Prepare yourselves for one hell of a ride-sharing experience: Uber is coming to UF.
Well, yes, it’s been here for a while already — but now, it’s partnered up with UF’s Student Government as part of a Safe Ride initiative this April.
Here’s the deal: Uber will give a 50 percent discount on rides to registered UF students, with some stipulations. The discount is only available on Wednesdays through Saturdays between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. within a specific geographic area bordered by Northwest Eighth Avenue to the north, Archer Road to the south and Southwest 34th Street to the west. Bits of it also go all the way downtown to Main Street and to the area around Oxford Terrace apartments. Sadly, the ride has to begin and end within this zone in order for the discount to take effect.
The Safe Ride program with Uber won’t directly affect existing free services like the Student Nighttime Auxiliary Patrol and RTS’ Later Gator nighttime rides — UF isn’t handing the company a monopoly on rides.
But, unlike SNAP and Later Gators, using Uber will cost you. Fifty percent, though — that’s a really big price reduction. College students, as you may have known, don’t exactly have a lot of cash to throw around. But, if you’re not among the students who live on campus or Sorority Row, it’s a comparatively cheap alternative that will get you where you need to be with hardly any walking. A couple dollars for a ride home is surely preferable to drunkenly stumbling there or attempting to wait at the right bus stop. The fact that the map includes the two main nightlife centers — Midtown and downtown — is a welcome addition, if not a surprise.
But the major issue we see with the program is this: It cuts out after 34th Street and Archer, meaning the many students who live south and east of that border will be left out.
The overall hope is that the partnership will improve student safety, adding another choice to the existing options of using SNAP, taking a bus, driving drunk or walking home.
But wait, there’s a big “however” coming.
However, Uber is often sketchy as all hell.
Not to rain on anybody’s parade — after all, we think this is a great idea — but it’s prudent to remember some questionable aspects of the company we’d be doing business with.
Uber has garnered itself a rather nasty reputation for using Scientology-esque tactics against its competitors and its critics. They’ve been caught sabotaging ride orders from rival companies in an attempt to undermine competition. They treat their drivers horribly, and once an Uber executive suggested the company investigate a journalist critical of the company, presumably to blackmail her.
Sometimes, Uber drivers themselves commit crimes. There are a litany of cases where drivers assault passengers, including one where a driver returned to somebody’s house and attempted a robbery.
On the whole, though, this will probably be good for us. Uber’s general sketchiness won’t affect us directly, and creeps exist everywhere — just be wary of suspicious behavior.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 4/2/2015]
