Uber Strikes North, Now Operating in Portland
For all the hipness ascribed to Portland, Maine, in recent years, it seemed to be missing…something. It had the great food. It had the breweries. It had plenty of flannel.
Ah, here it is: Finally, Portland is getting its taste of Uber, as the popular ridesharing service launched in the city Thursday.
Uber’s users love the ridesharing service (most of the time, anyway), but the San Francisco-based company has had skirmishes with cities and states seeking to regulate the service—including here in Massachusetts. Taxi companies worldwide have also voiced plenty of hate for Uber, saying the contract drivers who use the service should be subject to the same regulations as the rest of the industry.
Portland taxi companies did not return calls from Boston.com on Thursday. But city spokesperson Jessica Grondin said the Battle of the Liveries may be less intense in Portland than in other cities, because the city’s barriers to operating a taxi service are pretty low—for instance, they do not run on a medallion system. Many independent drivers operate in Portland as a result, she said. (If Portland’s cab companies were to welcome Uber with open arms, it would mark a pretty drastic departure from prettymucheveryotherUbermarket.)
That said, Portland does still place its share of regulations on taxi companies and cab drivers. Another side of the perpetual Uber debate has seen cities and states attempt to subject the company and drivers to the same regulations as traditional taxis. Uber has shown some willingness to bend to regulators this year, nodding along as regulations in Seattle and Colorado established some oversight on ridesharing services, but more or less let them operate freely.
As Uber moves into new markets, like Portland, officials will be posed with the question of how they should approach the service early on. Grondin said the city was excited to have Uber available in Maine’s biggest city, but how and whether it’s regulated will remain to be seen.
“We’re not quite sure whether they will fit into our city code,’’ Grondin said. “We’ll have to see what action (the city council) intends to take.’’
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