Uber’s Vegas invasion sparks conflict, needs compromise
Is it a new era in transportation for Southern Nevada or a great techie idea that’s going to be squashed like a bug by the state’s regulatory regime?
There have been indications for months that Uber, the San Francisco-based ride-sharing company, was going to try to find its way onto Las Vegans’ smartphones to be used here.
We got an indication that Uber’s time was drawing near when the company’s corporate mark, a gigantic U, was seen smiling out from ads in the Review-Journal and Las Vegas Business Press. The publication of that U was like Commissioner Gordon summoning Batman with the bat signal — mysterious but effective.
As has been its pattern worldwide, Uber launched here on a Friday afternoon. Just as quickly, the state moved to close it down with a temporary order from a Carson City judge. And on Saturday, Uber’s attorney said he challenged the order, and Uber drivers were still working in Las Vegas.
What happens next has been the subject of speculation by transportation insiders as well as road warriors like us.
Uber backers see all good and no wrong with the service, partially because their heavily millennial legions are all-trusting that the person offering the ride is probably a good guy and, worst case, better than most cabdrivers. They relish the idea of Uber taking it to the taxi man.
Uber haters, meanwhile, can’t wait to say “I told you so” when an Uber driver takes a passenger on a high-speed chase (it happened in Virginia), attacks a rider with a hammer (it happened in San Francisco) or runs over and kills a child (it also happened in San Francisco).
As Brent Bell, president of Whittlesea Bell Transportation, a company that owns several taxi and limousine companies statewide, told me, “If Uber does what they say they’re going to do, they’ll be breaking all kinds of state laws.”
And those are state laws that Whittlesea Bell and other transportation companies have to live with every day. How fair is that for a competitor to come in and operate under its own set of rules?
I’ve been asked on numerous occasions what I think is going to happen.
I think the local transportation industry isn’t going to go quietly, and hopefully that doesn’t mean that cabdrivers attempt to take matters into their own hands when they see an Uber driver out in the community.
People do strange things when their livelihoods are threatened.
I expect transportation regulators to do their best to catch and cite Uber drivers, but they will be overwhelmed by the task.
I expect Uber to put a ton of money into trying to defend its business model, including lobbying state lawmakers to change the rules to let them operate legally under a new set of rules.
That will be a fascinating battle considering how entrenched the taxi industry is in our state.
The Uber technology is a great idea. Nevadans and the state’s millions of tourists deserve to be able to use it.
NEW YORK-STYLE PARKING
Maybe it was an effort by the El Cortez to make New Yorkers feel at home, but did you see the price tag on the hotel’s valet parking service this weekend?
Forty bucks a day.
Operators obviously were trying to make a little money as a result of the property’s proximity to the Life Is Beautiful festival in downtown Las Vegas.
I’m wondering how many Life Is Beautiful festival-goers tacked on a little tip for the valet guy when they forked over their $40?
POINTLESS STOP SIGN
Warrior reader Regan has a beef about a stop sign that doesn’t appear to do anything but aggravate neighborhood motorists:
I live in Mountain’s Edge and every day I come to a stop at the most pointless stop sign located at West Mountain’s Edge Parkway and Rainbow Boulevard.
This is a T-intersection where Rainbow dead-ends and Mountain’s Edge Parkway continues maybe 100 feet beyond Rainbow until it dead-ends. There is no traffic that can cross the intersection from south of Rainbow (it’s just a dirt lot where potential houses will be built) and there is no traffic that crosses the intersection from the east of Mountain’s Edge Parkway as the railroad tracks are there and the road dead-ends.
However, there is a stop sign on Mountain’s Edge Parkway that affects all traffic traveling east on Mountain’s Edge Parkway before they turn left to travel north on Rainbow. What is the point of this stop sign?
This is certainly one of those you’re-not-going-to-like-the-answer answers. Per Clark County’s Dan Kulin, there is a Southern Nevada Water District facility at the T-intersection on the east side of Rainbow and every once in a while maintenance vehicles might exit from that area. Because of the potential for conflict, the stop sign was left in place.
Neighborhood residents have a valid point: Why stop hundreds of daily commuters using Mountain’s Edge and Rainbow when the only conflict seems to come infrequently from the Water District facility?
