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Taxi companies argue over app bill in Albany

Jun 05, 2015 2:06 pm
Will Brunelle in Capital New York reports that a coalition upstate taxi and for-hire transit operators are denouncing a bill that would legalize taxi app companies inthe area. Kevin Barwell, president of the Limousine, Bus and Taxi Operators of Upstate New York, said June 4 that e-hail companies such as Lyft and Uber should operate under "precisely the model of a traditional taxi company." There's a bill in Albany sponsored by State Senator James Seward, a Republican who formerly represented Greene County, but now his district is slightly north and west of the county, and Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, a Democrat from the Hudson Valley, that would legalize the taxi apps here. Earlier in the week at a pro-Lyft press conference, Albany entrepreneurs Vic Christopher and Matt Baumgartner argued that unpredictable and unreliable taxi service in the Capital Region was hurting the tourist industry here, and that competition from the app-fleets would help. Read the full story in Capital New York.