Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker has proposed a US$1 charge on all Uber, Lyft and different rideshare journeys within the town to start in 2027. The projected $48 million annual earnings would pass completely to strengthen the chronically underfunded Philadelphia college district, which faces a $300 million price range deficit.
Critics, together with Uber, declare the tax will disproportionately harm working-class riders.
Parker argues that the tax might be implemented to the rideshare corporations: The firms can select to not move them directly to riders.
We’re a professor and a Ph.D. candidate who analysis the advantages and prices of inexperienced applied sciences and insurance policies. In 2025, we performed an research to know what the verdict through Uber and Lyft riders to make use of rideshare as an alternative of public transit advised us about how they valued their time.
Our peer-reviewed findings would possibly lend a hand Philadelphians come to a decision whether or not they wish to strengthen the mayor’s proposal.
Courses from Chicago rideshare find out about
We discovered that, according to hour of time stored through taking Uber or Lyft, Chicago riders paid about $30. That’s more or less the common hourly salary within the Chicago area, which goes out to $60,000 a yr ahead of taxes for full-time paintings.
Our research sampled 8 days. About 1.4 million journeys have been recorded on in this day and age, and we analyzed foundation and vacation spot knowledge for 950,000 of those journeys. The remaining both began or ended at O’Hare airport, have been ordered between nighttime and six a.m. when public transit is unavailable, or had some lacking knowledge. We excluded rides out and in of O’Hare as a result of even supposing our research accounted for wait occasions for Uber and Lyft, our fashion may no longer simulate the queuing gadget at O’Hare.
Starting place and vacation spot knowledge was once persistently to be had on the group house stage. A group house is considered one of Chicago’s 77 divisions, which will comprise one or a number of neighborhoods. Each and every group house has a mean of 35,000 other folks, even supposing the biggest is house to 105,000 other folks and the smallest to only over 2,000.
About 60% of the journeys we analyzed had both origins or locations in group spaces with median family earning over $100,000. An extra 23% of rides originated or resulted in spaces with family earning between $50,000 and $100,000. This means to us that almost all Uber and Lyft riders in Chicago are heart category or above.
About 1 in 6 journeys – 17% to be precise – began or resulted in group spaces with family earning of not up to $50,000. A $50,000 family revenue is more or less 150% of the federal poverty line for a four-person circle of relatives in Chicago.
This means that ride-hailing is already unaffordable for those shoppers, and they’re in all probability the usage of it as a final hotel. As an example, public transit may not be to be had the place they’re or wish to pass, is just too gradual or is suffering from dangerous climate.
Experience-hailing is already unaffordable for many of us, who flip to it handiest as a final hotel when public transportation isn’t readily to be had.
Ricky Carioti/The Washington Put up by means of Getty Photographs
Low-income riders delicate to additional charges
Any other Chicago find out about, performed through researchers at MIT and printed in 2023, supplies some proof at the impact of the town’s Flooring Transportation Tax. Starting in January 2020, Chicago added an extra price of $1.13 according to ride-hailing travel, and an extra $1.75 for weekday journeys that began or resulted in downtown between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. The revenues went to the town’s Company Fund, which helps town operations and products and services, together with bettering carrier on Chicago public transit.
That find out about discovered that Chicago’s tax produced a vital aid in journeys between downtown Chicago and the South and Southwest of Chicago, two spaces with a prime share of low-income and Black citizens.
The find out about notes that that is perhaps as a result of low-income individuals who reside in those spaces to find ride-hailing too dear to start with, and are subsequently extra delicate to further charges.
In lots of portions of Chicago, the 6 a.m. to ten p.m. weekday charge led riders to shift to pooled Uber and Lyft rides. Mentioning previous analysis, the authors speculated that the rationale this shift to pooled rides didn’t occur in South Chicago was once that house most likely has fewer Uber and Lyft drivers within sight, for the reason that ride-hailing drivers have a tendency to pay attention in wealthier spaces with extra call for.
This conclusion rests on a previous Chicago-based find out about performed in 2018 and 2019 which discovered that spaces with lower-income families asked 5 occasions fewer journeys than spaces with higher-income families.
A New York-based find out about in a similar fashion discovered that public transit, bike-sharing and ride-hailing all served rich spaces of the town a ways higher than they did poorer spaces.
Restricted knowledge sharing in Philly
Philadelphians who concern that the extra $1 according to experience charge will put ride-hailing past the achieve of low-income riders must observe that ride-hailing is already an unaffordable closing hotel for lots of on this demographic.
Additionally, what is also true in Chicago or New York is probably not true in Philly. A Chicago ordinance calls for rideshare corporations to record knowledge on their actions on a per 30 days foundation. The research we did in Chicago was once imaginable as a result of Chicago publishes anonymized details about each and every Uber and Lyft experience taken within the town. This information comprises the approximate foundation and vacation spot of the experience, approximate get started and finish occasions, and the associated fee.
One solution to take a look at which Philadelphia communities {that a} $1 charge would maximum have an effect on can be for Uber and Lyft to make such knowledge publicly to be had for Philadelphia, as they do for Chicago and New York. Uber’s statement that this tax would disproportionately harm working-class Philadelphians is founded by itself research of its personal knowledge, no longer on clear research of publicly to be had knowledge.
Uber didn’t reply to our question about whether or not they percentage knowledge that impartial researchers can get entry to to resolve which Uber riders in Philadelphia can be maximum suffering from the proposed charge. Lyft referred us to their March 2025 Financial Affect Record for Philadelphia, which states that 61% of Philly rides get started or lead to low-income spaces. They didn’t reply to a follow-up query referring to how a low-income house was once measured or outlined.
