If we’re to believe Uber, the rideshare company has come to Chicago with the higher calling of curing a nasty byproduct of the city’s endemic racial inequality.
There’s the widespread sense that the taxi industry has failed to fairly serve people of color, who make up most of the city’s population.
Lee Bey, an African-American who worked as a Chicago Sun-Times journalist and as an adviser in Mayor Richard M. Daley’s office, wrote in social media recently of an experience I can only imagine is all too familiar for many Chicagoans.
“I had a cab driver in a downtown cabstand a year ago refuse to take me to [the University of Chicago] because it was ‘too far,’ ” Bey wrote. “I filed a complaint and downloaded Uber that day.”
Bey told me Tuesday he made the right call. “I live in Pullman and I can get an Uber car here all times of day and night and weekends within minutes. I’d grow a beard waiting for a cab.”
OPINION
Locked in a bitter fight with Chicago aldermen who want to impose tighter rules on it and other ridesharing companies, San Francisco-based Uber has taken a two-pronged approach.
One is to threaten to take its ball and go home if the aldermen don’t back down. Uber and competitor Lyft acted on their threats to leave Austin, Texas, after voters there approved greater regulation of rideshare companies earlier this month.
The second and perhaps more potent thrust of Uber’s counter-offensive here has involved playing the race card.
But does the taxi industry’s allegedly poor track record on race mean Uber and other rideshare companies can provide a solution?
Supporting the argument are aides to Mayor Rahm Emanuel. He has opposed the City Council proposal — and, by the way, his brother Ari Emanuel has a stake in Uber.
A spokeswoman for the administration says the rideshare companies provide more than 10 times as much service in what the city defines as underserved areas. Officials cite self-reported data that the rideshare companies have submitted.
Uber spokeswoman Brooke Anderson says a recent analysis found 42 percent of Uber rides occur either west of the United Center or south of Interstate 55.
But taxi industry advocates say the city has denied requests for the raw data provided by the ridesharing companies, arguing it’s proprietary information and therefore is exempt from release under public records law.
According to a report last November by the South Side Weekly website, Uber said more than half of its business was in underserved areas. But it turns out that the only parts of the city excluded from that definition of underserved were downtown, the airports and the Near North Side lakefront.
“Uber’s impressive statistic — that the 54 percent of rides start and end in underserved areas — is somewhat misleading,” the website reported.
And the Uber Partners Chicago website advises drivers who want to earn incentives for picking up more fares to focus on serving the most affluent neighborhoods, including the Loop, Wicker Park, Lincoln Park and Lakeview.
If the pending proposal passes over the vocal opposition of the mayor and the threats of the rideshare companies, the Chicago City Council would not be the first elected body to defy Uber. In Kansas City last year, the council unanimously required licensing of drivers.
Mayor Sly James — who is African-American — said safety was the main motivation of the legislation there. He blasted Uber during the K.C. council debate in April 2015.
“When it comes to Uber the refrain we have heard from them consistently is, ‘We will not accept any of this. Nothing,’” he said.
Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th) is a co-sponsor of the Chicago City Council proposal but says he understands the allure of Uber. His 22-year-old daughter hails rides from Uber often, and her rides show up quickly at their South Side home, Sawyer said.
“I get it, but I’m not going to throw safety out the window because it interferes with their marketing plan,” the alderman said.
Given that Uber was recently valued at $68 billion, it may be that the primary color driving this debate is green.
