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Transportation

Will Lyft and Uber's Shared-Ride Service Hurt Public Transit? 237

Posted by samzenpus from the forget-the-bus dept.
An anonymous reader writes Lyft and Uber have already undercut the price of a taxi in most markets, but with this new service, both are now taking aim at public transit systems. By attempting to offer a viable alternative to the bus and metro, Lyft and Uber are offering new options to consumers in a space where few existed before. As Timothy Lee writes at Vox, "Until recently, there weren't many services in this 'in between' category. If you were going to the airport, you could get a shared-ride van. And some urban areas had dollar vans. But these were limited services in niche markets." If you're traveling with multiple people over short distances, Lyft Line and UberPool can be quite affordable, but it's still not cheap enough.
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Will Lyft and Uber's Shared-Ride Service Hurt Public Transit? More

Will Lyft and Uber's Shared-Ride Service Hurt Public Transit?

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  • No. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xevioso ( 598654 ) on Thursday November 13, 2014 @08:04PM (#48382883)

    It will not. It's much cheaper to take public transportation in most cities; the only time it would make sense would be on longer trips, because you are saving alot of time by taking Lyft or Uber, but you sure the hell aren't saving money.

    And it's much easier to find a cab in San Francisco nowadays, not only because they are having to compete with rideshares, but they actually will notice you now when you wave a hand. So why not take a cab instead of Uber and Lyft?

    • Time is a factor. If you're running late, and the choice is thirty bucks for a cab, five bucks for Uber or Lyft, or two bucks and an hour wait, you're going to call Uber or Lyft. Only the largest cities have half-decent public transportation. In the area where I life, more than half the city has no service from public transportation because the upper middle class and wealthy politicians are afraid it would bring undesirables to their neighborhoods.

      But this just shows that comparing these services the

    • It will not.

      Or, yes, it will, or might. If we're speculating.

      How about, "If Taxis were better and cheaper, would more people use them over public transportation?" That seems obvious.

      There are already people in, say, New York who take some trips by Taxi and some trips by subway/bus. Let's call it a 50-50 split. If Taxis got cheaper and more convenient for them (a la Uber and Lyft), it might become a 60-40 split. Fewer people, immediately, on public transportation - although it might rebound.

      It's certainly less impa

    • should be banned or regulated (Score:5, Interesting)

      by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Thursday November 13, 2014 @08:45PM (#48383119)

      Lyft and Uber drivers should have to follow the same not-free regs as taxi drivers. things like displaying a hack lic, certification of insurance or bonding, and penalties for systematic race discrimination are things that taxi drivers and their companies are required to follow. Undercutting these is not a good idea.

      • Lyft and Uber drivers should have to follow the same not-free regs as taxi drivers.

        Why?

        Serious question. Forget about questions of fairness, step back and look at first principles and evaluate whether the regulations are of value to society. Were these rules ever necessary? If so, why? Do the same reasons apply to Uber and Lyft?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Rinikusu ( 28164 )

          Yes. Because people are fucking assholes. Yes.

          • Yes. Because people are fucking assholes. Yes.

            The depth and clarity of your analysis is astounding.

        • Serious question. Forget about questions of fairness, step back and look at first principles and evaluate whether the regulations are of value to society. Were these rules ever necessary? If so, why? Do the same reasons apply to Uber and Lyft?

          Some are clearly necessary. Others not so much. Unfortunately, the regulations around medallions are often abut revenue for the city, which merely pushes up costs for the taxi drivers. In return, the taxi drivers get a limit on competition.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Dahamma ( 304068 )

          Many rules were absolutely necessary. Today, some are, some aren't. Probably needs an overhaul, but that doesn't mean some things aren't working well...

          Do you ever wonder why with this completely paranoid culture we have today why no one ever really worries about getting into a random car driven by a complete stranger in a dark alley in a city in a major US city? Well, it's because the medallion that driver carries is worth several hundred thousand dollars in most cases. These guys (or their employers)

          • Do you ever wonder why with this completely paranoid culture we have today why no one ever really worries about getting into a random car driven by a complete stranger in a dark alley in a city in a major US city? Well, it's because the medallion that driver carries is worth several hundred thousand dollars in most cases.

            It's because people who are in the habit of assaulting or raping random strangers who get into their cars are extremely rare, and hunted down by experienced law enforcement professionals wi

      • I don't think anyone claims that Uber should not have insured drivers or should permit their drivers to discriminated by race.

