Did San Antonio get it UBER Wrong?

By Francisco Javier

I live in the city of San Antonio, Texas. A city that is growing tremendously, due to a business-friendly climate, and a strong local economy. But all you have to do is read about their ban on Uber, and at a state level — Tesla, to realize there is much room for improvement.

Uber is awesome. For the very few of you unfamiliar with the ride-sharing app, it is a way to allow regular people like you and I to become drivers for hire, all through the magic of an app on your smartphone.

Growing Pains

According to information from the people that knock on your door, and send you questionnaires in the mail (U.S. Census), the Greater San Antonio area and Bexar county are projected to grow at a massive rate of over 7% from 2015 t0 2020. Compare that to a busy metropolitan city like Phoenix, that is projected to grow 3.1% from during the same period of time.

Bus giant VIA has a monopoly on buses and downtown trolleys, and the taxi companies like Yellow Cab really hate competition like UBER. The layout of the city makes it too cumbersome to operate a large-scale mass-transit system. The city is too widespread, and still growing.

The city’s layout consists of two loops and inter-connecting highways. But the grunt of the growth is all happening outside of Loop 1604. This is when you understand that the 50’s public transportation model is simply a joke here. A public mass-transit system is out of the question.

Ride-sharing is the solution to many problems

Sadly, the city of San Antonio has a disproportionate number of drunk-driving, and alcohol related-incidents. Now, these statistics may be a bit shocking, but keep in mind, these are only the people who were caught. Countless more went undetected.

The benefits outweigh the risks by a large margin. Texas enjoys being on the headlines — and most of the time are for positive things. Though this time, seems the taxi lobby has strong-armed the city council into ousting their competition, as well as affecting the income of thousands of San Antonians, it’s something to write about, and it’s something to be mad about.