Beleaguered taxi giants Uber and Lyft won a break on Monday, scoring victory in a New York state court dispute over a law that would have dramatically slashed the number of cars between jobs that the firms let clog up Manhattan streets, Reuters reported.
Earlier this year, New York City officials imposed new regulations that would require ride-hailing apps to slash the percentage of the time they let drivers below 96th Street go “cruising,” defined as the time spent driving around either waiting for a customer to hail them or en route to a customer without any passengers on board. In 2018, around 41 percent of driver time was spent cruising—a tactic that cuts down on the amount of time it takes to hail a ride, but almost certainly adds to congestion on the roads. The regulation imposed requirements that the companies get that rate down to 36 percent in February 2020 and 31 percent six months after that, but Uber and Lyft promptly sued.
According to Reuters, Judge Lyle Frank of the state Supreme Court called the new limits “arbitrary and capricious,” adding there was “scant rationale” for the 31 percent target. He also found that cruising rates shouldn’t include time that taxis spend actually driving towards a passenger. The ruling annuls the rule, which both Uber and Lyft had been prepping for by locking out drivers from the apps at certain times of the day or in certain areas of the city.
