Startup taxi tech firms are fleeing city streets faster than a cab at the end of its shift.
The latest company to fold its tent is Uber, the creator of an app that allows folks to e-hail cabs.
The company’s CEO, in a blog post, said it was ending its program with 160 yellow cabs and blamed the incredible amount of City Hall red tape for its surrender.
“We did the best we could to get more yellows on the road, but New York’s TLC [Taxi and Limousine Commission] put up obstacles and roadblocks in order to squash the effort around e-hail, which they privately have said is legal under the rules,” the CEO, Travis Kalanick, wrote.
“We’ll bite our tongues and keep our frustration here to ourselves,” he added.
Uber’s Big Apple retreat may raise some eyebrows, as there is some dispute about whether hacks should ever have used the app in the first place: Its legality may be in question.
Some have argued that when cabbies get Uber’s signal to pick up a fare blocks away and then pass a hail en route, that drive-by is illegal.
The TLC is rewriting the book on taxi technology and could open the way for virtual taxi hailing.
Hailo, like Uber an e-hail app developer, is among the startups hoping the commission relaxes rules. The TLC said the rules will be made public within weeks, and hearings could be held by the end of November.
“In recent months, as e-hail apps have emerged, TLC has undertaken serious diligence and is moving toward rule changes that will open the market to app developers and other innovators,” the TLC’s David Yassky said in a statement today.
“Those changes cannot legally take place until our existing exclusive contracts expire in February,” he added.
Uber’s decision to leave the city follows a similar move by Square, the credit-card payments company, which shut down a pilot program sanctioned by the city for use in about 15 cabs.
February is when the city’s exclusive payments contract expires, which covers how cabs accept credit cards — another issue the commission has with the apps that handle their own payments.
Uber said it will still work with the luxury fleet of town cars in the city.
CEO Kalanick talked about its attempt to crack the Big Apple market in a short Q&A with The Post.
The Post: Aren’t there rules that say people can’t pay for a cab outside the approved channels, and aren’t there credit-card systems that are exclusive in the city taxis?
Kalanick: This is a myth. There is no regulation that disallows cabs from accepting credit-card payments through other means. Furthermore, we did a Freedom of Information request on supposed credit-card processing contracts (the city claims they are exclusive contracts) and reviewed along with our counsel [former New York Attorney General ] Bob Abrams. We found no exclusivity provision at all. This explains how the city was able to work with Square on credit-card processing without similar purported contract issues.
The Post: Doesn’t virtual hailing skirt certain regulations about how taxis have to pick up passengers?
Kalanick: We got a verbal greenlight by the TLC in August before they backtracked on us. In addition, we were made aware of a memo sent by TLC Chairman Yassky to the mayor’s office, stating that e-hail is legal under existing rules and regulations. It would be interesting to see how the TLC would explain that memo.
The Post: Still, is this the end of Uber in yellow cabs forever, or do you think the new rules will pave the way for a return?
Kalanick: It’s hard to say. The powers that be are incredibly sensitive to incumbent industry concerns about innovation. We’ll have to wait and see.
gsloane@nypost.com