Ryan Brennecke / The BulletinDale Hagen, a driver with Bend Cab Company, chats with passenger Al Sharkey as he gives him a ride home from the Hawthorne Transit Station on Wednesday.

While in some cities a ride to the airport or home after a night out drinking is just a few taps on a cellphone screen away, folks in Bend still have to pick up the phone or wave a hand to flag down a cab driver.

Rideshare services Uber and Lyft have yet to pop up in Central Oregon — and people have mixed feelings about it. Current city regulations covering taxi services would conflict with the services’ preferred way of doing business, but City Attorney Mary Winters said Bend might be willing to work with them should Uber or Lyft be interested in expanding into Central Oregon. And some Bend residents and business owners feel the services might bring a more convenient, inexpensive alternative to the city’s existing transportation options.

Regulations in Bend stipulate that anyone wanting to provide driving services must apply to be a taxicab operator and be fingerprinted and background checked by the police department, according to City Attorney Mary Winters. Drivers must also be covered by a cab company’s insurance, which Winters says avoids confusion over who is liable in an accident.

Similar regulations in cities such as Portland have put Uber, which prefers to do its own background checks, at odds with local laws, but the company has negotiated regulations separate from those of taxicabs so it can continue to operate under its own system. However, Winters said these negotiations generally come at the request of the companies, and both have yet to approach Bend.

“Right now, you’d have to come under our taxicab rules. But if they came to the city and said they wanted some other rules we’d have to have a discussion and look at what other cities have done,” Winters said. “If they come to us and there’s a market and the community wants them, the City Council would decide whether to direct our legal department to do more research and to look at a different process.”

Whether this market of riders that would use these services exists seems to be the real question.

Reid Nichols, general manager of Bend Cab Company and Shuttle Services, says there’s a lot of fluctuation in demand for taxi services in Bend, so he doubts whether other rideshare services would find success. While concerts and special events can hike up the number of people requesting rides, business is otherwise often slow, and the company augments this by working with the state to provide medical rides to people insured by Medicaid and Oregon Health Plan.

With the growing tourism and population in Central Oregon, Randy Mahaney, owner of Taxis of Bend, says his service has gotten busier, but agrees that Uber and Lyft likely would not find a consistent enough audience to make business viable.

“During big events, like concerts, or when all the hotels are filled up, it can build up to an hour wait for a cab,” Mahaney said. “But transportation is really big here, and I don’t foresee the need for Uber or Lyft being that there are seven taxi companies, two town car companies and buses.”

But those doing the hourlong waiting might disagree.

Wait times for cabs on Friday nights around midnight at D&D Bar and Grill are often up to 45 minutes, according to owner Richard Orazetti. According to a recent study by the University of California, Berkeley, rideshare wait times average around 10 minutes or less, and the ability to watch their car’s location on the map allows users to be more certain it will arrive.

“I would like to see Uber or Lyft here, I think every citizen would,” Orazetti said. “Plus, the competition would improve all of the services in town.”

And in a city with a “Walk Score” of 33/100 and a “Bike Score” of 64/100, according to the national city-rating service Walkscore, which describes Bend as a “car dependent city” in which “most errands require a car,” Uber could be useful not only for late-night revelers but also for people needing to get around for daily trips to work or the store.

The Facebook page “Bend for Uber” is trying to garner local support for the rideshare service and is encouraging Bendites to download the app or register to be a driver as a way of getting the company’s attention. The page had 40 likes as of Wednesday afternoon.

Another argument against those lobbying for rideshare apps is safety, with cities and taxi companies saying that police background checks keep customers safer.

Winters said under current Bend regulations, drivers will be denied if they are a registered sex offender, and can be denied if they have had a felony or misdemeanor. They must also have a clean DMV driving record for five to 10 years, according to Nichols, and his company requires that drivers participate in random drug testing.

“People do need to be safe,” Nichols said. “Our drivers have good driving records and clean FBI background checks, something that people want in someone who is driving them around late at night or early in the morning.”

Uber screens drivers with a third-party background check, according to its website, and also has an anonymous driver and rider rating system designed to promote safety and accountability.

The service also touts its “blind match” system, which negates the possibility of driver discrimination based on a rider’s age, sex or ethnicity, and the fact that riders don’t have to carry cash because all transactions are made through the app.

Cost is also a concern for local taxi users, but it’s unclear whether rideshare services would be significantly more reasonable, as both Lyft and Uber prices vary from location to location based on an algorithm including population size, traffic, number of drivers on the road and other considerations.

Mahaney said a 5-mile ride with Taxis of Bend would cost less than $20. A 5-mile Uber ride in Portland is estimated to cost $11 to $15, but the cost is often lower for Uber rides in smaller cities.

For now, taxi users will just have to wait and see whether these rideshare services decide to expand into Central Oregon, and Nichols says he’s not too worried.

“For our business, we would still be able to thrive due to the medical rides, but a lot of other taxi companies in big cities are joining Uber, their drivers are becoming Uber drivers along with their taxi service to fill downtime,” Nichols said. “You can either try to compete with the big guys or you can try to join them.”

— Reporter: 541-633-2108, cduffy@bendbulletin.com