Since the Great Depression, the number of yellow-cab taxis in New York City has dropped by 20 percent, but the population has grown by the same proportion. So where are New Yorkers starting to turn when they need to get somewhere and public transit won’t do? Uber, which controls 90 percent of the city’s ride-sharing market.
A new study authored by Manhattan Institute Fellow Jared Meyer (my former colleague) shows that Uber’s success is driven by demand from low-income users of every race.
Yellow-taxis’ inability to meet demand across the city has left New York’s low-income neighborhoods neglected. That’s where Uber comes in.
About one in five UberX pickups happen outside Manhattan’s busiest areas or the city’s major airports, compared to one in 20 yellow-taxi pickups. A majority of those UberX pickups occur in neighborhoods below median income for the area. As a result, Uber is serving a more racially diverse population than yellow-taxis. White and non-white neighborhoods are serviced at roughly equal rates outside of core Manhattan, while yellow-taxis are concentrated in white, core areas of Manhattan.
UberX is Uber’s cheapest, most-frequently used service, compared to the more luxury-focused UberBLACK and UberSUV.
Uber is relatively more popular than yellow taxis in Brooklyn and Queens than in the rest of New York when comparing UberX and yellow-taxis’ pickups by borough. Yellow-taxis pick up more riders than UberX in every borough.
Yellow-taxi drivers’ complaints about Uber are well-documented, but evidence shows that Uber isn’t killing the traditional taxi industry. Despite Uber’s growth in New York City, there were still 18 times more yellow-taxi rides than UberX rides in the city in 2014.
“These findings indicate that ride-sharing services — notably, Uber — increasingly provide New Yorkers in lower-income and minority neighborhoods beyond core Manhattan with a service that complements city-authorized taxis,” Meyer wrote.
In 2014, UberX rides increased almost sixfold, from 287,000 rides in January to 1.6 million rides in December.
Earlier this year, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio tried to temporarily limit the growth of ride-sharing services, like Uber, to evaluate their effect on Manhattan’s traffic congestion. De Blasio eventually dropped that effort in favor of a four-month traffic study that allows ride-sharing services to continue growing.
