In the past, when companies or individuals violated MTC policies, police in Saint Louis City and County enforced the commission’s rulings by ticketing drivers. That is, after all, how the region responded to Lyft in 2014. However, Saint Louis City has flatly refused to use its police to block Uber, and police in Saint Louis County haven’t done much either. While the MTC could have used its very limited law enforcement capacity to attack Uber in 2015, the commission found itself in the midst of a public relations nightmare, with the state legislature seemingly ready to step in and completely overhaul the MTC. As a result, Uber now operates in Saint Louis, the police do nothing, and the MTC (while reiterating that Uber is acting illegally) keeps its head down.

 Now that the state legislature has failed either to reform the MTC or implement statewide ridesharing regulations, and with the unprofessionalism of MTC commissioners fading into memory, the taxi commission is reportedly planning to remind everyone who runs this town. As the Riverfront Times reports, the commission will begin seeking out UberX drivers and citing them for operating without a commission license. If such an act does not prompt Uber to shut down its services in the region altogether, it may seriously diminish the number of people willing drive for the company.

Whether or not the MTC will follow through on its threats is an open question. But what Saint Louisans should recognize by this time is that Uber, operating outside the regulatory framework of the MTC, has provided an innovative new service for all Saint Louis residents for almost a year. Where is the evidence that Uber is dangerous? Where are the market failures that the MTC needs to correct? From what we’ve seen so far, it seems that the ridesharing market operates just fine without the MTC.       

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Just not legally.

On 10:00 A.M., Uber, a prominent national ridesharing company, simultaneously filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the Saint Louis Metropolitan Taxicab Commission (MTC) and launched UberX in defiance of that commission. This move followed the breakdown of negotiations between the MTC, Uber, and local government officials over new ridesharing regulations. Some MTC commissioners claim they have made all the concessions they can, and that they are simply enforcing state statutes on fingerprinting and background checks. However, Uber and other local officials claim that remaining regulatory barriers are unnecessary and will prevent Uber from serving the metropolitan area.

In addition to its inability to end Saint Louis’s status as the largest city in the United States without cheap ridesharing, the MTC continues to embarrass the city in its spare time. The latest incident came when a local resident submitted a sunshine request asking for comments and complaints received by the MTC in the last 18 months. One might expect a body whose core mission is to ensure quality cab service to have readily accessible complaint data, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. According to the MTC, complaints are not “readily kept in the ordinary course of our record keeping.” They charged the resident nearly $500 dollars, an amazing sum for files that most governmental organizations would have aggregated and digitized. Those who have read about the MTC’s reaction to a  Show-Me Institute sunshine request will be unsurprised by the MTC’s lack of professionalism.

It is exactly one year and seven months since Lyft, another ridesharing company, attempted to enter the Saint Louis market. Since that time, the MTC has constantly resisted reform, treated requests for information with contempt, insulted the public, and engaged in offensive infighting. How can a commission that cannot regulate its own behavior be expected to regulate the taxi market? How long must residents put up with this self-serving commission? As we’ve suggested before, it may be time for the state to disband the taxicab commission altogether. 

The post Taxicab Commission Still Stonewalling Uber, Residents appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As of last month, the MTC demanded drug tests, specific background checks, and stringent insurance requirements before any ridesharing company could set up in Saint Louis City or County. Since that time, the MTC has backed down on drug testing and has stated that it believes it can resolve issues surrounding insurance. Background checks, including fingerprinting, is the most intransigent remaining problem. In past meetings, the MTC held that Uber’s checks were inadequate. Now the MTC says the main problem is state law:

Fingerprint-Based Criminal Background Checks—Uber is adamant that its own proprietary, Internet-based criminal background checks are more thorough, detailed and reliable than those conducted by law enforcement and based on fingerprint scans of driver applicants. We [MTC] can argue back and forth as to which position is correct. But it matters little what MTC thinks, or what Uber desires. Fingerprint-based criminal background checks conducted by the Missouri Highway Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are the law of the land. And Missouri statutes governing the MTC mandate such checks.

Uber has stated that its own background checks are thorough, and the MTC’s checks may prevent UberX from entering the Saint Louis market.

This post cannot comment on whether the MTC’s interpretation of the law is correct. However, if state law governing the MTC does need to change to allow more flexible background checks, state policymakers should consider such a reform. There is no reason Saint Louis residents cannot decide for themselves whether Uber’s background checks meet their needs.

Should the state legislature decide to reform laws governing the MTC, there is no reason to stop at background check requirements. They should consider eliminating provisions that require four of nine MTC commissioners to be taxi industry representatives. They could also curtail the regulatory powers of the commission to consumer protection provisions, which is all the MTC says it wants anyway. However, given the past performance of the MTC and its recent dysfunction, perhaps the best reform state legislators could make would be to disband the body altogether. 

