Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Two Views on Taxi Regulations

Taxi regulations are big news these days. In many ways it seems that one of the challenges facing taxi regulators and the public is that it is not clear what taxi regulations are supposed to accomplish. Here are two op-ed pieces, one from taxi industry insiders in the Twin Cities, and one from a graduate student in public policy in Vancouver.

The Twin Cities piece is about entry into the market for Uber and Lyft, while the Vancouver piece is about liberalizing entry into the market. Effectively these op-eds are about the rules that regulate entry and who should be allowed to operate. They are also about maintaining license holder value. Both sides argue they are in the right, but they both cannot be. It is also possible that both sides are wrong. Resolving these regulatory issues is much harder than most people seem to believe.

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