        What they do claim, is that it's ridiculous for the city to have a fixed number of medallions for drivers, instead of letting anyone that meets the (insurance,inspection,background,...) checks compete under the same set of rule. The sad fact in a number of cities is that possession of an arbitrary token is more important that substantive comliance with an objective set of requirement

      • On each of your points I will say why for a different reason:

        1. Licence / certification: What does this bring to the ability to ride in someone else's car? They are already licensed to be on the road, why should this license magically not apply when they carry someone other than a friend / family member?

        2. Insurance: This is more of a problem with the insurance system than anything else. Why do different levels of insurance exist when a vehicle is used in different circumstances. Either apply a blanket poli

        • And don't forget, in many places, the taxi license has nothing to do with driving skill. Here in Chicago, it is entirely about knowledge of local roads and landmarks. Sure, it is annoying when an uber driver has zero idea where they are going and needs a GPS to find the highway... But the way the cab companies talk about their "specially licensed" drivers, you would actually think it meant something about car-handling skill.

          • Oh they do correlate. In most cases "specially licensed" drivers truly are "special" when it comes to their ability to drive.

        • On each of your points I will say why for a different reason:

          1. Licence / certification: What does this bring to the ability to ride in someone else's car? They are already licensed to be on the road, why should this license magically not apply when they carry someone other than a friend / family member?

          I can already cook and make meals for my friends, why do I need various licenses and inspections to open a restaurant for someone other than a friend / family member?

          2. Insurance: This is more of a problem with the insurance system than anything else. Why do different levels of insurance exist when a vehicle is used in different circumstances. Either apply a blanket policy which is compulsory (Australia has compulsory third party insurance for any registered vehicle), or change all insurance schemes to grade the vehicle by real time risk, i.e. km driven in a period. Why should a car be perfectly fine insurance wise to drive on the road and then suddenly not be fine when it's carrying another passenger?

          My home has perfectly fine accident damage for when I invite friends and family over, so why do I need public liability insurance if I then choose to run a business from it that involved people coming over?

          Hint - when you aren't doing something for profit, that is taken into account in liability cases. The moment you intend to make a profit fr

          • You tried to apply my analogy and just proved my point. In both cases the system itself is broken or meaningless.

            In my country we don't have restaurant licenses. We already have laws governing food safety which amongst other things allow for random inspections and sanctions placed on businesses, but every idiot who makes something for someone else and gets a dollar for it doesn't need a license to do so.

            The insurance case is a bit different. Home insurance does not cover injury to your family, and public li

            • Re:should be banned or regulated (Score:5, Insightful)

              by jbengt ( 874751 ) on Friday November 14, 2014 @09:34AM (#48385267)
              You are not correct.
              My home insurance will cover accidents that visitors have on my property, but will not cover customers if I'm using it as a place of business - that'd be a whole different level of risk for the insurance company.
              Similarly, insuring a taxi driver is a much larger risk for an insurance company than insuring a private driver, even for the same number of miles.
              Why should I, as a private driver, pay for the same insurance that covers the larger risks of taxi drivers?

          • Forgot to reply to your hint as well. If that's how it works in the states than so be it. In much of the rest of the world turning a profit has absolutely zero impact on your liability to others. You can sue your family member for slipping on spilled water in their kitchen just as easily as you can do it to a supermarket. Your friends and family are just *usually* more polite than that.

            • I'm in the UK - thats how public liability works here. You can sue anyone you want over anything, but as a business you are required to have that liability covered, while as an individual you are not.

      • Your ancient rules make little sense (Score:5, Insightful)

        by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Thursday November 13, 2014 @11:52PM (#48383761)

        things like displaying a hack lic,

        This makes no sense. Remember they are not sitting there waiting for you to get in - you summon them via app which automatically means they have been vetted by the service, and you have info about them beforehand before you even selected them.

        Perhaps taxi drivers should start with regulations requiring you to be able to see reviews from past customers?

        certification of insurance or bonding

        Again - all taken care of or else they would not be on the service.

        penalties for systematic race discrimination

        They come and pick you up. It's funny you bring this up with zero evidence of this being a problem, while we know cabs do this from time to time. If you've not solved it for cabs forget about solving it for Uber.

