Cedar Rapids tries again for taxi and Uber rules

CEDAR RAPIDS - Two cab companies here have stolen a page from the taxi-like, ride-sharing company Uber and now are set up with their own smartphone app that customers can use to summon a ride.

The move by Yellow Cab and City Cab, which are owned by the same company, comes as city officials are back at work trying to come up with an ordinance that regulates taxi companies and ride-sharing companies in similar fashion.

The city had shelved an effort to level the playing field between San Francisco-based Uber, which arrived in Cedar Rapids last December, and the eight taxi companies regulated by city ordinance to see if the Iowa Legislature could come up with a statewide law instead.

Lawmakers failed this year.

As a result, Cedar Rapids continues to have a long-standing set of regulations for taxis but none for Uber and its drivers, who typically are part-timers who use their own vehicles.

The landscape prompted longtime Yellow Cab driver Christopher Griffin to recently call on the city to impose regulations on Uber like it does on cabs. Griffin said Uber drivers are 'out to destroy the local, family-owned cab company.”

He said the city requires licensed taxis to inspect vehicles, post rates, display a company name and undergo driver background checks. But none of the regulations apply to Uber drivers, city officials said.

Griffin, who owns his cab and pays Yellow Cab for its dispatch services, said business has nose-dived for him with the arrival of Uber.

'I work six or seven days a week. I can't really work any more hours than I do,” he said.

One Uber convenience advantage, in which customers summon a driver via Uber's smartphone app, is being tested by the app called Gata Hub that Yellow Cab and City Cab drivers are using.

Griffin, who has a laptop in the front seat of his cab as well as a smartphone and radio to take calls from the dispatcher, is training fellow drivers on how to follow a company directive to use the app.

He acknowledged that Uber has pushed him and other drivers into the high-tech present.

Century Cab of Cedar Rapids is not using such an app while American Classic Cab Co. is considering it in the city. Yellow Cab of Iowa City also has rolled out its own smartphone app, manager Roger Bradley said.

Jasmine Almoayed, the Cedar Rapids economic development liaison, said a team made up of representatives from the City Attorney's Office, the City Clerk's Office, the Police Department and the Transit Department is looking at for-hire vehicle ordinances in other cities, Des Moines among them.

Bill Lillis, a Des Moines lawyer who represented Yellow Cab and Capitol Cab in negotiations with Uber and the city of Des Moines this year, said the cab companies and Uber 'have made peace” with the new vehicle-for-hire ordinance that went into effect there in April.

Lillis said the ordinance should be a 'very good model” for others.

'You have to have some regulations. … Uber didn't want any,” Lillis said.

The Des Moines ordinance allows the city to audit the companies to make sure they are complying with provisions on insurance, background checks and vehicle inspections. Under the new law, the city no longer will issue licenses to drivers of taxis or limos or limit the number of vehicles in operation or set the fares.

Uber vehicles will be required to display a decal on a window, which is removable when the vehicles are not in use.

Mike Berry, traffic facilities administrator for Des Moines, said the city will know more about how it's working at the end of the year as the five taxi companies and Uber file annual reports.

The Des Moines ordinance requires a company to pay an annual vehicle license fee of between $8,250 and $15,750 - the higher fee being for at least 201 vehicles. Uber paid that one, Berry said.

Jaime Moore, an Uber spokeswoman, said Uber is able to work with the Des Moines ordinance, but she said the ordinance approved in Iowa City earlier this year continues to keep Uber out of the market.

Iowa City Police Capt. Doug Hart said Iowa City's reworked ordinance continues to require Uber drivers apply for a permit and allow the city to determine if the driver is fit and qualifies for a permit.

Iowa City wanted to ensure that metered cabs and driver networks like Uber were treated so one business model did not have an advantage and so that public safety was protected, Hart said.

Tuesday, Uber began serving Ames, which joins Cedar Rapids, Des Moines and the Quad Cities with the service,

Ames doesn't have a taxi ordinance, City Attorney Judy Parks said.

Yellow Cab owner/operator Griffin said the battle between taxi and Uber drivers is in full view on Friday and Saturday nights at downtown bars and restaurants, The cars of Uber drivers sometimes have out-of-state or Johnson County license plates, which Griffin said indicates that Iowa City area residents and University of Iowa students are trying to get income they can't get there.