Uber Admits Defeat in the Yellow Cab Battle for New York

After a little over a month on trial in New York City and squabbling with the Taxi and Limousine Commission, Uber is shutting down its taxi operations in the city. As soon as the company began offering users a way to hail cabs through its app, the TLC attempted to shut it down for violating its regulations. At the time Uber CEO Travis Kalanick sounded optimistic about getting the service certified to the TLC's standards and running a full operation there. Now, however, it sounds like the TLC won. "We did the best we could to get more yellows on the road but New York’s TLC (Taxi and Limousine Commission) put up obstacles and roadblocks in order to squash the effort around e-hail, which they privately have said is legal under the rules," he wrote on the company site. Those "roadblocks" included threats of fines for drivers who accepted Uber riders or even revoked licenses. 

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This doesn't mean that Uber will pull out of NYC altogether. The black car service is still "rocking," as Kalanick puts it. Uber is even encouraging some drivers to sign up for that offering, giving them $1,000 incentives, reports The Verge's Adrianne Jeffries, who spoke with cab drivers who worked with the service. But even in admitting defeat on the yellow cab front, Uber got a pretty harsh dig in at New York: "In the meantime you can try UberTAXI in more innovation-friendly cities — including Boston and Toronto." 

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