        Undercutting these is not a good idea.

        None of that is undercut. Only price, convenience, shiftiness of drivers, and car quality are undercut (or enhanced).

      • Uber Black (their standard service tier, not UberX, which is private people driving their own vehicles) is composed entirely of people who have commercial driver's licenses to operate car services/limos. I used them almost exclusively on a vacation in San Francisco and found them to be cleaner, more pleasant, more responsive, and not much more expensive than a cab. And all I had to do was tap a few spots on a smartphone instead of hanging out in a line at a taxi stand.

        I also took a trip from SF up to Napa

      • Re:should be banned or regulated (Score:4, Insightful)

        by stephanruby ( 542433 ) on Friday November 14, 2014 @01:09AM (#48383925)

        Lyft and Uber drivers should have to follow the same not-free regs as taxi drivers. things like displaying a hack lic, certification of insurance or bonding, and penalties for systematic race discrimination are things that taxi drivers and their companies are required to follow. Undercutting these is not a good idea.

        Uber's insurance is explained here [uber.com], and its legalese can be found here [scribd.com]. I haven't looked for Lyft's policy, but I assume that Lyft's policy can be just as easily found.

        penalties for systematic race discrimination are things that taxi drivers and their companies are required to follow.

        And yet despite all those penalties, racial discrimination still happens systematically during peak hours. During peak hours, taxi drivers can easily pretend not to have seen someone hailing them down if they know they can easily pick up someone else just as easily.

        And in a way, Uber and Lyft's processes nicely solve that problem, since for them, they're not allowed to pick up people who are hailing them visually. They can only pick up the people that have hailed them electronically through a mobile app. So choosing your customer based on skin color is much less of a possibility for Uber and Lyft drivers, because now there is an electronic paper trail if a driver suddenly decides not to pick up a potential customer he has agreed to pick up electronically.

        The electronic process of ordering rides through a mobile app also solves the problem of displaying a license. By ordering a ride through Uber, you see the picture, you see the id, and you see the rating of who's going pick you up before they do pick you up. Just try to get that level of information the next time you call for a Yellow cab, you won't get it.

        Not only that but in a few big cities, where the number of medaillons stays stagnant despite the desperate need of additional taxis on the road during peak hours, Uber and Lyft are serving the needs of an underserved market. Because I can tell you, in my personal experience, it's not just black people that can't find a cab sometimes. As a white person who sometimes really needs a cab in San Francisco during peak hours, I've simply given up trying to find one. I can only assume that only customers from five star hotels and hot supermodels can catch cabs during those hours, because I see many cabs during those times, and I've used my phone to call cab companies as well, but those cabs are certainly not stopping for me, or they have the light on signaling that they're on their way to pick up someone else.

        If I really need a car after work for some reason, I'll drive my car in, clogging up the system even more, and I'll risk paying insane parking fees for the entire day (despite the fact that I might only need the car for a fraction of that time, to go somewhere after 5 PM, that's not easily reached with public transportation).

      • Nonsense.
        You want the things that those certify? Then get a real taxi (and pay for it).
        - Hack license - all that proves is that they're connected to the giant money-train that are cab licenses in metro areas. Inspection? Certification? It means none of those.
        - Insurance - yep, important to have it. Using Uber/Lyft, you're risking not having it.
        - Race discrimination - apparently you don't notice the whole 'review' part of uber. If someone can be an overt racist/sexist/whatever-phobe, and still make mone

      • If that's something you care about, lobby your city representatives to do something about it.

        That's the beauty of the federation system, each area can regulate (or not) as they see fit, and over time we see which ones work best.

    • It will not. It's much cheaper to take public transportation in most cities; the only time it would make sense would be on longer trips, because you are saving alot of time by taking Lyft or Uber, but you sure the hell aren't saving money.

      I think it will hurt because people will always pay a reasonable convenience fee. Oh, you're right on steady customers of public fare that take public transit daily. But there's all those people taking special trips and the like.

      When I was a college student, I had no car

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dahamma ( 304068 )

      you are saving alot of time by taking Lyft or Uber, but you sure the hell aren't saving money.

      Depends on who you are and where you are going. As they say, time is money. If saving 30 minutes on a bus is worth $50 in productivity you are in fact saving money.

