EDITORIAL: More competitive
Consumers continue to make their preferences clear when it comes to transportation. As a result, Uber and Lyft are hammering local cab companies.
The number of Clark County taxi trips declined by more than 19 percent last month when compared with November 2015. For the year, the Nevada Taxicab Authority reports, the Las Vegas cab business has experienced a ridership drop of more than 16 percent.
Revenues for the 16 local cab companies are off 13 percent for the first 10 months of the year.
None of this is any great mystery. Ride-sharing services such as Uber and Lyft have transformed the market and will continue to grow in popularity thanks to their convenience, price and service.
Nevertheless, the authority’s chairman, Stan Olsen, hinted that the industry will again try to strong-arm lawmakers next year into expanding the regulatory state to shackle Uber and Lyft for the benefit of the taxi cartel.
“Fees and operating licenses are not being regulated in a fair and equitable manner between taxi and transportation network companies,” he told the Review-Journal, “and I am a big believer in playing fair.”
Well, then, how about freeing the industry from unreasonable dictates rather than seeking to hamstring the popular innovators? The issue, argues Brent Bell, president of Whittlesea-Bell Transportation, comes down to taxi companies “learning how to be more competitive.”
Exactly.