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Earlier this week, Uber announced that it would provide free UberX rides in Saint Louis for the Fourth of July weekend. That seemed like a huge benefit for the city, as the holiday week is notorious for drunk driving accidents. Free ridesharing has been a promotion many other cities, including Kansas City, allowed while policymakers worked out regulatory hurdles. But despite support from just about everyone, including Mayor Slay, the MTC said thanks but no thanks.

That action was bad enough, but subsequent statements by the MTC’s chair are downright embarrassing for that commission and the Saint Louis region as a whole. The chair of the commission wrote that complaints about Uber were down to “white privilege,” despite all the evidence that the entire Saint Louis community would benefit from ridesharing. The commissioner also openly insulted Chris Sommers, a more pro-ridesharing commissioner, for criticizing the MTC’s decision. Aside from calling on Sommers to resign and “work 4Uber,” the chair used extremely inappropriate language to disparage Sommers over twitter, completely unbecoming of a public official.

To sum things up, we have a commission with a chairman who is publicly insulting another commissioner and using race-baiting language to attack Uber. We have another commissioner who, last week, intonated that we should regulate just about every job that exists and said that Uber is a want, not a need in Saint Louis. Worse yet, those two individuals are among those commissioners who don’t represent the taxi industry. How can we expect this body to come up with efficient, modern for-hire vehicle regulations? Might it be better at this point just to dissolve the commission and start fresh? 

The post It’s Time to Disband the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Metropolitan Taxicab Commission (MTC), that’s who.

The MTC regulates all for-hire vehicle services in the city of Saint Louis, including ridesharing. Problematically, half of its members represent the existing taxi industry, with vested interests in keeping out new competitors and new business models. As we’ve written before, their onerous and outdated taxi regulations are the reason Saint Louis has fallen behind the rest of the nation in getting ridesharing companies to set up in the city. In response to Uber’s petition to allow free rides in Saint Louis on the Fourth, the MTC said they would only allow it if all Uber drivers had gone through the MTC’s background checks (including finger printing) and drug tests. That stipulation effectively scuttles the promotion.

There is some question as to whether the MTC has any legal authority to ban free Uber rides, as the company is not technically offering a paid service. But the commission believes it does have the authority, and it has decided to use it to the detriment of Saint Louis. Moreover, the commission’s decision is in direct opposition to the position of Mayor Slay, who tweeted out on the promotion:

Uber has offered a free trial of its X service for the long holiday weekend. It is a positive gesture that we welcome.

With the MTC now swimming against both the tide of public opinion and the Mayor’s Office (which has hinted that they would not pressure police to enforce the MTC’s decision), it may be time to ask whom exactly this regulatory commission works for, Saint Louis residents or itself? 

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We’ve gone over many times how a local regulatory body, the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission (MTC), blocks companies like Uber and Lyft from freely operating in Saint Louis. To simplify a complicated regulatory story, the MTC only allows ridesharing companies to operate using licensed premium sedans, which the MTC has made scarce. This means that only expensive types of ridesharing, like Uber Black, can operate in Saint Louis, and even then not effectively.

So while many cities across the United States, including Kansas City, have altered their regulations to allow cheap forms of ridesharing (like UberX) to operate, Saint Louis remains a closed market. In many of those cities, ridesharing has provided drastically improved mobility for urban dwellers (a ridesharing vehicle will purportedly show up faster than an ambulance in New York City). In midsized metropolitan areas like Saint Louis, ridesharing companies have created hundreds, if not thousands, of new jobs.

The MTC’s reaction to all this, along with Lozano’s latest critique, has been to claim there is no problem. According to one MTC member, Lozano’s claim that he lost a hire is “a lot of hoo-hah.” Instead of opening up the for-hire vehicle market to competition and letting residents vote over what kind and how many taxis they want with their wallets, the MTC is reviving their on-again, off-again efforts to study the supply and demand for taxis. Unfortunately for Saint Louisans, the commission (which has taxi company owners as commissioners) does not have the expertise or incentives to divine the number and kind of taxis Saint Louis needs.

It should come as no surprise that talented and mobile workers would want to live and work in a city where a cheap ride is available on demand. But more than that, what does it say about how a city is run, when, at the same time local officials want to spend hundreds of millions of public dollars on stadiums and light rail and bar districts to attract residents, they are willing to allow a regulatory body to block an innovative business model that makes urban life better at no public cost whatsoever. Saint Louis should be embarrassed that its leadership simultaneously adopts failed policies out of the 1990s and stamps out fresh ideas.

