Uber, Lyft put pressure on taxi companies

On Tuesday, San Francisco’s largest taxi operator, Yellow Cab Cooperative, is scheduled to have its first bankruptcy hearing after the company filed for Chapter 11 protection Friday. The operator has been struggling with declining ridership and increased competition from the two big for-hire driver start-ups. While Uber and Lyft may have contributed to increased competition for the cab cooperative, the start-ups were not the sole cause of the filing, according to the cooperative’s bankruptcy attorney, Gary M. Kaplan.”It’s a business reality, there is competition there,” Kaplan told CNBC. “But it’s incorrect to make it sound as if this is the result of Uber and Lyft. The company operationally does fine and is still operational,” he said. “It does not want to lose drivers and passengers to the competition; it wants to operate business as usual.”