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Transportation Businesses Technology

Studies Are Increasingly Clear: Uber, Lyft Congest Cities (apnews.com) 370

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
One promise of ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft was fewer cars clogging city streets. But studies suggest the opposite: that ride-hailing companies are pulling riders off buses, subways, bicycles and their own feet and putting them in cars instead . From a report: And in what could be a new wrinkle, a service by Uber called Express Pool now is seen as directly competing with mass transit. Uber and Lyft argue that in Boston, for instance, they complement public transit by connecting riders to hubs like Logan Airport and South Station. But they have not released their own specific data about rides, leaving studies up to outside researchers. And the impact of all those cars is becoming clear, said Christo Wilson, a professor of computer science at Boston's Northeastern University, who has looked at Uber's practice of surge pricing during heavy volume. "The emerging consensus is that ride-sharing (is) increasing congestion," Wilson said. One study included surveys of 944 ride-hailing users over four weeks in late 2017 in the Boston area. Nearly six in 10 said they would have used public transportation, walked, biked or skipped the trip if the ride-hailing apps weren't available. The report also found many riders aren't using hailed rides to connect to a subway or bus line, but instead as a separate mode of transit, said Alison Felix, one of the report's authors.
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Studies Are Increasingly Clear: Uber, Lyft Congest Cities More

Studies Are Increasingly Clear: Uber, Lyft Congest Cities

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  • self driving cars will do the same in fleet mode where they park in remote holding areas.

    • remote holding areas? I'm planning to send my self driving car back to my house where it can charge and park the cheapest.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Seems like going to and from your place of work twice a day would create more congestion and more wear on the roads and more pollution than doing it just once.

        The key is to build towns and cities around public transport. It's much harder to retrofit it.

        • Yes it will create more congestion absolutely. It will make driving a manual car completely unworkable. But I can guarantee you even if I don't do it, thousands of other people will. Also because having the automatic car parked at my work doesn't help my stay at home wife during the day either.

      • I'd rather my car park 5 minutes from my work rather than 25 minutes. Then I can send my car over at the last possible minute, and not have my car congest the highways by making double the trips to suburbia.

        But I fear people are going to do exactly what you suggest. And the traffic is going got be epically bad.

    • However the real question with Self driving cars is if their travel itinerary will be more optimized. With the current ride/sharing/taxi in terms of congestion, is the fact there are people driving around, awaiting a customer. So these cars are just driving around with no place to go, causing the congestion. However with a Autonomous fleet, they can be parked outside of the City, and moved into production, based on more data. Because a car is patient, while a driver isn't.
       

      • Autonomous fleets may be affordable if you join a fleet that doesn't guarantee you a ride during rush hour. Otherwise, as part of paying into the fleet you will need to subsidize part of the fleet to sit and do nothing during off-peak hours and it will be very expensive for what you get.

        • A simple solution would be multi-passenger ride-sharing during peak hours. This would be even more efficient with a transfer point. One car picks up 2, 3 or 4 commuters from your neighborhood, and drives to the transfer point. Then the passengers switch cars based on their final destination.

          This is the way jeepneys [wikipedia.org] work in Manila.

          • Now that sounds a lot like a bus. It had better be almost as cheap.

            • "Now that sounds a lot like a bus"

              A personalized bus. Not an awful idea. There is the non-trivial problem of how you and your ride identify each other in a tangle of 2000 pedestrians, 716 of whom are waiting for their transportation to arrive, and 336 vehicles. Not counting the 415 vehicles trying to find their way to your area to pick up passengers and the 296 vehicles who have picked up one or more passengers and are trying to exit the area.

              Congestion? Baby, you haven't seen congestion yet.

            • Re:self driving cars will do the same in fleet mod (Score:4, Insightful)

              by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Monday February 26, 2018 @01:25PM (#56189249)

              Now that sounds a lot like a bus.

              A bus that is available at any time, takes you exactly where you want to go, will help you move cargo (like, say, a new refrigerator), is willing to do on-the-spot negotiations for special circumstances, such as groups traveling together, or odd destinations, and can be pre-scheduled.

