Taxis & Limos

Warning: Graphic video

Since the de Blasio administration attempted to cap for-hire cars this summer, the debate over Manhattan traffic has gotten louder, but not more productive. Uber claimed it definitely wasn't the problem. Some council members wondered if bike lanes were slowing down cars. Amid all the noise, something important got lost.

One of the points of debate over Uber's operations in New York is whether its trips should contribute the same 50-cent surcharge to the MTA that yellow and green taxis do. It's an easy question to answer in some ways: It doesn't matter whether a car is yellow, green, or black -- if some for-hire vehicles have to pay an MTA fee, they all should. But as long as this taxi surcharge is in the public eye, there's also an opportunity to rethink the fee itself and make it smarter.

Maybe it’s the sleekness. Or the digital disruptiveness. Or something slipped in the water bottle on your seat. Whatever it is, some data mavens are contorting into pretzels to deny the obvious -- that Uber is contributing to the slowdown in Manhattan traffic.

Traffic congestion in the Manhattan core is rebounding. Travel-speed data culled from taxicab GPS and released last month by City transportation and taxi officials suggest that average motor vehicle travel speeds in the Central Business District fell by 8.5 percent from 2012 to 2014. The slowdown follows years of flat or even rising speeds -- a phenomenon that predated the 2008 financial collapse and undermined congestion pricing proposals by making car, bus, truck and taxi travel in the heart of the city a little more efficient and predictable.

For a moment yesterday, it seemed like the big clash between the taxi medallion industry and app-based car services, framed in terms of Uber's effect on snarled Manhattan traffic, might veer into unexpectedly brilliant territory. There was Deputy Mayor Anthony Shorris in the Daily News, telling the MTA that City Hall would consider the Move NY traffic reduction plan to fund transit investment. Finally, a sign that some of the big players are getting serious about a comprehensive fix for the city's congestion problem.

Uber blasted out an Excel spreadsheet to reporters this morning, accompanied by a story and editorial in the Daily News, with data providing a snapshot of how many Uber vehicles are on Manhattan streets south of 59th Street, New York's central business district. While Uber claims the data shows its vehicles aren't responsible for congestion in the city core, transportation analyst Charles Komanoff has crunched Uber's own numbers and estimates that the service has actually reduced traffic speeds in the central business district by about 8 percent.