Austin, TX Ride sharing

[pcslookout]

What ride sharing service do you think will win the market?

http://kxan.com/2016/06/02/travelers-guide-ridesharing-apps-offer-rides-from-austin-airport/

http://austin.culturemap.com/news/i...austin-transportation-network-companies-apps/

 

[Genx87]

Austin is such a mess. These idiots running the city after effectively banning ride sharing are now setting up stings via craigslist to bust people ride sharing.

http://keyetv.com/news/local/austin...g-operation-targeting-underground-ridesharing

 

[poofyhairguy]

Neither, both will fail and Austin will go back to Uber/Lyft with their hat in their hand when they cannot ignore the rise in DUIs anymore.

There will be some really egregious accident (church van full of children taken out by drunk 20-somethings) and suddenly the protectionist bullcrap that the taxi companies got stupid Austinites to back won't matter anymore.

The town is very reactionary as a culture.

 

[Gibsons]

Neither, both will fail and Austin will go back to Uber/Lyft with their hat in their hand when they cannot ignore the rise in DUIs anymore.

There will be some really egregious accident (church van full of children taken out by drunk 20-somethings) and suddenly the protectionist bullcrap that the taxi companies got stupid Austinites to back won't matter anymore.

The town is very reactionary as a culture.

If the taxi companies weren't so god freaking suckass awful, maybe they could compete instead of legislating.

 

[poofyhairguy]

If the taxi companies weren't so god freaking suckass awful, maybe they could compete instead of legislating.

The funny thing is that Uber kinda did this to themselves be misreading the market.

When the proposal for the new rules came out, Uber spent MILLIONS trying to educate Austinites of how stupid those rules were. And they threatened to leave if the rules passed.

Austinites (who are mostly media "savvy" hipsters or wanna be/try hard hipsters) completely ignored the message because they ignore marketing messages by default (that aren't hand drawn) and instead saw how hard Uber tried to convey the message (again millions of $). So these savvy Austinites determined that "they can't tell us what to do!" and backed the stupid taxi-company created rules to their detriment.

When the vote went down EVERY SINGLE PERSON I know who supported the taxi proposal was just SOOO sure that Uber/Lyft was bluffing and they would stay even if Austin made it a pain in their ass because Austin is such an important town to do business in. When Uber/Lyft left there was this state of shock that it actually happened, and when that subsided all that was left was a hurt pride that those bastards at Uber actually did what they said they would do (the NERVE of those people!).

Once that hurt pride heals the rules will change back and people will pretend like it never happened. Austin was already starting to depend on Uber/Lyft to solve transportation and development problems:

The Austin City Council previously eliminated parking requirements for new downtown projects, said Jerry Rusthoven in the city’s Planning and Zoning Department.

“Our transit system is more robust than it has been in the past, and there are more options today for on-demand transit such as Car2Go, Uber and Lyft and B-Cycle,” Rusthoven said.

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/business/30-story-car-free-apartment-tower-planned-on-congr/nq5sN/

So they will be back eventually. Until then it's just another egg on this face of this stupid ass city and its stupid ass leadership (or lack thereof).