Uber Supports Moving FIRST Act

By Andrew Salzberg, Head of Transportation Policy & Research

Since our founding, Uber has been driven by the principle that everyone should be afforded safe, reliable transportation options at the push of a button. Fast forward seven years and billions of rides later, we now find ourselves serving communities across the US. As we’ve grown, we’ve explored how our technology can be used in new and exciting ways. From Summit, New Jersey, where we teamed up with the city to help get commuters to and from their local rail station, to Boston, Massachusetts, where we launched a pilot with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) to help improve the quality of the paratransit service for the elderly and people with disabilities, to the town of Lone Tree, Colorado, where our technology is enabling on-demand door-to-door shuttle service throughout the town’s city limits — cities are looking to ridesharing services, like Uber, for innovative solutions to their own unique transportation challenges.

In an effort to continue enhancing transportation systems through technology, U.S. Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Richard Burr (R-NC), and Congressmen Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) and Lloyd Smucker (R-PA) have introduced the Moving FIRST Act. Their legislation builds on the success of the Department of Transportation’s Smart Cities program by authorizing annual federal awards to fund innovative programs. Uber strongly supports this legislation, along with any measure that allows our communities to create partnerships to unlock their full potential and lead the world in innovative solutions to transit challenges.