              ... so nothing like a bus.

        • What we should be doing is incentivizing employers to allow flexible work hours. The problem isn't the amount of people or the form of transport; it's that everyone is traveling at the same time every day.

      • However the real question with Self driving cars is if their travel itinerary will be more optimized. With the current ride/sharing/taxi in terms of congestion, is the fact there are people driving around, awaiting a customer. So these cars are just driving around with no place to go, causing the congestion. However with a Autonomous fleet, they can be parked outside of the City, and moved into production, based on more data. Because a car is patient, while a driver isn't.

        It might be more optimized, but OTOH I might be perfectly willing to bear an hour of congested commute if I can kick back and do some work or watch a movie, or eat my breakfast and shave (not simultaneously of course)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tepples ( 727027 )

          I might be perfectly willing to bear an hour of congested commute if I can kick back and do some work

          Good luck with that once it becomes harder to find an affordable compact laptop computer whose operating system respects its users. (System76 laptops aren't especially compact.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vux984 ( 928602 )

      good luck, uber and lyft are already lobbying to ban privately owned autonomous vehicles from cities. They only want their fleets allowed.

    • self driving cars will do the same in fleet mode where they park in remote holding areas.

      I've talked about this before, Autonomous vehicle tech could significantly increase the number of vehicles on the road. They create new uses for cars, they enable more people to 'drive' by themselves. Car sharing may increaes but those vehicles will spend more time the road, including possibly time with nobody in the car.

      Not only might they draw people off buses and trains, but also off of planes. I'd be happy to sleep overnight in my car as it travels long distances.

      As a side note, its kind of funny

      • As a side note, its kind of funny to think that those crappy cab companies may have had some unintended benefit.

        If I understand your comment correctly, the 'benefit' is not unintended at all. Why do you think they carefully plan and limit the number of medallions available and regulate the rates so that the whole thing is sustainable. We're only having this conversation because Uber and Lyft have refused to play along, and so are creating these problems.

        • Yeah, the results of these studies are not surprising at all. "Unregulated taxis cause same problems that forced taxi regulations 100 years ago." Gee, I'm totally shocked.

      • and some rural congressmen will ban that to save the union Amtrak we can't have no long distance sleep autos.

    • what makes you think self driving cars will park? I imagine that here, in the san francisco area, parking facilities will be more expensive than just having your fleet aimlessly roam the streets. some cars will be charging. some cars will be actively carrying freight, and the majority will just be prowling around looking for something to do.

  • So you'd rather have drunk people on mass transit? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26, 2018 @11:06AM (#56188125)

    Maybe if cities did a better job of keeping mass transit free of ... and I know this sounds bad, and I feel bad saying it.... but bums, people wouldn't be so reluctant to use it. I mean real bums, like a dude who's got 3 coats on but you can someone still smell the vomit and feces. I know that's horrible, I'm not proud to say that, and maybe I have an over-sensitive nose, but it is what it is. Until then, I'll keep taking an Uber when I'm unable to take my own vehicle for whatever reason.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Subm ( 79417 )

      Ironically, you're polluting the world more than they are, which we all have to live with.

    • If you walk, take the bus or ride the subway, it seems like, from your own personal point of view, that this is actually a good thing! Much less congested for you personally.

      Another way this might be good is if this means that more people are going places as opposed to not going places because for various reason such as time or weather or schedules or carried packages that a bus or walking or subway would not have worked. SO yes more congestion but not because people are not taking other modes but because

    • I road the bus for years in college (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday February 26, 2018 @01:35PM (#56189327)
      often late at night. Smelly Bums are fewer and farther between than that. People call Uber because the buses are massively underfunded. I used to sometimes ride my bike the 40 miles there/back because it was faster than waiting for the next bus (1 hour, 2 if you didn't want to wait at the bus for the 20 minute window that the bus might happen by during).

  • What kind of congestion though (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Monday February 26, 2018 @11:09AM (#56188151)

    There are two kinds of congestion in cities - cars just going somewhere, and cars looking to park/parked.