  • No (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 13, 2014 @08:04PM (#48382887)

    Let me know when either of these can get me from the Chicago Surbs to Downtown Chicago (45 miles) for under $10.

    Or from the far north part of the city to the south part (25-30 miles) with 4 lights per mile for $2.50

  • Ride sharing minus the Lyfts and Ubers of this world. Preferrably something decentralized with many nodes, whereby anyone can join the network.

  • Wrong Question (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 13, 2014 @08:16PM (#48382951)

    The only question that matters: Will they improve transportation?

    Competition is a bitch; a government never likes it.

    • Competition is a bitch; a government never likes it.

      Yeah, we noticed, when they give monopoly franchise contracts to their business associates in energy and communications, and family. We need open markets, but we need public oversight. We are supposed to use the government for that purpose.

    • Competition is a bitch; a government never likes it.

      It isn't even competition in this case. Cabs and "ride sharing" augment the capabilities of public transportation. They do not subtract from it. Most people do not live right next to a convenient hub of public transportation. You often need to drive there, or have someone drive you to it. Also for the very few customers that "ride sharing" might actually take away from public transportation, it's a drop in the ocean. "Ride Sharing" simply can't scale like Public Transportation can.

  • I use Uber over public transit (Score:3)

    by Hadlock ( 143607 ) on Thursday November 13, 2014 @08:23PM (#48382993) Homepage Journal

    Parked my car a year ago and I ride my bike to work most days. There's a bus stop less than 200 feet from my house. If it rains or gets below 40F (it's Texas, only gets that cold maybe 3 weeks a year) I take an Uber. Since I live 3.2 miles from downtown it costs between $6.43 and as much as $8. A single bus ticket costs $2.50, drops me off six blocks from my office, and runs on their schedule, and is frequently late. For $3 more I get dropped off in front of my office, they pick me up on my schedule, I get a real seat belt, appropriate heating/A/C, listen to NPR, nobody asking for money or sitting next to someone not having showered for a week etc etc. I usually take the bus home for $2.50 as I have more time in the afternoons to wait for a bus.
     
    Parking downtown costs $5 for the bad lot four blocks from my office, $7 for a semi private parking garage. That's $100-$150/mo to rent an 8x10' piece of ground.
     
    There's a very slight premium for using uber, but compared to paying for car insurance, maintenance, gas + the hassle of driving myself around, Uber is a fucking deal. In my very very corner case. That $1.50 a day premium is a really nice premium that really improves my morning, for those days that I need a car to get to work.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mvdwege ( 243851 )

      For $3 more I get dropped off in front of my office, they pick me up on my schedule, I get a real seat belt, appropriate heating/A/C, listen to NPR, nobody asking for money or sitting next to someone not having showered for a week etc etc.

      Oh yes, God forbid you little princesses should ever see the masses up close

      Just remember what happened to Marie-Antoinette.

  • Not Sharing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jklovanc ( 1603149 ) on Thursday November 13, 2014 @08:34PM (#48383051)

    Can we please stop calling it "ride sharing"? It is no more ride sharing that a grocery store is "food sharing".

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Can we please stop calling it "ride sharing"? It is no more ride sharing that a grocery store is "food sharing".

      But then we'd have to call them what they are, taxis... and that means they'll have to meet the same standards and requirements as regular taxis. Uber and Lyft will ultimately fail. Mini-cabbing (which is essentially what Uber is doing) has been legal in London for ages and the London black cabs are still around and going strong. In Australia, Uber isn't any cheaper than getting a legit taxi who has a license, insurance and may actually know where they're going.

    • Actually, at this point it's exactly a share taxi [wikipedia.org]. I wonder when Americans will realize they've just re-invented a form of semi-formal public transport that's common in undeveloped countries without real public transport.

      • Its also a mini cab.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom

        Is it only America that hasnt realised this trick shortly after the invention of the car? or thought that you needed a phone 'app' to use one?

      • From the article you cited;

        These vehicles for hire are typically smaller than buses and usually take passengers on a fixed or semi-fixed route without timetables, but instead departing when all seats are filled.

        Uber/Lyft vehicles do not have fixed or semi-fixed routs. They do not pick up multiple fairs at a time. They do get dispatched to a specific location, pick up a specific person or persons, and take them to another specific location by the shortest route. They do exactly the same thing that a taxi does.

        • Here's an idea.

