Student Association President Aysha Seedat is taking steps to help bring a ride-hailing service, like Uber, to Syracuse.

Seedat said she is looking to or has met with various administrators at Syracuse University and has been reviewing New York state legislation that would help bring the service to the entire state.

Ultimately, Seedat said the goal of bringing such a program to Syracuse is to improve safety.

“Being from New Jersey and working in New York City this summer, I used Uber and Lyft a lot and it was extremely economically feasible for me to use it in my budget,” Seedat said. “It was just really, really easy to get from one place to another.”

A Change.org petition was started two months ago by Rise Collaborative, a Western New York-based advocacy group, in hopes of bringing ride-hailing services to various upstate New York cities, including Syracuse. As of Monday night, the petition has 1,703 signatures with a goal of 2,500.

Right now, New York City is the only place in the state where Uber is legal. Currently, ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft are barred from operating in New York state because of a restriction in a New York state insurance law. New York City was granted an exemption to the law.

New York State Assembly bill A.6090 would change the state insurance law to allow for ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft to operate statewide.

A Freedom of Information request to the city of Syracuse returned no results for communication between Mayor Stephanie Miner and New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo regarding Uber.

Seedat said she met with SU’s associate vice president for government and community relations Eric Persons about the prospect of bringing Uber and/or Lyft to SU. It was determined at the meeting that if the services are something the university wants to push for, it has to see how relevant it is to SU’s mission, which is primarily academic-based, she said.

Seedat said ride-hailing services such as Uber could improve student safety by bringing down drunk driving and other related safety numbers, Seedat said.

“Whether or not we have a certain number of students who are caught with drunk driving, there are still people doing it who are not getting caught,” Seedat said. “From my experience back at home, when we had access to it, it was no question, nobody was going to drive, we were just going to take an Uber.”

When Seedat campaigned for president last spring, one of her platforms was improving student safety and with that, reforming campus escort services.

Seedat said she’s hoping to meet with Department of Public Safety Chief Bobby Maldonado about ride-hailing services.

At the University of Southern California, the university has a partnership with Uber. When wait times for a “Campus Cruiser,” which is USC’s escort service, are more than 15 minutes between 7 p.m. and 2 a.m., the dispatcher invites students to request a free Uber ride.

Seedat said there are talks of reinstating the DPS Safety Committee, which was a committee in SA before it dissolved.

Seedat said she wants to figure out what SA’s and the university’s stances on the ride-hailing services are before approaching Uber. She added that there will likely be a resolution presented in the SA assembly about Uber, which she said she expects to pass.

“I think that this is a really great opportunity for us,” Seedat said. “Not so often do you see SA getting involved in legislation and I think this would really be helpful especially talking to local legislators about something like this and making a push for it.”

She added that while her primary focus is to bring a ride-hailing service to the university, she thinks it could help the whole city of Syracuse.

Published on September 14, 2015 at 11:54 pm

Contact Justin: jmatting@syr.edu | @jmattingly306