2019-08-03_The_Economist

24 The Americas The EconomistAugust 3rd 2019

2 dez is betraying them. maccihis locking

up its members, including the wife of Mr

Hernández’s predecessor, Porfírio Lobo.

Business people, once friendly to Mr Her-

nández, grumble about slowing growth,

corruption and rising taxes. Middle-class

Hondurans pay twice for basic services,

through taxes and again by spending mon-

ey on health and security because the

state’s provision is so bad, says Pedro

Barquera, the head of the chamber of com-

merce in the state of Cortés. The attorney-

general has accused the army top brass,

who are among Mr Hernández’s staunchest

allies, of refusing to co-operate with his in-

vestigation into the shooting of protesters

after the election. That has enraged the

generals, who expected the president to

protect them as they have protected him.

Grief may have weakened the president.

His sister, Hilda, died in a helicopter crash

in 2017. She had managed the government’s

communications and was one of the few

advisers to whom Mr Hernández listened.

His brother, Tony, was arrested in the Un-

ited States last year on drug-trafficking and

weapons charges. He has pleaded not

guilty. His trial, which begins in October,

could embarrass the president.

Mr Hernández’s writ no longer runs. In

April congress passed reforms to end the

practice of paying phantom teachers and

health-care workers and to prevent union

bosses and politicians from giving jobs to

their cronies. The law provoked protests,

starting at universities and spreading. Peo-

ple close to Mr Hernández say that pnbig-

wigs paid for some of the protests. Con-

gress unanimously repealed the law.

These setbacks have fed speculation

that Mr Hernández may not finish his term,

which ends in 2022. On June 19th, as prot-

esters prepared to commemorate the ten-

year anniversary of Honduras’s last mili-

tary coup, history nearly repeated itself.

The military police refused to carry out “re-

pression” and stayed in their barracks. Lor-

ry drivers, angry about a rise in fuel prices,

blocked roads around Tegucigalpa, the cap-

ital. Rumours circulated that generals and

business people were joining purged po-

lice officers to topple the government.

If Mr Hernández does hang on, he can

still do some good. Most important is to

ensure that the next election, in which he

has promised not to run, is a clean one. It

“has to be transparent, with no doubt about

the process”, says Roció Izabel Tábora, the

finance minister. That will require a new

law to overhaul the electoral system that is

more ambitious than one being consid-

ered. And another test will come before

maccih’s mandate expires in January. Mr

Hernández will face pressure from his

party to expel it or weaken its mandate.

Hondurans hope he will not. What they

want from him in his final years in office is

less Machiavelli, and more morality. 7

I

f you lookChinese and speak Mandarin

you can summon a ride in Vancouver by

using an app, as long as it’s Chinese. The

drivers normally call to confirm the order,

says Daniel Merkin, who lives in the Cana-

dian city. “Sometimes they’ll hang up on

me when they realise I don’t speak Manda-

rin,” he says. But he keeps trying, because

popular ride-hailing services, such as Uber

and Lyft, are not available. Vancouver is the

only big North American city where they do

not operate. The Chinese service is not le-

gal, but it is tolerated.

Mr Merkin hopes that his options will

soon expand. In July the province of British

Columbia, which licenses drivers, said it

would allow the big ride-hailing services

in. They could start operations by late Sep-

tember. But British Columbia has made

their entry difficult by requiring drivers to

hold commercial licences. That may deter

part-timers who provide much of the ser-

vices’ workforce. Lyft does not operate in

places that require such licences.

The regulators have reason to proceed

cautiously. In many cities where ride-hail-

ing has taken off, congestion has worsened

and use of public transport has dropped. In

San Francisco, congestion, as measured by

extra time required to complete a journey,

increased by 60% from 2010 to 2016, ac-

cording to Greg Erhardt, a professor at the

University of Kentucky. More than half of

the rise was caused by the growth of ride-

hailing. Population and employment

growth accounted for the rest. Ride-hailing

led to a 12% drop in ridership on public

transport in the city. San Francisco’s expe-

rience is a “cautionary tale for Vancouver”,

says Joe Castiglione, who analyses data for

its transport authority.

Even without Uber and Lyft, Vancouver

is one of North America’s most traffic-

jammed cities, in part because its down-

town is small. Ride-hailing might worsen

congestion. Its absence has made Vancou-

ver one of the few North American cities

where public transport is attracting more

passengers. The number of journeys start-

ed on TransLink, the city’s public-transport

system, rose by 7.1% to 437m in 2018, mak-

ing it “another record-breaking year” for

the network of buses and trains. From 2016

to 2018 the number rose by 18.4%. British

Columbia’s higher petrol prices and growth

in employment and population explain

some of that rise. Not allowing Uber and

Lyft helped, says Andrew Curran, Trans-

Link’s head of policy. (It has also boosted

car-sharing services, which let people book

vehicles they drive themselves. Vancouver

has 3,000 cars that can be hired for such

services, double the number in San Fran-

cisco, which has more people.)

Vancouver was among the first cities

Uber tried to enter, in 2012, and “the first

city that Uber ever left”, in the same year,

says Michael van Hemmen, who leads the

company’s operations in western Canada.

Forbidding rules, such as classifying it as a

limousine service, which for some reason

must charge a minimum of C$75 ($57) per

trip, killed its business. British Columbia is

now inviting it back to Vancouver (and oth-

er cities in the province) in hopes of com-

plementing its public-transport system

rather than undermining it. It will not be

classified as a limousine service.

Mr Curran says ride-hailing could in-

crease use of public transport by ferrying

people from their houses to a bus or train

stop. It could also improve transport for

people with disabilities. Currently, Trans-

Link hires taxis to give door-to-door rides

to some disabled people. The requirement

for drivers to have commercial licences

will contain the services’ growth and pro-

tect taxi-drivers, ride-hailing’s fiercest

foes, or so the province hopes.

But the commercial-licence require-

ment could have the opposite effect. An-

alysts think it will reduce the number of

drivers available to pick up passengers in

distant suburbs. Instead, they will cluster

in the centre. Some of Uber’s future com-

petitors say they are not worried. The com-

mercial-licence rule will discourage most

drivers, believes Chris Iuvancigh of Share-

now, which runs Car2go, one of Vancou-

ver’s four car-sharing services. A driver

who offers rides in his Mercedes suvto

people who hire him via WeChat, a Chinese

app, thinks they will stay loyal. If ride-hail-

ing does come to Vancouver, he predicts, it

will just slow their journeys down. 7

VANCOUVER

A hold-out province gives ride-hailing

a cautious go-ahead

Uber in British Columbia

Stop and go