          Uber/Lyft/whoever buys a small fleet of buses. You use a smartphone app to say you want to get to B by 3pm, ridesharing service responds "I can pick you up between 2:20-2:30 and drop you off between 2:50-3". One of the buses already carrying a small group of passengers then makes a small detour to pick you up (maintaining all the other contracts it agreed to, basically a travelling salesman problem) and you're on your way. You could even arrange a daily pickup for work.

          It's tough as hell to p

          • That would be interesting but not what Uber/Lyft is doing. Uber works because there is no initial investment in vehicles. The vehicles are already owned by the drivers. The issue with your idea is that it takes a lot of capitol to buy vehicles and pay drivers until the service catches on. Services like this are in a catch 22 situation. Not enough people use the service because there are not enough vehicles on the road. There are not enough vehicles on the road because not enough people are using the system.

  • This may be a good thing ... (Score:3)

    by MacTO ( 1161105 ) on Thursday November 13, 2014 @08:46PM (#48383123)

    Cities that offer good transit service don't have to worry about the competition. Those transit services already offer fast and reliable service at a reasonable price.

    On the other hand, cities that offer horrible transit service need the competition. They need to realize that poor coverage, poor scheduling, unreliable service, and drivers with poor safety records are unacceptable. If they don't realize that it is unacceptable, then maybe they should shutter their doors and let the private sector take over. (This coming from someone who normally supports a strong public sector.)

    To give you an idea of what I mean: I work two jobs in a city with poor transit service, so I decided to sit down and do some math one day. The end result is that taking the bus cost significantly more than taking a taxi. That's a single person in a regulated cab, and not the shared-ride service mentioned here. Yes, a great part of the cost was from lost income. Yet it was real lost income in my case because I had to negotiate my work hours around transit. For other people, the loss of income will come in other forms: being unable to accept a job due to transit coverage or scheduling, or losing a job because unreliable service results in an unreliable employee. For other people it will result in a diminished quality of life, simply because much of their time is spent waiting for or being in transit.

    (To give you an idea of how inefficient transit is in my city: if it takes 30 minutes to walk somewhere, you may as well walk since the bus is going to take longer. If you have to be somewhere at a particular time, you can usually increase that 30 minute walking radius to 1 hour because that bus that "arrives 10 minutes early" will end up arriving 10 minutes late so frequently that you will end up unemployed.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shados ( 741919 )

      Generally what happens in cities with poor transit, is that people stop using them. Then the transit authorities look at their statistic dashboard, see "oh, bus route XYZ is almost empty. Means we can cut it!" and things just get worse.

      Happened in my hometown. There was a bus that would get me straight to the subway, and during peek hour it would come every 3 minutes (ie: the buses were often back to back). They were all jam packed, too.

      They eventually made changes to the route to "optimize" things. The rou

      • During peek hour

        That's one hell of a way to get people to ride public transit!

        Wait, I'm getting something... PedantryBot, are you trying to tell me Shados meant "peak hour"?

  • The goal of public transit is not to make money. Money paid from passengers may not pay the trip, and taxpayers money may be used to fill the gap.

    If Uber widens the gap, when why not tax it? Uber benefits are just taken from taxpayer money use to finance public transit, after all.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MacTO ( 1161105 )

      Many transit authorities have profitable bus routes, particularly in higher density areas. They bleed money on suburban routes, where it's difficult to fill a bus. Perhaps a better option would be to fund companies like Uber with taxpayer money in order to eliminate those suburban busses that transport few, if any, passengers.

      (I'm saying that tongue-in-cheek, since such a system would be rife with abuse by both operators and customers. Still, there are cases where it could be cheaper if you could magical

    • If uber can come in at lower cost without subsidy, then the question, I think, is what is public transportation doing wrong?

      • They're not even cheaper than taxis, contrary to the strange marketing claim otherwise that dice is pushing. They're definitely not going to come out cheaper than public transit.

        • Then.. what's the fear here?

          • Fear, what fear? It is blatant click-bait, not the reporting of actual "fear," or even "policy concern."

            Notice the actual story is at Forbes magazine. A magazine for rich people. Speculating about competition with public transit, and of course, not making any attempt to understand public transit. Their rough theory seems to be that in the area of transportation to/from airports, app-taxis will reduce ridership. And I agree. But public transit isn't paid for primarily through the fares, it is heavily subsidi

      • If uber can come in at lower cost without subsidy, then the question, I think, is what is public transportation doing wrong?