    Uber/Lyft reduce the second kind, which means traffic flows more smoothly even with more cars. A car just dropping people off does not impact traffic the way cars circling a block looking for parking will, and also will not fill up valuable parking spots that might have otherwise been filled.

    Also congestion pricing itself naturally means there will be fewer uber/lyft drivers around at peak normal traffic times. The majority of uber/lyft drivers come out during surge pricing, which is when other forms of transport come less frequently or are not available - one person I know who commutes to downtown usually takes a bus, but if he's going in later will sometimes take an Uber if he misses the bus because it will be 30 minutes before the next one.

    • Re:What kind of congestion though (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hazardPPP ( 4914555 ) on Monday February 26, 2018 @11:54AM (#56188473)

      There are two kinds of congestion in cities - cars just going somewhere, and cars looking to park/parked.

      Uber/Lyft reduce the second kind, which means traffic flows more smoothly even with more cars. A car just dropping people off does not impact traffic the way cars circling a block looking for parking will, and also will not fill up valuable parking spots that might have otherwise been filled.

      That's if you assume an Uber/Lyft car is constantly picking up and dropping off passengers. While this may be the case in certain very busy periods (or places), I'm guessing that it's usually not the case. So what does an Uber driver do when he has a significant "gap" between customers?

      1) Drive around in circles aimlessly waiting to be hailed? Or

      2) Try to find a convenient parking spot (preferably, free and not time-limited) where next call can be waited for?

      Both options seem to increase congestion. Note that traditional licensed taxis have, in most cities, dedicated "taxi stations" - usually curbside parking spot reserved for taxis only. There is no time limit, and they are "free" (the taxi drivers pay for them to the city indirectly, via the licensing fees). Uber/Lyft doesn't have that, they have to use the regular parking.

      Also, in many cities, traditional taxis are allowed to use bus lanes - allowing them to both get around quicker and not contribute (as much) to general congestion. Uber vehicles generally are not allowed in bus lanes, but must use the regular lanes, impeding the "normal" traffic. An Uber car can use HOV lanes when transporting a passenger, but not when empty. Taxis are often allowed to use HOV lanes even when empty.

      • Try to find a convenient parking spot (preferably, free and not time-limited) where next call can be waited for?

        Yes, that one.

        But remember I am talking about IN CITIES. Where is such a place (free, unlimited time parking)? There are none, except around the edges of the city.

        So that removes a car from the roads in the core of the city.

        No driver is going to just drive around burning gas for longer than a few minutes, so I don't really think the first option applies.

        Also, in many cities, traditional taxis ar

  • Common Sense says yes! (Score:5, Funny)

    by foxalopex ( 522681 ) on Monday February 26, 2018 @11:11AM (#56188177)

    Seriously, provide cheap personal taxi service and of course it increases congestion. There are suddenly more ride-sharing cars on the road! Mass transit helps reduce congestion by removing cars from the road although it isn't as comfortable as a personal ride and cycling / running / walking also removes cars from the road. The real question is what happens if congestion gets so bad that Ride Sharing services get stuck in traffic as well. After all I've seen situations where walking is faster than dealing with a traffic jam.

    • The real question is what happens if congestion gets so bad that Ride Sharing services get stuck in traffic as well. After all I've seen situations where walking is faster than dealing with a traffic jam.

      Already at airports the Uber app will tell me where to walk to meet a driver.

      It makes sense that Uber/Lyft could direct people to simply walk two blocks away for pickup to save 20 minutes of estimated wait/driving time.

      Of a savvy customer could do the same, walk past traffic to the side of town they want to

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bigpat ( 158134 )

      Seriously, provide cheap personal taxi service and of course it increases congestion. There are suddenly more ride-sharing cars on the road! Mass transit helps reduce congestion by removing cars from the road although it isn't as comfortable as a personal ride and cycling / running / walking also removes cars from the road. The real question is what happens if congestion gets so bad that Ride Sharing services get stuck in traffic as well. After all I've seen situations where walking is faster than dealing with a traffic jam.

