This is how I feel about Manhattan/NYC. It should be limited to taxis/uber, buses, garbage, ambulances, and delivery trucks. There should be large garages/parking lots that are free/cheap just north of it in the bronx and people can quickly commute in via a shuttle, bus or bike.
Wouldn't that just lead to everybody becoming Uber drivers that just happen to never quite getting around to picking up passengers?
Same with delivery trucks. "No officer I'm not driving to work, I'm a one man delivery company delivering this briefcase to my office in my car".
I'm in no way a fan of the medallion system, but if your goal is to put a hard limit on the number of cars in a city then you're going to need some way to enforce that limit.
One idea might be to rework the "medallion" system so that they're sold at auction at the start of each year, and are only valid for 1 year. Then let both taxi companies and Uber/Lyft/etc. drivers bid against each for medallions once a year in an open market.
There are a number of ways to handle "cheating" - greatly increased insurance and license expense for CDL drivers would probably cut down on most systemic fraud.
You don't need a CDL to drive for Uber. The whole point is that any one can pick up is phone and start driving. How do you stop that? Given the climate of Houston summers, I'd just come in an hour, hour-and-a-half early and do three trips to call myself a driver; literally just so I could avoid the heat.
