Nevada puts stop to ridesharing Uber for now | Hacker News Reader

Nevada puts stop to ridesharing Uber for now

reviewjournal.com

40 pointsj8hn22 comments

If Uber can break the Vegas cab cartel[1] it would be very surprising to me. So far the cab companies have been able to survive everything, they've even prevented the monorail from going to the airport. Which if it did go to the airport would eliminate so many fares, because once you get to your hotel you normally just walk everywhere else.

Since this is Vegas, I'd say the proverbial smart money is still on the side of the cab companies being able to force enforcement of the law. Las Vegas has perfected the science of aligning widely varied financial interests to preserve the status quo of business as usual.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_States#L...

> Which if it did go to the airport would eliminate so many fares, because once you get to your hotel you normally just walk everywhere else.

I disagree, there is tons of intra-strip cab travel taking place. Hotels are far apart on the strip. It'd probably take a couple hours to walk between Mandalay Bay and Encore.

Either way, Uber's implementation isn't supporting pickups at the airport or anywhere between the 15 and Paradise Rd along the strip, and even that is causing all this drama.

>I disagree, there is tons of intra-strip cab travel taking place.

There's alot of it, but it's decreasing. Someone that just got ready for an elegant dinner or a night at a club will take a cab or limo up or down the strip to get where they're going. However, the monorail now runs all the way from the MGM on Tropicana Ave. down to the SLS (formerly the Sahara on Sahara Ave) and has a station at the convention center. There is also The Deuce, a very tourist-friendly bus that traverses both sides of the Strip every 5 minutes or so 24/7. If there's a cab line at the hotel, The Deuce is actually faster than a cab.

I would suspect that walking, the monorail, and The Deuce handle the vast majority of inter-hotel travel. The cabs make most of their money on airport trips & trips to off-strip properties like The Palms.

Regardless, Uber should be allowed to do what they were doing. The way the Strip is setup, they couldn't really compete with cabs & limos, and that was never their plan. It would have been great for locals to get around the city.

The monorail is about the worst way to travel in Vegas. It is expensive and too far from most hotels and casinos. Unless you want to travel between two connecting casinos it is faster to walk. And if you have more than two in your party, cheaper to take a cab.

As with most things, it depends on your use case. The MGM station is the easiest one to get to, as some of the other stations (Harrah's in particular) are buried behind the hotels. There is a dedicated station at the convention center, which is great for thousands of people if they stay at one of the hotels with a station. For example, a person attending a convention at the convention center and staying at MGM - normally a $30+ cab ride each way - can get essentially door-to-door transportation both ways for 3 days for the price of a single one-way cab ride.

If you're staying at Wynn/Encore or Venetian/Palazzo, then it's not going to work. But since you're paying $400+/night there during busy times at any of those places, you might as well rent yourself a limo. The monorail is OK for some use cases.

> It'd probably take a couple hours to walk between Mandalay Bay and Encore

I've only done that particular walk once, but walking from Tropicana to Encore (a bit farther than Mandalay - Encore) took about 45 minutes I believe; a bit of a trek, but definitely manageable.

I think in an entire week on the strip, I took a cab exactly twice; once from the airport to the strip, and once to a shopping mall off the strip. Had Uber been around when I was there, I certainly would have used it more.

The Mandalay is at the southern tip of the strip—further south than the Tropicana and further away from the Encore.

Wouldn't it have been better to make a deal with the cab drivers so they would get some alternative jobs and Vegas would get it's monorail or some sort of tramway?

I don't think this will last for long - there are a lot of services for which you can make a solid argument for, and against (AirBnB has two very different sides to the coin) - but, as long as Uber is able to ensure that all of it's drivers are insured, my experience (over 100 rides in the bay area, and many, many thousands of rides with taxis), is that Uber is an overwhelmingly good service.

The Vehicles are cleaner, the drivers better mannered, the service unquestionably better (I'd almost be prepared to say that my worst uberX ride ever was better than my best taxi ride, not quite - but pretty close. With the Uber Black Car service, they aren't even in the same league, so no comparison can be made there.) And, most importantly of all, the rides are a lot safer; on the peninsula, a lot of the taxis are very old, somewhat decrepit, and it's not unheard of to get in one in which the Taxi Driver has to open your door -you can't open it from the inside - I dread what would happen in an accident.

If this were purely a question of public good, there is no question what decision the Nevada authorities will make. We'll see how much power the Taxi Cartel has...

If this were purely a question of public good, the Nevada authorities will shut down uber.

Okay, I'm interested in you defending that position. Given that I cited convenience, safety, customer service, cleanliness, and efficiency as reasons for Uber, what "public good" rationale is there for not allowing them to operate?

Why do states love to promote rent seeking behavior? They ban Tesla and promote cabs, ISPs, etc. This is especially silly in a State that is trying to have a significant tech community in Vegas. Promoting rent seeking behavior and banning a service you constituents are embracing is anti-competitive, ant-business, and illogical.

> Why do states love to promote rent seeking behavior?

Because a "state" is really just a group of individuals with significantly more power than the average individual, and the easiest way for them to benefit themselves is to use that power to promote rent seeking behavior. I would be surprised if they didn't promote rent seeking behavior.

Usually states make laws in good faith to solve real or perceived problems like unsafe taxis and unfit drivers.

Then those who get through the process lobby to raise the barriers higher to protect their 'investment' in the process and reduce competition. Lobbyists are experts at regulatory capture; they might have previously had a government job and by close friends with regulators / legislators, they might fund the campaigns of those in power, and they are willing to spend real money - far more than the other side usually - to tell their side of the story.

Uber is a single company that is most likely globally bigger than most of the taxi cartels - so when they are on the outside trying to get in, they are the first time there has been significant lobbying for less regulation.

Why do states love to promote rent seeking behavior?

Because they receive the rent. Rather, the individuals in government receive the rent.

> When asked by the operator if he needed anything else, he told her, “I want my car to be taken out of impound as soon as possible because I have to go to work tomorrow morning, but I know that won’t happen. And I don’t want to have to pay any fines so put some of that $18 billion you all have behind me, will yah?”

Well seems like Uber picked a great driver that got stung. Would be interesting to see how this plays out vs. a driver with less of a sense of humor.

Meanwhile in Ottawa it was simply city bylaw officers who booked calls undercover and gave two $650 fines which Uber covered on behalf of the drivers.

The service launched three weeks ago and the city simply wanted to show it's muscle, the drivers have been operating since without issue since.

    Two undercover officers wore black ski masks.

Since when do undercover officers wear ski masks. Furthermore, what are taxi authority officers undercover?

It sure is getting interesting. Uber is battling the Nevada Attorney General and once again operating in Las Vegas as of today. http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/uber-challenges-...

I find it funny that Nevada is willing to bend over backwards for one tech company(Tesla) yet wants to prevent another from gaining a fair shot at the market.

Your comment makes no sense, unless we assume that tech companies are interchangeable, and so governments should approach them all the same regardless of what the company actually does.

I love Uber and Lyft and have been using them the past two years or so, and I think the taxi scene in Las Vegas is great. The best experience I've had with cabs is in Las Vegas. I forgot my luggage in a cab and it was there within two minutes to return it. The lines outside clubs are always long but I can _always_ count on a line of Taxis waiting to pick people up. I would imagine drunk people stumbling onto the rode to get in an Uber / Lyft would make the traffic that much worse down the strip and probably more dangerous.

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