Ontario court sides with Uber in legal battle with City of Toronto

“This reflects one of New York City’s best job opportunities at a time when city unemployment is higher than the state’s and the nation’s”. Because of it’s app and the ability to quickly on-board thousands of drivers Uber was hands down the easiest way to get a ride from just about any location, although that has diminished somewhat. A deck of placards sat on the ground nearby, along with dozens of Potbelly sandwiches to feed the demonstrating troops. Regardless of how you may feel about Uber (and everyone seems to have a position on Uber), it is a fascinating business.

Uber brought plenty of swag-and Potbelly sandwiches-to its rally Tuesday.

So argued New York City taxi commissioner Meera Joshi on Tuesday during a quarrelsome City Council hearing on a proposal that could temporarily stymie the growth of Uber, and which Uber, the dominant taxi app in New York City, abhors.

One bill would cap the addition of new cars for services like Uber at 1 percent per year.

Today Uber staged a protest outside of New York City Hall, where inside members of the City Council Transportation Committee were introducing a bill that would require the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) to limit the issuance of new for-hire vehicle licenses.

“It’s easy to see 100,000 new for-hire vehicles licenses operating in New York City, if the current trend were to hold”, he said.

The City of Toronto did not immediately provide comment on the decision.

According to Uber’s New York’s General Manager Josh Mohrer, who spoke at the protest, the proposed bill doesn’t make any sense.

Uber fans rallied outside the City Hall hearing, and the company blasted the proposals in an email as job killers and a disservice to the public. But the company has yet to hash things out with the bill’s sponsor, he said. Most of that growth, he said, is outside of Manhattan, adding that 35% of Uber trips now originate in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island.

So who in their right mind would voluntarily come out to support a phone app in the middle of a workday in lower Manhattan? Many of his pick-ups, he says, are in the Bronx. His constituents were emailed by Uber and spotlighted in ads on Facebook. In San Francisco and a couple of other cities Uber has taxis available as an option on it’s platform.

Incidents elsewhere have raised security concerns about Uber – sexual harassment complaints in the U.S, a customer raped in India.

In Sydney at least (check with Uber about details in other capital cities) there are sign-up sessions six days a week at its main base at Eveleigh at the Australian Technology Park, as well as pop-up sessions at other locations around Sydney.

Jaspreet Singh, 34, who’s been driving his cab for over three years, thinks companies like Uber are a disrespect to the taxi industry. Today, New York is one of Uber’s biggest markets, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue annually. As a result, cabbies told me that their fares have dropped and the banks have ramped up debt collection. “How am I supposed to work like this?” he asked me.

As with most Uber battles, the company is waging a multipronged assault on this latest threat to its business.

After we placed the order we were immediately notified that our driver was five minutes away.

Any licensed driver who owns a four-door vehicle under 10 years old can be part of the growing Uber family.

Follow John Surico on Twitter.