I think it'd be hard to actually quantify the impact. Chicago's also constantly under construction, the downtown area has had major bus route redesigns with the "JUMP" routes, and that's caused a lot of congestion too.

I'm not really familiar with new york's streets, but ours have been over capacity forever and now with uber/lyft there's a lot more single passenger car traffic in the business areas. Much more so than cabs, because getting them is much more convenient than cabs ever were here - calling a cab in chicago is a joke, honestly, and if you weren't in an area they pass by frequently you were out of luck. I feel like more people choose the uber option for short trips that would have been transit in the past. The convenience of it is the model, after all.

>"I think it'd be hard to actually quantify the impact."

You would need Uber/Lyft's help I believe. But I think if you combined the Uber/Lyft data with data that the DOT keeps it would be pretty easy to quantify the impact. I think that was NYC's point as well. But unfortunately the mayor had received money from a taxi lobbying effort which allowed Uber to cry foul and make accusations of protectionism.[1]

One metric used is average travel speed which according to this recent article is down 12% to 8.1 miles compared to 2010[2]

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/nyregion/de-blasio-reaps-b...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/nyregion/uber-ride-hailin...

Well... what incentive do they have to hand it over?

I would think the incentive would be to play nice with the city and the TLC that regulates the industry. I think they will have to do so eventually anyway.

Yeah but if it's not flattering that might not be worth it.