Clip this item out of your newspaper and send it to the appropriate Clark County commissioner.
For District F, the area in question, that would be Susan Brager.
Maybe she can persuade the right people to make a change that would help out the neighborhood.
Questions and comments should be sent to roadwarrior@reviewjournal.com. Please include your phone number. Follow the Road Warrior on Twitter @RJroadwarrior.
ROAD WORK AHEAD
■ Eastbound lanes of the 215 Beltway between Hualapai Way and Durango Drive will be closed 9 p.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday to allow construction of a new bridge over the highway. Westbound traffic might be reduced to one lane.
■ Westbound Cheyenne Avenue from Crawford Street to Civic Center Drive in North Las Vegas will be restricted to one travel lane nightly from 9 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., tonight through Thursday, for sewer upgrades.
■ Flamingo Road will be reduced from three to two travel lanes between Seville Street and U.S. Highway 95 through 8 p.m. Sunday for the replacement of an overhead sign on the highway structure and the installation of a graffiti barrier.
■ Parking lanes on both sides of Edna Avenue between Hauck Street and Lindell Road will be restricted through Nov. 7, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., for field survey work on a Clark County Water Reclamation project.
■ The eastbound left lane of Eldora Avenue at Eldora Circle will be restricted through Nov. 7, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., for field survey work on a Clark County Water Reclamation project.
■ Several streets bordered by Las Vegas Boulevard to the west, Carson Avenue to the south, 10th Street to the east and Mesquite Avenue to the north in downtown Las Vegas will be closed today for the Life Is Beautiful music, food and arts festival.
■ Two parades will close downtown Las Vegas streets at different times Friday. Fourth Street from Gass to Stewart avenues will be closed beginning at 7 a.m., for the 10 a.m. Nevada Day parade. Fremont Street from 13th to Seventh streets will be closed at 3 p.m. for the Halloween parade at dusk.
■ Lane restrictions for a paving and sidewalk project scheduled on Eastern Avenue between St. Rose Parkway and Silverado Ranch Boulevard and the intersection of Coronado Center Drive, Sundays through Thursdays from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m., through the end of 2014.
■ Lane restrictions for a pipeline installation project scheduled on Sahara Avenue between Teddy and Highland drives, daily from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. through November.
■ A sewer line installation on Rampart Boulevard from Lake Mead Boulevard to Alta Drive will occur Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. through Monday. Once the intersection is completed, lane restrictions will occur on Rampart from Lake Mead to Hillpointe Road through mid-October.
■ Traffic diverted to a single lane on Fort Apache Road between Elkhorn Road and the 215 Beltway. The 1-mile project will continue a block at a time from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. through mid-November
■ Intermittent lane closures on Rancho Drive between Sahara Avenue and Rainbow Boulevard through November.
■ The northbound sections of Rancho Drive and Decatur Boulevard are part of a street widening project through November. Two lanes will be open in each direction.
■ Eastbound lanes on Rue de Monte Carlo near Las Vegas Boulevard South closed through Dec. 31.
■ Intermittent lane closures planned on Whitney Ranch Drive from Russell Road to Arroyo Grande Boulevard through December.
■ Lane closures planned on Warm Springs Road from Arroyo Grande Boulevard to Boulder Highway in Henderson through December.
■ Lane closures on Main Street to turn Main and Commerce streets into one-way pairs through the end of 2015.
■ Lane restrictions on Rainbow Boulevard from Ann Road to Tropical Parkway through the end of the year.
■ Lane restrictions on Grand Teton Drive between Durango Drive and Rainbow Boulevard through May 2015.
■ Street, sidewalk, lighting and landscaping improvements are scheduled on Bridger Avenue between Main and Sixth streets through April. Traffic will be restricted to a single lane each direction.
■ Traffic delays likely on 26 miles of northbound and southbound Interstate 15 between mileposts 69 and 95 through early 2015.
GASOLINE PRICES
The average gasoline price Friday in the Las Vegas Valley was $3.19 per gallon. It was $3.26 in Nevada. The national average of $3.08 is down 7 cents from a week ago, down 27 cents from a month ago and down 10 cents from a year ago.
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
