-bump-happy Lyft.
Ride-share supporters turned out to the meeting with signs of their own, saying that capping the number of drivers hurts competition and the public. And Uber's own local rep said after the vote that the cap will definitely lead to shortages of available cars at prime times. Like when it rains. Which up there is all the time.
As you may recall, the fight by traditional taxi drivers against Uber and other services has already reached a boiling point in Paris where striking taxi drivers last month shut down highways around the city's airports and physically attacked Uber black cars.
