Lyft's New York Launch Halted By Restraining Order 92
Forbes reports that Lyft's planned expansion into the New York market has been delayed by a restraining order. The article explains that State officials had asked Lyft to delay its launch. When Lyft refused, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office filed a temporary restraining order against the startup Friday morning to prevent its launch. Other statements said that the restraining order had been granted, though Simpson said that was untrue.
Lyft and officials will reconvene in court Monday for a hearing. Lyft will not launch until it has reached an agreement with the city, Simpson said.
Since Monday, when Lyft announced it was planning to launch in the two boroughs [of Queens and Brooklyn], the app has faced criticism from city officials. The taxi and limousine commission declared the app 'unauthorized' and said its riders were at risk and its drivers could be cited and fined if they were caught using it.
Lyft seems to have left riders mostly unscathed in Boston, where it's been operating since early last year, and in numerous other cities. Also at Ars Technica.
The death of the American dream (Score:0, Informative)
The American dream (before it was hijacked by the realtors in the USA) has died a horrific death as the government completely overtook over every function of the market and declared itself to be the legal dictator state completely dominating over the individual human being. The American dream was the idea that equal under the law individuals could pursue their own happiness on their own terms, where apart from regulating criminal conduct, government wouldn't have any authority to stop the individuals from attempting to build their own lives and businesses the way they saw fit. That dream suffered its first heart attack during Teddy Roosevelt, second heart attack during the Hoover and FDR, it was kicked in the balls in the fifties and then had a minor stroke when Nixon took the world off the gold standard. Now the dream is a dying, rotting, gangrenous corpse, that is being systematically shat on by every self proclaimed 'saviour' of the society and its values, by all the Marxists, socialists, fascists and basically brainless, dickless, heartless pigs that are happy simply to take another shit on the Constitution and smear their faeces all around them - a form of societal self degradation that periodically descends one or another population of humans into the dark ages throughout history.
Re:Why are the number of cabs [artificially] limit (Score:4, Informative)
That is true but the summary refers to Brooklyn and Queens, a.k.a. "outer boroughs" (anything that isn't Manhattan). The outer boroughs now have "Green Taxis" which do not bear medallions, and there are about 15,000 of them so far:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/passenger/shl_passenger.shtml [nyc.gov]
NYC also has "livery" cabs which can be summoned via phone, in contrast to "taxis" which are hailed on the street. Livery cabs don't bear medallions either.
The concerns about Lyft and Uber probably is more about the proper training and licensing of drivers, liability insurance coverage, adherance to laws (like non-discrimination in picking up passengers, and like fair labor practices). Not medallions.