Uber Petition

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by normtwofinger

I didn't know about Uber and other apps before this thread. I briefly looked over their website. My initial thought: this has murderer/rapist written all over it. What safety measures are in place that makes this different from online hitchhiking?

I'd rather be murdered and raped than have to deal with Calgary cabs on a Friday night, so this online hitchhiking option is worth it to me.

[calgarywinning]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Not using blinkers, veering in and out of traffic, talking on the phone, having no idea where they are going...taxi drivers the world over are revered for their safety! Some of my my most WTF driving moments happened as a passenger in a cab. That and I have permanent neck damage from a drunk Calgary taxi driver going through a red light and t-boning our car.

The Uber driver may or may not be much better. But the bar is pretty damn low already.

I am really sorry to hear this.

There have been so many times I have thought my life is endangered in the cabs. One of my very dear friends was extremely injured in Las Vegas as well.

[ZedMan]

So the taxi cartel is pretty bad, but is Uber any better?

http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/26/60...abotaging-lyft

[cam_wmh]

Originally Posted by Schultzie

Signed.

Calgary also desperately needs 24-hour train service (on weekends at the bare minimum). I'd vote for Adolf Hitler as mayor of this city if he ran on that platform.

They don't even do that in London.

[vanisleflamesfan]

"Uber" is a stupid name.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by Schultzie

Signed.

Calgary also desperately needs 24-hour train service (on weekends at the bare minimum). I'd vote for Adolf Hitler as mayor of this city if he ran on that platform.

Practically no systems on earth run 24 hours - tracks require pretty much constant maintenance, and this needs to happen when trains aren't running - i.e. night

[calgarywinning]

Originally Posted by ZedMan

So the taxi cartel is pretty bad, but is Uber any better?

http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/26/60...abotaging-lyft

Well let's get the government to regulate and manage it, that way we will be where we are at today.

Have you used this service or Lyft?

Can we please have some positive change and opening up transportation options for Calgarians.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by vanisleflamesfan

"Uber" is a stupid name.

Agreed. I didn't click this thread before because I thought it was a petition to get some German EDM DJ guy to come to town or something.

That said, I signed the petition. Anything I can do to throw a middle finger at the taxi commission and I'm on board.

[calgarywinning]

This from Uber today:

Thank you for taking the time to fill out the petition to help bring Uber to Calgary. Your support means the world to us, and we can't wait to bring safe, convenient, and reliable transportation alternatives to YYC.

We want you to picture a Calgary where getting a safe ride happens at the tap of a button. A Calgary where once you've ordered your ride, you actually know it's coming, and you can track your car in real-time. A Calgary where your pickup takes five minutes or less. A Calgary that has Uber.

More than 180 cities around the world have Uber. Help us convince City Hall that Calgary deserves Uber too!

SHARE THE PETITION, AND KEEP THE DISCUSSION GOING, BECAUSE #CALGARYNEEDSUBER

[Burninator]

I wrote a letter to my councilor telling her to support Uber, got a canned response back saying they are looking into taxi's in Calgary.

[MrCallahan]

I'm surprised they haven't made their target yet! I signed this the moment I saw it.

I was just in LA last week, and used Uber quite frequently. SUPER easy service, and would use this any day over any of the Calgary taxi services.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by ZedMan

So the taxi cartel is pretty bad, but is Uber any better?

http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/26/60...abotaging-lyft

Shady if true, but at the end of the day all I care about is access to transportation.

The taxi cartel sucks not because they are a cartel, but because they artificially create demand by throttling supply.

Here, Uber is just trying to get other drivers from other outfits...it doesn't reduce the number of drivers on the street, just who they work for.

[RougeUnderoos]

Stumbled across this tonight - a woman in Baltimore was charged $362 to her bank account (I assume this is done automatically) for a 22 minute Uber ride...

"Last night was Halloween. Great time. Today is my 26th birthday. Not so great time. I live in Baltimore and went out with my friends to celebrate my birthday at midnight. When 3 AM rolled around, I suggested we take an Uber hole to avoid drunk driving (#responsibility/#MADD). I live 22 minutes , tops, from the party I was leaving."

http://www.businessinsider.com/women...r-ride-2014-11

Sounds like high-stakes crookery to me, and Uber will take a beating over this and rightly so, but hey, at least she got a ride home, which is more than you can say about the (almost) comically crappy cab situation in Calgary.

I got the good old "a driver is going to be right there routine" a couple nights ago. The stupid son of a bitch never showed up. Nobody called, nobody did anything.

