De Blasio Administration Dropping Plan for Uber Cap, for Now - The New York Times

The de Blasio administration has backed away from its fight with the app company Uber, agreeing on Wednesday to drop for now its plan to place a cap on the number of vehicles operated by Uber in New York City.

The agreement brings a temporary end to a fractious struggle that had consumed City Hall for several days, and inundated parts of the city with mailers, phone calls, advertisements and even celebrity endorsements.

Under the agreement, according to three people familiar with the agreement, the city will conduct a four-month study on the effect of Uber and other for-hire vehicle operators on the city?s traffic and environment.

A City Council bill, which was to come to a vote as early as Thursday, had called for a cap on the company?s growth during the study. City officials said that a cap remained a possibility down the line.

?Uber must adhere to the agreement,? said Karen Hinton, the mayor?s chief spokeswoman, who characterized the deal as ?a enormous win? for the city. ?Otherwise the cap gets put back on the table.?

Before the announcement, the fractious, rollicking debate over Uber showed little signs of fading on Wednesday.

With a possible City Council vote one day away, the company?s aggressive crusade had denounced the mayor on the airwaves, insulted him on the company?s own app and, most recently, found its arguments reinforced on the celebrity Twitter accounts of Ashton Kutcher, Kate Upton, Neil Patrick Harris and other infrequent participants in the municipal taxi dialogue.

Perhaps the company?s most potent new ally, though, was a less surprising mayoral critic: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who waded into the conflict on Wednesday as a staunch defender of the company that Mayor Bill de Blasio had cast as a corporate behemoth.

In a radio interview on Wednesday morning, Mr. Cuomo, with whom Mr. de Blasio is enmeshed in an open feud, called Uber ?one of the great inventions of this new economy.?

The City Council proposal, bolstered by the mayor, was designed to limit the growth of for-hire vehicle companies like Uber to 1 percent, pending a study of city traffic patterns. The city has suggested that Uber may be responsible for slower traffic speeds in Manhattan, a charge the company has rejected.

Since 2011, the year Uber debuted in the city, the number of for-hire vehicles in the city has grown by more than 60 percent, to more than 60,000. About 20,000 of the vehicles are Uber?s, according to the city?s Taxi and Limousine Commission.

For several days, the company has sustained a hard-charging campaign against City Hall, most notably in television ads depicting Mr. de Blasio as a protector of the yellow taxi industry, whose leaders have been significant campaign contributors to the mayor. The sides have also tussled over who represents the interests of working-class drivers and passengers, holding dueling rallies this week as the administration sought to frame its concerns as a progressive cause.

Though Ydanis Rodriguez, the chairman of the Council?s transportation committee, said on Wednesday that supporters of the bill had the necessary votes, several prominent Democrats across native government have expressed opposition in new days.

Some of them, like Representative Hakeem Jeffries and the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, have rarely been shy about tweaking the mayor. Others, like Eric L. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, are usually near City Hall allies.