Eugene City Council held a hearing Tuesday night to discuss the ride sharing app, Uber. It's been violating city code since it arrived in Eugene. The council is considering changing the code to accommodate Uber.
If Eugene's public passenger vehicle code is updated, it would allow ride sharing, smart phone applications to charge fares and would require the services to be licensed by the city.
Eugene asked Uber to cease its services in November and has been fining the business 2,000 dollars a day since December 15th.
At the meeting, community members who depend on the service asked that it stay.
In refute, taxi drivers argued if Uber stays, it should be held to the same regulations as any other transportation service.
Laura Hammond with the city's planning and development department gives council insight from the end of the hearing:
Hammond: "For many of them, it is very important that Uber meet the same safety requirements that all of our local companies already have to meet. That is definitely going to be an important piece of whatever code change moves forward. And we're going to work hard to make sure Uber understands that and can come into compliance."
The council is scheduled to take action on the proposed code change at the work session on February 9th.