If the cab isn't going to show up, don't tell me it is. Tell me the truth, you maggots, and I'll make another arrangement. How this is the only business in the city that is allowed to operate this way is beyond me. It's criminal. Literally, I'm sure.

It's so bad now that cabs are less convenient than taking the bus.

Pretty much, this is the hierarchy in Calgary to get around without driving your own car, from first to worst.

1. Car2Go
2. The bus
3. Hitchhike
4. Walk
5. Move closer to where you are going (it might save you some time)
6. Try to take a cab

[#-3]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

It's so bad now that cabs are less convenient than taking the bus.

Pretty much, this is the hierarchy in Calgary to get around without driving your own car, from first to worst.

1. Car2Go
2. The bus
3. Hitchhike
4. Walk
5. Move closer to where you are going (it might save you some time)
6. Try to take a cab

1. Still no good if you live in the burbs or are drunk (pretty much the reasons anyone would ever take a cab in Calgary)

3. Illegal in Calgary

5. Sure if you have an extra $800,000 to spare for an inner city house.

6 must have been a joke, nobody has successfully done that in Calgary.

So pretty much walk or take the bus.

[4X4]

I haven't decided which is more of a joke - the cab situation in Calgary, or the fact that I've been bitching about it for 15 years. Even writing this feels like deja vu. I've probably made this exact post many times already, and it's still an issue. Well, except that they recently granted more licenses. Didn't seem to help when I called for a cab in Midnapore last weekend. Lines were busy, finally got through, ETA was an hour... F'n really?

[afc wimbledon]

Same debate in Vancouver, where the going price for a cab licence is around 800,000
and the cab companies are all major political donors.
It's not just the public that gets screwed, the cab drivers do as well, they have to 'rent' their shift from the company that owns the license, the poor #######s make less than minimum wage by the time they've paid for the privilege of working.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Same debate in Vancouver, where the going price for a cab licence is around 800,000
and the cab companies are all major political donors.
It's not just the public that gets screwed, the cab drivers do as well, they have to 'rent' their shift from the company that owns the license, the poor #######s make less than minimum wage by the time they've paid for the privilege of working.

How does this work exactly? Who comes up with the 800 grand there, and whatever it is in Calgary?

Why would anyone work such an awful job to make such crap money? You'd make more than that at McDonald's, and there would be less violence and vomit.

It's such a strange business. Someone on here once claimed cabbies in Calgary can make a hundred grand with tips. That seems absurd to me, since I can't imagine how they'd make more than a buck a minute at best (far as I can tell) when they have a fare in the car, and they don't have one in there all the time.

And yeah, someone is obviously donating/kickbacking something to someone to keep this sham running.

Change "cab company" to "pizza joint", for example. If I order a pizza and they just don't deliver it, or even tell me they aren't coming (or if they do deliver the pizza, it's terrible and an hour late) that's it for that dump. I'm not going to call them again. Nobody is going to put a cap on pizza joints, so that whole "competition" thing kicks in. I have other options.

With cabs, their aren't other options.

There isn't some sleazy old pizza-joint-owning buzzard on the news (and obviously holding sway in City Hall) saying "we can't give out more pizza licenses, because it would be bad for pizza consumers in Calgary". Nobody would stand for it.

Gah, I'm ranting again. Like 4X4 said above, I don't know what's more ridiculous -- that I continue to gripe about this hopeless industry after 15 years of doing so, or that it's still the same way.

This can't be fixed soon enough, but it won't be. I know that. But it is a bit of a relief to bitch about them in public.

[Daradon]

No brainer to sign. Let's kill this oligopoly

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Bunk

Practically no systems on earth run 24 hours - tracks require pretty much constant maintenance, and this needs to happen when trains aren't running - i.e. night

Seems to work fine here in Copenhagen. When maintenance needs to be done, they have messages advertising which tracks are closed between which stations, and then provide bus service between those stations. The buses don't come as often as the metro, but I'll gladly take occasionally delayed 24/7 transit service than transit service that stops running during the night.

[TorqueDog]

I finally took Uber for the first time last week in Barcelona. Driver arrived in about 12 minutes, I was able to track his location on my phone, it was actually pretty cool.

Then we asked a cab driver about his thoughts on Uber that evening. It turns out it's illegal there, too. Uber drivers can be fined €4,000 if caught. Passengers, at the discretion of the police (presumably if you've been caught taking Uber more than once) are subject to a €300 fine.

We took cabs for the rest of our time in Barcelona, needless to say.