Downtown transportation:

Council takes tentative step toward allowing ride-sharing companies,

The city took a tentative step Thursday toward allowing popular ride-sharing companies such as Lyft and Uber to operate in Austin.

The City Council voted to create a wide-ranging group of transportation stakeholders and asked them to come up with recommendations for a pilot program that would al- low ride-sharing services to legally operate in Austin.

The group would be made up of taxi services and ride-sharing companies, among others, a fractious and politically divided group that will have 180 days to develop the framework for a pilot program.

“The idea is we would get everybody around the table and see if we can work through these issues,” said Council Member Chris Riley, who was one of three sponsors of the pilot program.

He said that technologically savvy Austin shouldn’t be left in the dust as comparable cities have started allowing these ride-sharing services.

Most ride-sharing services work through smartphone applications.

Someone needing a ride will use an app to determine whether there is an available driver nearby who can give them a ride. Payment is typically done over the phone as well.

Thursday’s vote was a major setback for taxi companies, which is one of the most politically influential groups in city politics; at times, the companies have been major donors in local elections.

Taxi drivers and owners say services like Uber and Lyft threaten their livelihood and put passengers at risk because they are essentially unregulated, with no licenses and insurance requirements. Austin has 756 permitted taxis.

Ed Kargbo, the president of Greater Austin Transportation Co., which holds the Yellow Cab franchise, characterized ride-sharing companies as well-funded startups backed by “the one percent,” that don’t want to play by the

same rules that taxi services have to abide by.

“They don’t report accidents. They don’t share trip data. They don’t have wheelchair accessibility. They don’t want you to regulate rates so they can manipulate prices,” Kargbo said.

Support for ride-sharing services in Austin started building in the wake of several high-profile pedestrian deaths involving suspected drunken drivers, including the South by Southwest crash