Minneapolis medical patients, bar hoppers, airport-bound travelers and other habitual users of Uber and Lyft will need a stiff shot of patience come May 1.

When the rideshare giants entered the market, there were over 1,600 licensed cab drivers in Minneapolis. There are now 39, and city officials say it will take two to six weeks for drivers to get licensed — so there's not much time.

And that's if the taxi companies want to ramp services back up, something operators say they are wary of doing until they see that Uber and Lyft are gone for the long term.

Since the rideshare companies first entered the Twin Cities around 2014, Minnesota taxi firms changed business models, pivoting mostly to contracts to transport medical patients, people with disabilities and charter school and shelter-bound students.

Alberto Naula, a supervisor at Express Taxi in Minneapolis, said the Uber/Lyft issues are all his drivers talk about. Naula is getting calls from Uber and Lyft drivers trying to figure out what they will do.

Express Taxi is small, conducting 150 to 200 rides a day in the metro area with a fleet of roughly 20 drivers. The company wants to grow, but "there's a lot of competition," Naula said.

Several other rideshare operations have expressed interest in serving the metro and have been talking with Uber and Lyft driver groups. For instance, Washington D.C.-based Empower announced last week it intends to start serving the Twin Cities market soon.

Uber and Lyft estimate they have about 12,000 drivers in the metro. With St. Paul's licensed cab drivers, there are fewer than 100 taxi drivers who could pick up fares in both cities.

Regulations have changed since Uber and Lyft entered the market. Rideshare companies, classified as transportation network companies, must pay a license fee of $36,415 in Minneapolis and $41,115 in St. Paul. Cab companies pay $1,188 in Minneapolis and $456 in St. Paul, but then must also license each car and each driver.

That's a lot of money for small companies that feel they've been burned by the city governments in the past as Uber and Lyft came into the market.

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