On December 13, Uber contacted officials with the City of Phoenix to advise them that if a tax increase were to be approved by the City Council, the company would be forced to no longer offer services to and from Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport effective January 2020.
Last month, ride-share company Lyft sent a similar letter to the Phoenix City Council advising that if the 200% increase in ride-share fees for services to and from Sky Harbor is approved, they will cease operations at the airport as well.
Now, Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio is calling on members of the public to join him in opposition to the fee increase. He posted on Facebook:
“In what can only be described as a Waterloo moment for Phoenix politicians, Phoenix is about to be known as an anti-business city.
Phoenix politicians are set to pass a massive tax increase on ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft. These companies have sent a letter saying that if Phoenix imposes this tax increase, they will leave the airport. This would make Phoenix the first airport in the nation to literally drive out ridesharing companies.
City Council meeting information:
December 18, 2:30 p.m.
200 W Jefferson St.”“Phoenix politicians are set to pass massive tax increases on our public. From water rate increases to garbage rate increases, and now this hefty tax on the ridesharing companies. It’s no wonder that these companies no longer want to do business in the city of Phoenix. Make no mistake about it, this will be on the backs of the politicians who vote for this tax increase. They will be directly responsible for driving out these business owners Making it difficult for middle-class America to get to the airport.
DiCiccio posted his message on Facebook after Uber contacted Phoenix officials in a letter advising them of the company’s opposition to the taxing scheme. That letter to James Bennett, director of the City of Phoenix’s Aviation Department, from Chris Garcia, Uber’s Global Airport Partnership manager reads:
Director Bennett,
Since Uber launched in Phoenix in 2012, we have helped move millions of Arizonans and visitors around the Valley during a period of remarkable economic growth and expansion. Tens of thousands of local residents have chosen to drive with Uber to earn extra income on a flexible schedule, and the Uber app has connected communities across Maricopa County with reliable transportation options, especially those with limited to public transit. In the third quarter of 20 19 nearly 18% of all Uber trips to or from Phoenix sky Harbor international Airport began or ended in low income communities.
Over the last seven years, Uber has invested heavily in the Phoenix community growing our local presence to more than 650 company employees and our downtown Phoenix Center of excellence. We volunteer thousands of hours with more than 20 community organizations including St. Vincent de Paul, St. Mary’s food bank, phoenix pride, and more. Simply put, being part of the Phoenix community is important to us. That is why Uber has actively engaged in good faith with you and your staff over the last several months to find a compromise that was fairly and responsibly implement fees for operating on your roadways. In fact, Uber partnered with PHX staff on a ground transportation fee benchmarking study over the course of nearly a year.
Unfortunately the conclusion of that study, which stated “any revisions to trips fees should be assessed against the average fees of the airports benchmarked within this study,“ was ignored. Instead the Airport pursued an entirely separate effort to hike fees on ridesharing users to the highest level of any airport in the United States.
The Airport’s plan unfairly penalize those who rely on ridesharing to get to or from PHX by asking them to bear a disproportionate share of cost associated with the Sky Train. Under the Airport’s plan, rideshare users will have to disproportionately foot most of the bill for approximately 80% of the total – for a transportation option that they are not using. In addition, taxi companies and other modes of transportation are not asked to play by the same rules. On behalf of the riders and drivers who rely on Uber, we cannot accept a partnership that unfairly burdens our shared passengers.
Unfortunately, Uber and other ridesharing companies works excluded from the alternative process by which the Airport determined a radically different proposal than the benchmarking study’s recommendation. The fee allocation model that resulted in the Airports ultimate proposal was delivered to Uber just 24 hours prior to the first Phoenix Aviation Advisory board subcommittee meeting, when the Airports initial proposal was voted upon. Despite her concerns about the process, we subsequently attempted to reach a compromise with your staff on multiple occasions and are disappointed that we have been unable to find common ground.
I’m writing to you once again to reiterate our willingness to work with you and your staff to identify a better solution that does not unfairly target those who rely on ride sharing. If the Phoenix City Council approves the ground transportation fee structure currently recommended by PHX, Uber will be forced to cease operations at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport effective January 2020.
We sincerely hope that you are willing to reconsider your position so that we can continue to serve our shared customers and provide access to reliable rights from PHX as we have done for the last seven years. We stand ready to discuss this matter in more detail at your earliest convenience.