Ubers and Lyfts appear to be taking over the streets of San Francisco. And city leaders and the public are beginning to grow pretty frustrated with the tech-based taxis.
In San Francisco, the traffic tensions are soaring. And nobody is more upset about the arrogance of the ride-hailing companies than Ed Reiskin, director of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, whose buses and trains must jostle every day with the thousands of cars working for TNCs — “transportation network companies,” as the state PUC designates them.
“Our charge at MTA is to maintain an efficient, safe, equitable and environmentally sound transit system for the people of San Francisco — and as I see it, the TNCs fail on every one of those levels,” he said. “There is no telling exactly how many of these ride-hailing vehicles are now operating on the streets of San Francisco, because these so-called sharing companies refuse to share their data with us. But we know there’s been a huge infusion of vehicles. I can see the traffic impact on Muni with my own eyes. I ride the trains or buses every day. And riding on a full, rush-hour N-Judah train, it will suddenly come to a dead stop because an Uber car has pulled in front of the train to pick up a passenger.
“It’s horribly frustrating for commuters. I hear complaints from passengers all the time and from small-business owners. They ask, ‘Why can’t you do something about this?’”
The reason is simple, Reiskin said. The state Public Utilities Commission routinely ignores San Francisco’s pleas to regulate Uber and Lyft, Reiskin said. “It’s obvious that these companies have well-funded lobbies in Sacramento.”