Can L.A. save its taxi industry? It’s trying to with new apps, more permits
LA TimesTaxis at LAX in 2020. Uber arrived in Los Angeles a decade ago, and along with Lyft and other competitors brought the region’s taxi industry to its knees. “This is designed to basically make the taxi companies competitive in the modern world,” said Eric Spiegelman, president of the city’s Taxi Commission. “To the regular Angeleno, I hope they are going to see taxis as something integral into how they get around town in a way that Uber and Lyft were for the last couple of years.” In addition to digital upgrades, the overhaul allowed for cosmetic changes: Taxis will no longer have to be painted bright yellow or other colors and won’t be required to be plastered with signage. Unlike Uber and Lyft, which could heavily subsidize rides, the mostly independent contractors who work as taxi drivers would wind up losing wages because small taxi companies couldn’t support them, Narro and Litzinger wrote.
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