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Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf welcomed the announcement this week by the $ 700,000 mobile phone company to expand transportation options in underprivileged neighborhoods in Oakland to "fix the mistakes of the past".
According to the company and the mayor's office, the Lyft grant will fund a participatory design process for the creation of new parklets and bike-sharing stations, as well as a free bicycle library. It will also provide subsidized public transit pbades and Lyft rides by car and scooter to eligible low-income residents in areas of Oakland where transportation infrastructure is chronically underfunded.
But last year, Lyft and Uber, the duopoly of the market, lobbied Oakland officials to remove a proposed $ 0.50 municipal tax per trip. According to city staff, the tax would have generated up to $ 2.5 million a year when it applied to Uber and Lyft's estimated 13,699 daily commutes, much more than the recent donation of Lyft.
Lyft did not immediately respond to questions regarding this report, and Uber had previously declined to comment on the account of their position regarding Oakland's proposed tax.
Council member Rebecca Kaplan introduced the Portage Tax in September 2017 to generate revenue to improve transportation and transit services, among other needs. To justify a new tax, Kaplan cited the rapid growth of Lyft and Uber in Oakland and the fact that businesses do not pay taxes to the city even though studies have shown that they cause increased traffic congestion and wear and tear on the streets of the city.
"The use of a new technology, such as a smartphone app, to order a good or service, should not be a justification for tax evasion," Kaplan said. at the time.
However, other Oakland executives have been reluctant to consider a tax on exit fees. On the contrary, public records reveal that municipal leaders have been looking for ways to help Uber and Lyft strengthen their brand image by asking them to invest in urban real estate or to provide grants to local target organizations. non-profit.
For example, in 2016, Oakland City Councilor Larry Reid and Schaaf staff convened a meeting with Uber representatives to discuss the possibility for Uber to purchase the Oakland Coliseum designation fees, heavily in debt, which partly belongs to the city.
Oakland officials also played the role of intermediary between Uber and various non-profit groups seeking grants at a time when Uber and his CEO, Travis Kalanick, were trying to re-establish the company's image. In one case for example, Girls, Inc., an organization that works with young people in Oakland, wrote to Schaaf in August 2016 to look for a link with "powers in place at Uber". The group hoped to obtain a "large grant".
The mayor's office made the introduction.
Later that year, an Oakland owner wrote to Schaaf's team asking him to meet Uber executives in the hope that Uber would rent one of his company's properties to test autonomous vehicles, as he already did in Arizona.
The Mayor's team sent the request to the Uber lobbyist with a quick note: "Let's talk about it."
By the time Kaplan proposed to add the $ 0.50 tax on the Oakland Election Vote in November 2018, few other municipal officials seemed to support the concept.
"I'm not sure of the problem we're trying to solve with this tax," board member Abel Guillen said at a hearing in front of the city.
The lobbying records indicate that Lyft officials met with Guillen to discuss "transportation and transportation industry issues," as well as proposed regulations for scooters, which Lyft also operates.
The municipal archives show that the Uber lobbyist met with the mayor's chief of staff and several members of the municipal council regarding the proposed tax measure in 2018.
Lyft has also joined the local Oakland Chamber of Commerce. After that, his lobbyist met with the mayor and several council members to convince them that the exit tax was not a good idea. According to the city's records, the companies promoted "mutually agreed-upon pilot projects," similar to the charity grant recently announced by Lyft, instead of the tax.
At the final hearing on the Lyft and Uber tax proposal last July, a city council committee voted in favor of eliminating the tax proposal.
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