A proposed tax on Uber and Lyft rides to Disneyland and nearby major sporting venues failed to gain the support needed from Anaheim City Council to appear on the November ballot.<\/p>\n
Councilmembers on Tuesday considered the council-initiated proposal, which would have asked voters to approve a 10% tax on rideshare users heading to the Anaheim Resort area and defined areas of the Platinum Triangle, anchored by the Honda Center and Angel Stadium.<\/p>\n
The tax would have averaged $2 per ride, according to a city staff report. <\/p>\n
Efforts to put it on the ballot came on the heels of Anaheim adopting a budget that plugged a $45-million gap through reserves and proceeds from the sale of a city-owned parking lot.<\/p>\n
But city officials appeared reluctant to move the ballot measure forward amid lingering questions about how the tax could affect Anaheim residents despite efforts to carve some of them out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am concerned about this negatively affecting our residents who are workers in the resort district,\u201d Councilmember Carlos Leon said. \u201cFor someone that\u2019s visiting, a $2 charge on average isn\u2019t going to make them decide whether or not to take a rideshare. But for a worker \u2026 those $2 start to add up, and you\u2019re starting to look at $30 a week just to get to and from work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anaheim retained a consulting firm to evaluate rideshares in the targeted areas.<\/p>\n
According to a study, there are about 1.5 million rideshares to and from nonresidential areas of the Anaheim Resort annually. The estimates are lower for the Platinum Triangle, with 240,000 annual trips.<\/p>\n
City staff concluded that a rideshare tax would generate an additional $3.6 million in annual general fund revenue while getting ahead of an expected increase of self-driving car services such as Waymo, which would also be subject to the levy.<\/p>\n
Representatives from Lyft and Uber opposed the proposed ballot measure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis tax hike risks driving up the cost of rides and lowering overall trip numbers in a high-demand district,\u201d Nick Johnson, Lyft\u2019s director of public policy, said in a Tuesday letter to the council. \u201cSince drivers heavily rely on event-based travel and visitors to the Platinum Triangle, a drop in rides within these zones could potentially decrease their earnings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson also argued that half of \u201clost\u201d riders turn to private cars \u2014 not public transit \u2014 and could lead to more traffic congestion.<\/p>\n
Danielle Lam, Uber\u2019s head of public policy for California, expressed dismay that the rideshare company learned of the proposal only 24 hours before the council meeting, especially after Anaheim Regional Transportation buses shut down in March.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith ART gone, rideshare is an essential part of the city\u2019s transportation infrastructure \u2014 not a convenience,\u201d Lam wrote in a letter on the day of the council meeting. \u201cSince services ended in March, we have absorbed a substantial share of the displaced demand. Thousands of hospitality and convention workers getting to shifts, residents reaching job and medical appointments and visitors moving between hotels and venues rely on Uber.\u201d<\/p>\n
Assemblymember Avelino Valencia (D-Anaheim) and the Orange County Business Council also publicly opposed the tax. <\/p>\n
City officials shied away from an exemption of Anaheim residents based on ZIP Codes submitted when soliciting a rideshare as it could collide with the U.S. Constitution\u2019s Dormant Commerce Clause.<\/p>\n
Instead, city officials proposed exempting residential areas near the resort as trip starting or ending points.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Norma Campos Kurtz raised the issue of a hotel worker using a rideshare to go home to a neighborhood just outside the resort, such as the working-class community around Ponderosa Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cA hotel worker gets a ride to work, that\u2019s great,\u201d she said. \u201cBut when they get out of work at 2 a.m., and they take an Uber to their home in Ponderosa. They\u2019re going to get taxed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilmember Ryan Balius questioned whether the projected annual revenue was enticing enough to put the measure on the ballot without addressing the remaining concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs the juice worth the squeeze,\u201d he asked rhetorically. \u201cAdding another tax makes us less competitive, causes fewer people to visit, stay overnight, and come back next year. We lose more than we gain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Ashleigh Aitken closed discussion with nobody on council wanting to call for a vote, not even those open to the idea of a rideshare tax.<\/p>\n
Aitken pledged to continue working with the city manager\u2019s office on addressing concerns aired during the meeting. <\/p>\n
The tax could possibly be revisited in a year or 18 months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A proposed tax on Uber and Lyft rides to Disneyland and nearby major sporting venues failed to gain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,19754,599,20386,2323,6199,169708,164564,10112,4072,14536,169707,1747,3986,4455],"class_list":["post-425725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-anaheim-resort","tag-area","tag-city-official","tag-council","tag-hotel","tag-lyft-ride","tag-nick-johnson","tag-platinum-triangle","tag-ride","tag-rideshare","tag-rideshare-tax-ballot-measure","tag-tax","tag-uber","tag-worker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}