Nov. 05--Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday defended his move to expedite rules to allow ride-share companies to pick up passengers at Chicago airports while some reforms he promised for the taxi industry languish, framing the decision as an attempt to give passengers options.
The Emanuel administration announced this week that Uber and other app-based car services could be cleared to do pickups at O'Hare International and Midway airports as soon as Nov. 18, less than a month after the City Council passed his 2016 budget that counts on fees from the new service to raise about $30 million.
The news prompted an outcry from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, which has been working with cabbies struggling to compete with the ascendant ride-share industry. AFSCME released a statement pointing out the city had still not implemented all the promised reforms in a "taxi fairness" ordinance aldermen adopted in late 2014, when the mayor backed the plan as he tried to blunt union criticism during his tough re-election campaign.
On Thursday, Emanuel said he was concerned with giving passengers options. "My focus is not about the industry. My focus is on the customer," he said at an unrelated news conference. "They have competitive, high-quality choices today, and we wanted to make sure, given all the travel that's going to happen this Thanksgiving, that we are prepared as a city."
Emanuel said the city has delivered on "a lot of reforms" to the cab industry, but acknowledged work needs to be done on a universal taxi app, which the city pledged to try to find a company to develop, so riders can hail cabs from all cab companies using one program.
"The one area we have to work with the industry on, which would be novel and new, and it takes time, is the taxi industry app," he said. "That said, you come to the city of Chicago, you want to take a taxi, it's going to be there. You want to take a ride-share, Uber or Lyft, it will be there. Now, what will be novel is we will be able to make sure people aren't standing in line at O'Hare or Midway."
jebyrne@tribpub.com
