There are few things more aggravating than rush-hour traffic in Midtown Manhattan. Now, local officials are questioning whether ride-hailing apps like Uber are adding to the pain.
The New York Times’s Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Winnie Hu write that more than 50,000 drivers in the city are now working for ride-hailing apps. That shift has coincided with lower taxi fares, lower taxi medallion prices and, for the first time since 2009, lower subway ridership — even though the city’s population, and the number of jobs there, keeps increasing.
According to city data, “average travel speeds in the heart of Manhattan dropped to about 8.1 miles per hour last year, down about 12 percent from 2010.”
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