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This past week, when my flight into Saint Louis was over an hour and a half delayed, I realized I would have to catch a cab home. I usually can persuade my friends to pick me up by offering them Starbucks, but since my flight landed at 1:00 a.m. no one was able to pick me up. With MetroLink stopping service at 12:57 p.m., I was left with no other choice than to get a cab ride back to my apartment in Midtown. After collecting my bags, I went to the taxi stand to find only one company offering cab services. After a 15-mile ride to my apartment, I was stuck with a $44.14 cab fare.

Ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft operate out of cities like San Francisco and Chicago at much more competitive rates. San Francisco even offers UberPool, which matches you with other riders heading in the same direction with the fare split among several riders.

However, since I live in Saint Louis, a city that is inhospitable to innovative and competitive ridesharing companies, I was unable to seek an affordable option.

The Metropolitan Taxicab Commission (MTC) is a regulatory body meant to protect the consumer. Instead, they protect the cab companies who profit from anti-competitive regulations, while consumers are left without options that are prevalent in a competitive market.

Looking through the ridiculous regulations of the MTC’s code, cab companies picking up customers from the airport must obtain a permit and give one dollar for every fare to the MTC. At this time, the MTC has only granted permits to seven cab companies. With limits on the number of permits made available, cab companies are shielded from meaningful competition and can set prices that would be too high in a market with free entry.

I hope the next time I fly into Saint Louis, UberX or Lyft will be an option because I cannot afford many more $45 cab rides.

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The bright spot for residents hoping to use ridesharing was Uber’s entry into the Saint Louis market. By negotiating with regional power brokers, such as Mayor Slay and the MTC, Uber was able to secure regulatory changes that would allow it to operate its expensive black car service, which launched last October.

Unfortunately, the relaxation in regulation was only very slight, and the MTC still firmly regulates taxi operations in the Saint Louis area. For example, the MTC only allows Uber to act as a dispatch service for MTC-licensed premium sedans, the number of which the commission has limited (initially the MTC added only 26 new vehicles to accommodate Uber). The MTC also passed restrictions to ensure that Uber Black uses only premium sedans and charges premium prices, lest they compete with normal cabs.

Notwithstanding the subsequent undersupply of Uber vehicles, Uber claims significant demand and wishes to expand its black car service and begin operating UberX, the company’s true low-price ridesharing service. But unlike cities across the country (including Kansas City and Chicago) the MTC has not shown the inclination to make the large-scale regulatory changes that would open the way for innovative ridesharing companies or create a more robust taxi market.

In a city where officials ceaselessly talk about attracting businesses and innovators downtown, it is shocking that they are unwilling to reduce regulations in order to make the city an easier place to work and play. If Saint Louis is going to experience sustained revitalization, it is going to come from being a leader in fostering new businesses, like ridesharing companies, that residents choose to patronize. It will not come from splashy, taxpayer-funded development schemes that regional leaders repeatedly propose.

The post Saint Louis Ridesharing Update: MTC Still Dragging Its Feet appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Enter Uber, Lyft, and other app-based ridesharing companies. Kansas City’s stringent taxi regulations are not well designed for new technology or the use of personal vehicles for transportation on which these companies rely. When Lyft entered the Kansas City market without receiving city hall’s permission, officials filed injunctions and accused Lyft of endangering public safety.

Since that time ridesharing has made some progress in the City of Fountains. Uber, with the blessings of city hall, launched its black car service and UberX in the second half of 2014. While the process has encountered a few problems (some UberX drivers are still being ticketed over regulatory issues), the city has shown flexibility. Lyft was even allowed to operate until it voluntarily suspended operations on October 24, 2014, to await possible regulatory changes.

Those changes might be close at hand. The city is in the process of reviewing all of its taxicab policies, and proposed changes include modernizing regulations, removing some barriers to entry, relaxing requirements for vehicle inspections, and easing requirements for vehicles’ commercial insurance. That Uber and Lyft drivers do not carry primary commercial vehicle insurance has often been a cudgel used to attack these ridesharing companies, despite evidence that suggest over-extensive insurance does not protect public safety.

Adopting a “trust but verify” system toward ridesharing companies is a step forward for Kansas City, but that spirit should also include traditional taxis. When Kansas City allowed UberX, a direct competitor to taxi service, to offer services under “livery vehicle” regulations (designed for limousines and premium sedans), it essentially created a two-tiered market: the highly regulated traditional taxis vs. the less regulated Uber. That puts cabs at a distinct disadvantage and may mean they are driven out of the market. Putting cabs out of business through overregulation is not progress, any more than regulating ridesharing out of Kansas City would be.

Instead, Kansas City officials should use this opportunity to stop micromanaging the taxi business and limit itself to requiring taxis to carry adequate insurance, perform background checks, and pass vehicle inspections. A truly open for-hire vehicle market could accommodate both high-quality traditional taxis alongside innovative business models; and that would provide the greatest benefit to the residents of Kansas City.

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