It's a simple message: we, the San Antonio tech community, want rideshare back. 

San Antonio has a chance to lead in emerging high growth technology industries, including Internet infrastructure, cyber security, and biotech, and be a strong player in the Internet software and services space. Much of that growth can occur only in an environment that is conducive to new ideas and innovation. 

After two false starts with rideshare opportunities, it's time for the city to rethink its approach to companies like Uber and Lyft. Working in and around tech, we embrace iteration — it's the way we've been coding, tinkering, prototyping, and building for decades. And when major markets around the country, like Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C., can make rideshare work, we don't buy the argument that San Antonio can't figure it out too. 

Rideshare creates jobs and helps get people to their destinations, especially when those destinations aren't along transit lines or serving downtown hotels. It provides a transportation option that San Antonio desperately needs to connect all 465 square miles of the city. We aren't debating whether San Antonio should have rideshare (it should!), but rather how it should have it. 

New regulations that bring rideshare back to San Antonio will have to work for rideshare companies, drivers, riders, and policymakers. We want to study the ways other cities made rideshare safe and legal to ensure that we develop the best policy for San Antonio. Public safety and innovation don't have to be on opposite sides of the debate. Other cities have successfully opened their roads to rideshare and kept their citizens safe without overly burdensome or irrelevant regulations. It's time for us to do the same. 

Politics and ego shouldn't get in the way of policy. Sign the petition to help bring #SArideshare back and inform the conversation!