Anyone who thinks this is about regulations is out to lunch. It's about protecting the investment in taxi licenses. The taxi license sales, however, in no way benefit the city. The licenses are inflated in price, because a large number of them, which originated as totally free permits, were bought up by a small group of people.
I feel sorry for the people that paid into the licenses recently, when the prices were inflated, but the taxi system is an essential service. Something has to be done about the current system. The taxi drivers haven't done themselves any favors by lobbying against new licenses and alternate services. Now the levy has broken loose with uber.
The issue is that the government should never have allowed secondary sales of taxi licenses in the first place. It should have remained, what it was supposed to be, a regulated license each driver applies to the city for. The initial idea behind regulation was to set safety standards for the people, not protect the investment of an oligopoly of license holders. If the city is genuine in its bid for public safety, then the answer is to start giving away licenses to individuals that are non-transferable. Getting a license would require a test, similar to a driver's license test, but more stringent and with additional public service requirements.
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