Did it happen in Austin? According to this article, they were allowed back in a year later and no longer were asked to perform fingerprint based background checks.
In Austin, the mayor and people voted in favor of the checks, but the state legislature killed the city's fingerprinting rule. Some argue this diminished the city's ability to self-govern. That part of the history, despite being quite short, is left out of this article.
> Frankly, it happened in Austin. Lyft and Uber threw a hissy fit and the market was happy to fill in the gaps.
Good luck with that, the markets are not remotely comparable:
Austin:
900k pop;
In a red state known for low regulatory burden;
No established mass transit to compete with;
No established tax companies
London:
8.8M pop;
High regulatory burden;
City's incentive: each Uber rider is a potential lost customer for the Underground;
Taxi companies have influence with legislators