        They grab the profitable lines, leaving the unprofitable to public transport. This means public transport deficit increase and must be funded. Since the gap was created by Uber's benefit, it makes sense to tax them to fund unprofitable lines.

        Alternatively, Uber could be mandated to operate both profitable and unprofitable lines, but since the sum is not profitable...

  • No! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by superdude72 ( 322167 ) on Thursday November 13, 2014 @09:58PM (#48383387)

    Threads like these always leave me flabbergasted at how people who have never lived in a big city just really, really don't get how cities work.

    • And then there's people who do live in the cities who think that their situation applies to all other residents.

      You say No! well scroll up since there are people who already do what you say No! to, and they do live in the big city.

      I too would take uber over public transport. It costs about $3.50 more, doesn't become almost worthlessly difficult at 11pm, doesn't require me to change platforms with a 15min delay, and even if it didn't it's faster so I can go on and do things with my life other than be stuck i

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by swb ( 14022 )

      How many "big cities" in the US have a really good public transportation system that enables convenient and timely transit? Usually it seems to boil down to "how many cities have a subway system?"

      In those places without a built-up subway system, you're stuck with the bus. Passable for short trips provided the schedule is frequent (which it usually isn't) or for suburban-downtown express services (provided that's actually your trip).

      These bus systems are usually unusable for anything else. Commute times f

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Well, for some people, public transport is a mechanism for social control. Want people to shop in your mall? Slip a few bucks to planners to provide transportation there and not to your competitor's mall. Same for where people live, go to school, work and recreate.

      Things like private cars, cabs, Uber and Lyft undermine the central planner's control agenda by allowing them to go where and when they want. So they are evil and must be stopped.

  • I have been in plenty of places where mass transit made a ton of sense to a specific place in a city, but then a car made a lot of sense to get 10-20 blocks to your final destination that had either very infrequent or no buses.

    You also should not underestimate the vast service Uber serves in getting people home safe after public transport shuts down for the night. I've been caught off-gaurd a few times by public transport coming times, and it was great to have that safety net.

  • "If you're traveling with multiple people over short distances, Lyft Line and UberPool can be quite affordable, but it's still not cheap enough."

    You should be using a bicycle for short trips of 2 miles or less...

  • Another Gated Community (Score:3)

    by cmholm ( 69081 ) <cmholmNO@SPAMmauiholm.org> on Friday November 14, 2014 @04:27AM (#48384337) Homepage Journal

    I don't begrudge Lyft and Uber as an experiment in alternative transport. I think the growing sharing culture is a symptom of middle class economic stagnation, such that people are "driven" to monetize the spare capacity in their personal transport, their homes, etc.

    What concerns me is that they are likely cherry picking transportation consumers. Those who can normally afford to spring for Lyft are then less likely to use public transport, and become alienated to its broader utility, much as those who live in gated communities aren't as concerned about addressing the crime rate in the surrounding community.

  • More power to them. If they can do it cheaper/better (and far cleaner) than public transportation, then fuck public transportation.

    Personally I find the obsession to living in cities to be more than a little strange. Right now I'm living on the outskirts of Tampa, which is almost too close for me. Being stuck in DC or NY or San Fran again makes my teeth ache.

    The fact that I am out in farm country with a triple digit symmetrical FIOS connection just tells me life is can be very good living even out in

  • I live and work in a big city, so I cycle and use public transport for about 98% of my journeys. The remaining few percent I take a taxi, which is expensive but rare enough that its not an issue. If it were 5% journeys that I could not do by bike/bus/train then I would probably have to get a car, in which case probably 90% of my journeys would be by private car.

    So if you make taxis cheaper, then maybe there are a lot of people who would no longer need a car for those occasional journeys where public transpo

  • Elected government officials are what hurts public transit.

  • I use Uber in Los Angeles; as many people do.

    Los Angeles has very limited subway service. It exists, it's pretty quick, but it doesn't go too many places. So, I use Uber to get to and from the subway stops closest to where I want to go; and use the train for the bulk of the transport.

    Now, if I was going with a group of people instead of by myself, I'd Uber the whole way; the subway charges per person and Uber per car. But for traveling by yourself; Uber and mass transit is a great combo.

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