The State House’s largest hall was full of drivers wearing taxicab yellow alongside competitors from Lyft and Uber in blue and pink as the Legislature’s Financial Services Committee heard ideas on how the state should regulate the popular ride-hailing services.
Legislatively speaking, lawmakers are labeling ride-hailing companies as Transportation Network Companies that coordinate contracting drivers to pick up passengers who use the company’s app. Uber and Lyft are the most popular of these services in Boston.
Traditional cab drivers claim the new ride services don’t have to jump through nearly as many regulatory hoops as they do, resulting in an unfair playing field that’s unsafe for riders.
It’s not much a matter of whether Massachusetts will begin to regulate the services, but rather how much the state will crack down.
Gov. Charlie Baker has a bill that would force background checks for ride-hail drivers, let cities and town add additional constraints and carry extensive insurance policies.
Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry (D-Dorchester) wants much stricter rules to control the new services.
“And so I hope that you may see the dangerous precedent we may face if TNCs are allowed to go unfettered as they do today,” Forry testified alongside her bill’s House cosponsor, Rep. Michael Moran (D-Brighton).
The committee heard four bills Tuesday at a lengthy hearing that lasted over four hours. The proposals range from more limited governance like Baker’s favored ruleset, to harsher regulations like the bill put forward by Forry and Moran.
