Uber is coming to Medford.
On October 19th, Medford City Council voted to bring ridesharing companies Uber and Lyft to Medford. The choice to do this was fairly controversial, with workers from the TNC (Transportation Network Companies)arguing that Uber doesn’t drug test its drivers and saying that there is little to no background checks put in place by the company to ensure that all of their drivers are upstanding citizens. On the other side of the argument, proponents of bringing Uber and Lyft to Medford argue that the Taxi companies can hold its customers hostage in terms of making them wait and not immediatly ansering phone calls. Many argue that when Uber and Lyft come to town it will drive competition and make the taxi companies work harder. It takes about 30 minutes for a taxi anywhere you are in the Rogue Valley and that is just unacceptable. One of the biggest arguments for proponents was the sheer amount of senior citizens that live in the Rogue Valley. The valley has a massive senior population that needs to be taken car e of and proponents argue that Uber would be a great way to do this. Medford Councilman Kevin Stine had this to say about Uber, “Medford strives to be known as a business-friendly city, and based on feedback that we have received, a strong majority of citizens want to have those transportation options,”. The next speaker had a The visually impaired will benefit from this greatly as well, Craig Cooper, with the National Federation of the Blind and a local resident, said his organization supports Uber and Lyft because the blind need more transportation options. Cooper stated his dissaproval of the current transportation system, saying that sometimes Taxi drivers were unkind to blind people in his own experiences and that it takes forever for a cab to get to his house in White City.
Perhaps the biggest dissendents of Uber and lyft are the taxi companies themselves, claiming that Uber doesn’t care about the safety of their riders due to them not caring if their drivers smoke weed or not. Tony Scott, owner of All Star taxi, spoke at the city council before the vote and voiced his dissaproval with the ridesharing companies. He went on to tell the council, “Uber has zero desire to police their own drivers, and the end user has no idea if their driver is high or not,” he said. “My biggest issue is finding drivers who don’t smoke.” Tony’s worries will not occur, however, as the new ordinace specifically states that drivers will be drug tested as well as both the taxi companies and ride-sharing companies having to be subjected to a 50-state background check that will search for felonies on drivers’ records. Tony is also mad about the airport scene with taxi companies, explaining that that is where they make most of their money. Tony goes on to claim that taxi companies are required to pay fees to park in a loading area at the Medford airport, while Uber and Lyft drivers will not have the same requirement. Tony also believes that 10 to 20 of the 52 medford cab companies will go out of business, but longterm believes that Uber wont survive in southern Oregon. The rest of the council seemed to be in agreeance with Craig Cooper from the Blind Society, shown in the final council vote of 7–1, with the council room exploding into either cheers or boos, and with the lone dissenting vote coming from councilwomen Kay Brooks, who was extremely annoyed at the mayor for not allowing her time to express her displeasure with Uber. Her main concern was that she thought Uber and Lyft were not going to take care of the disabled as well as they said they were going to. The rest of the City Council was visibly upset with Kay for slowing down the meeting. Many thought that with Uber coming to Medford, it would come to all of the Rogue Valley, however this is not the case. Ashland, a college town, has still yet to bring Uber to the town that desperately needs it. ASSOU was considering a march to city hall the day after Medford approved it but that did not occur. The ordinance, which was somewhat controversial, specifically states that both ride-sharing and taxi companies would pay the city a $50 operator fee, a $30 taxi card identification fee and a $100 business license fee. The taxi companies thought that this was unfair, due to them already operating in the system before the fee’s have been put in place, but the city council had already made their decision and thus the taxi companies fate seems to be sealed. In my opinion, Uber can’t come here soon enough and it should come to Ashland by next summer.
