With Uber and Lyft threatening to pull out of Minneapolis if an ordinance raising drivers’ pay takes effect May 1, a coalition of groups representing the city’s elderly residents, people with disabilities, the hospitality industry and the airport joined Mayor Jacob Frey on Monday to urge City Council members to step back from the “cliff.”
Frey joins business, disability and senior advocates to urge reversal of Minneapolis’ Uber, Lyft vote
The City Council is scheduled to take up the question of whether to reconsider the ordinance in its meeting Thursday; Uber and Lyft have said they’ll leave if it goes into effect May 1.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
April 8, 2024 at 9:07PM
“For me as a blind person, I can get around without Uber [or] Lyft and use public transit,” Corbb O’Connor, state president for the National Federation of the Blind, said in a news conference. “But it’s not always the most convenient, and it’s not always the most reliable ... We support other rideshare companies coming in, but one thing that we know takes time and effort and energy and skill and expertise and connection with the community is making sure those apps work for people with disabilities.”
A split City Council last month approved — over the mayor’s veto — minimum pay for drivers of $1.40 per mile and 51 cents per minute. The rideshare giants have said they cannot afford to pay drivers that much. Uber and Lyft said they would be willing to stay, however, if the pay raises were limited to 89 cents per mile and 49 cents per minute — rates identified in a recent study by the state Department of Labor and Industry.
At the behest of Council Member Andrea Jenkins, the council is scheduled to take up the question of whether to reconsider its ordinance this Thursday. Jenkins, along with council members Linea Palmisano and LaTrisha Vetaw, also attended the news conference, in which Frey asked the council to look toward the state’s report for guidance on how to raise wages for drivers without driving away the jobs.
“I couldn’t care less about Uber and Lyft’s bottom line,” the mayor said. “This is not about helping those two companies. This is about helping the people that rely on this important transportation network to get from point A to point B.”
Next month Minneapolis is expecting to host the Clean Power convention with some 7,000 out-of-towners, and in June the USA Gymnastics Championships is anticipated to bring 50,000 visitors, Frey said.
Hospitality Minnesota, a hotel and restaurant industry group, projects that 75,000 visitors with more than 175,000 hotel room nights booked will visit over the next three months. The group’s CEO, Angie Whitcomb, said she is worried that new rideshare companies may not get licensed, background checked and scaled up in time to manage unmet demand should Uber and Lyft make good on their threats to leave.
According to city spokesperson Greta Bergstrom, four new rideshare companies have applied for transportation network company licenses in Minneapolis, but currently Uber and Lyft are the only ones licensed to operate. The four companies in the licensure process are Moov, MyWeels, Joiryde and Wridz. Once the companies pay the $47,760 license fee, provide proof of insurance and answer all formal review process questions, it is possible they may obtain licensing by May 1, Bergstrom said.
Chad Leqve, vice president of Operations and Management at Metropolitan Airports Commission, said last year there was a daily average of about 3,800 Lyft and Uber pickups from the airport, compared with an average 650 taxi pickups.
“We are concerned that people arriving to MSP from faraway locations may not be aware of the disruption in rideshare services,” Leqve said. “They may arrive May 1 expecting to use Uber or Lyft as they have for many years, then suddenly find they need to scramble to find other options.”
The Minneapolis Regional Chamber and Minneapolis Downtown Council launched a website called RideshareRealityMSP.com, which includes a countdown clock to May 1 and aims to track the economic impact that the Minneapolis ordinance will cause thereafter.
Angelique Kingsbury, chair of the Minneapolis Advisory Committee on Aging, said Uber and Lyft’s planned retreat from Minneapolis is causing “a lot of fear” among the seniors she works with. “None of the seniors I know really want to rely on public transportation. They don’t want to stand out in the heat and the cold and walk over ice and climb snowbanks and be in an unsafe environment. They want to be safe, they want their freedom, they want their independence, and losing rideshare, it’s going to take that away from them.”
From small businesses to giants like Target, retailers are benefitting from the $10 billion industry for South Korean pop music, including its revival of physical album sales.
