Uber, the renegade taxi service, hits the streets in Reno
Mark c i r E s by Photo
ER T N U UN H A H S by
It’s saturday nIght.
s
I pull my car up past the waiting line of cabs sitting just outside the Grand Sierra Resort’s lobby entrance to a nicely dressed couple and roll down my passenger-side window. “Are you Shaun?” the man asks as they walk toward the car. “I am. I’ll be your Uber driver,” I respond as they get into the backseat. We pull away. Since Uber’s launch in Northern Nevada on Oct. 24, the ridesharing service has sparked polarizing opinions in regard to its place in the state’s economy. Uber, with other start-ups like Lyft and Sidecar, is a San Francisco-based tech company looking to make more efficient the private-vehicle-for-hire model that has traditionally belonged to taxi and limousine services. Uber uses a smartphone app to link those looking for a ride to drivers who are offering rides in their personal vehicles, allowing riders to summon a ride with the push of a button and track the approach of the driver through the app. All riders pair a credit card to their account when signing up, and are billed by Uber automatically at the end of their ride, making the ride a cash/cardless transaction. One of Uber’s most vocal opponents has been the taxi industry, which asserts that ridesharing services’ drivers are not required to meet the same standards as licensed cab drivers and are not bound to the same pricing regulations as taxi
“rIdE On”
continued on page 14
OPINION
|
NEWS
|
GREEN
|
FEATURE STORY
|
ARTS&CULTURE
|
ART OF THE STATE
|
FOODFINDS
|
FILM
|
MUSICBEAT
|
NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS
|
THIS WEEK
|
MISCELLANY
|
NOVEMBER 20, 2014
|
RN&R
|
13
