Minneapolis City Council presses on with anti-rideshare measure

During the last legislative session, the Minnesota House and Senate managed to pass a bill so wacky that it was too much even for Governor Walz.

The bill required that drivers for rideshare platforms like Uber be paid a minimum of $5 per ride, or at least $1.45 per mile and 34 cents per minute in the metropolitan area, with slightly lower fares in the rest of the state. It also would have made it harder for the companies to “deactivate” drivers from their platforms. Explaining that this bill would make it unprofitable to run the service and more dangerous for consumers, Uber threatened to halt its operations in greater Minnesota — outside of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area — and Gov. Walz vetoed it.

But no bad idea ever truly goes away. KSTP reports:

The Minneapolis Business, Inspections, Housing and Zoning Committee is set to hold a public hearing Tuesday on new plans to protect rideshare drivers. 

The city is moving forward with a policy that will guarantee rideshare drivers a minimum of 51 cents per minute and a $1.40 per mile that they have a rider in the vehicle.

The policy also establishes policies and timelines for why and how a company can deactivate a driver.

Over to you, Uber.