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gress unanimously repealed the law.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. 7I
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 publictransport 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. 7VANCOUVER
A hold-out province gives ride-hailing
a cautious go-aheadUber in British ColumbiaStop and go