Welcome to 2019, where it'll now cost you a little more for each Uber and Lyft ride you take in Chicago.
The City of Chicago has implemented an additional per-ride fee of $0.05 on Uber, Lyft and other ride-sharing companies, bringing the city's total ride-sharing fee to $0.72 a ride. The nickel increase is part of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's plan to fund improvements for the CTA.
The price increase is part of a two-year plan that began in 2017 when Emanuel asked the City Council to increase ride-sharing fees by $0.15, bringing the total per-ride fee in 2018 to $0.67.
The new fees are being used to upgrade and install video cameras at CTA stations across the city. The plan, which will take a "few years," will swap out nearly 4,000 current CTA cameras for high-definition models, and add another 1,000 cameras.
“It’s an appropriate way, and I think it’s progressive, those who use Lyft and Uber, those riders, will be actually making sure the CTA is a competitive system from a transportation perspective, and the right investment to make,” Emanuel said last year. The mayor added that the move would allow Chicago to become the first city in the U.S. to institute a fee on ride-sharing dedicated specifically for mass transit improvements.
