What are the arguments for a city to adopt Uber? Presumably there were reasons to implement taxi regulations and medallion caps and whatever those reasons were, if they made sense to the city 5 years ago, they probably still make sense today.
The reasons tend to be closer to a century old than 5 years, and similarly tend to have been the result of preferential regulation in favor of the taxi companies.
A good history of the jitney transport industry[0]. I'll note that the statistics reported regarding length of service and demographics of jitney drivers indicate that UberX is a much more apt solution to the problem of matching riders with drivers than a "traditional" taxi service with full-time employees.
I didn't say the reasons were created 5 years ago, only that if there were reasons 5 years ago they probably haven't changed. Of course you could make the argument that there weren't valid reasons 5 years ago but that doesn't seem compelling, I don't think a city would have de-regulated the taxi industry and let anyone pick people up for money 5 years ago.
There's a whole gamut of options between current regulations and no regulations. But the corrupt regulators don't want to change anything because they like how the current regulations bring in $800K per year per medallion to license holders who are also their friends, partners and/or campaign donors (actual Vancouver numbers).
What kind of safety or convenience or other concerns require profits in excess of $800K per taxi cab per year? What's wrong with market pricing? Why should short rides subsidize long rides? Why can't one company offer no-frills service (at no-frills prices), and the other one premium service? Why can't taxis have optional ride pooling?
Uber, Lyft & co have already proved that they can work great alongside existing cabs. There is no reason why they wouldn't work if the regulations are updated from 1930 to 2015 and from protecting incumbents' profits to protecting users' interests. But the cities are unwilling to do that because they like their profitable taxi cartels.
5 years? More like 40-80. In Vancouver for example the 4 taxi companies comprising the taxi industry basically regulate themselves. Of course they will never approve another entrant. I wouldn't be surprised if Montreal is about the same.
In most modern legal systems, the question is not what the law should allow but what the law should prohibit. So the question should really be, what are the arguments for a city to prohibit Uber?
That's irrelevant to the point, which is that whatever prohibits Uber today also prohibited Uber in the recent past before Uber existed. Did unregulated taxi service make sense to a city 5 years ago?
Just because a law has been on the books doesn't mean the law continues to be in the public interest, especially when it was enacted before the technology to enable Uber was widespread enough to make Uber possible.
There is only one reason and it is very simple: taxi owners use their political influence to extract rents. It's a scheme to legally steal from people who use taxis.