      Congestion is its own demand management. The real solution to congestion is for some cities to stop trying to grow and grow and grow. Not adding layers and layers of expensive transit and unsustainable infrastructure. Plenty of other cities have seen declines over the decades and would benefit greatly if the major successful cities took a break on the population growth.

      Sure studies like these can maybe lead to squeezing more out of existing infrastructure. But it seems more like a cynical justification

    • Isn't it ridiculous to call it "ride sharing" if it gets used like taxi? Actual ride sharing would necessarily decrease congestion, or at least wouldn't increase it. If ride sharing isn't happening, you're merely getting more taxis.

    • If you ever get stuck in a jam where it would be easier to walk you could do nothing about it if you were in your own car. You cant leave it in the middle of the road but if you are in an Uber you can get out and walk

    • Re:Common Sense says yes! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Monday February 26, 2018 @12:00PM (#56188539)
      Back in the 1970s and early 1980s, subtracting buses and trucks hauling commercial goods, about half the cars on the street in Korea were taxis [youtube.com] (the ones with the white dome on the roof). In order to fight traffic congestion, the government imposed like a $20,000 tax on cars. The result being that very few people owned their own car, and instead took taxis. There was practically no traffic congestion. If you needed to go anywhere, you could wait for a bus, or hail a taxi (usually got one within 15 seconds, almost always less than a minute). A quick ride, pay your fare, and you were done.

      Then a certain U.S. Presidential candidate [wikipedia.org] ruined it. He ran an ad criticizing Korea for having unfair trade barriers. You could buy a Hyundai in the U.S. for $10k, but a Ford Escort in Korea was taxed to cost $30k. He conveniently left out that that the Hyundai also cost $30k in Korea. His deception worked (though his presidential campaign did not), and Americans were outraged and demanded that Korea rescind this "unfair" tax. Korea did so, and suddenly the masses in Korea were able to afford their own car. And the streets immediately became gridlocked. What used to be a 5-6 hour bus ride from one end of the country to the other (250 miles / 400 km) during the Lunar New Year now regularly takes 24 hours because of all the cars.

      In that respect, I think these studies are missing a crucial stat - how many people take Uber/Lyft instead of driving their own car or even owning a car?
    • Part of the rationale behind taxi medallions was to limit the number issued in order to control how many vehicles were on a road and avoid creating congestion.

  • Mass transit is of limited use (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jonsmirl ( 114798 ) on Monday February 26, 2018 @11:14AM (#56188195) Homepage

    Mass transit is of limited use. It is a pain when you have to do a transfer or your destination is a long ways from a stop. I can easily see Uber which offers door to door service pulling people off from a mass transit system that doesn't really go where they need it to.

    Boston also has a special problem of the north commuter rail system not being connected to the south one. So if you have to cross this boundary it forces a transfer onto the subway. Subway and commuter rail are separate systems and require two fares. When you add this up, an Uber Pool is definitely price competitive.

    • Mass transit is of limited use. It is a pain when you have to do a transfer or your destination is a long ways from a stop. I can easily see Uber which offers door to door service pulling people off from a mass transit system that doesn't really go where they need it to.

      Boston also has a special problem of the north commuter rail system not being connected to the south one. So if you have to cross this boundary it forces a transfer onto the subway. Subway and commuter rail are separate systems and require two fares. When you add this up, an Uber Pool is definitely price competitive.

      Yeah, last I checked mass transit in my area (fairly populated suburbs), I was looking at taking two buses to travel 15 miles to work, with a 1 hour wait and 1(2?) mile walk between them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mssymrvn ( 15684 )

      Boston has another special problem: a lousy spoke-hub design. By bicycle, Harvard Square to Coolidge Corner is about 10-15 minutes apart (riding quickly and maybe, uh, taking some liberties...). Via T? At least an hour down the Red Line to the Green Line at Park, then out to Coolidge.

      If you want to go downtown, the T is great. If you want to get across town, time spent on the T vs. in a car is a wash.

      • Via car Google maps quotes 21 minutes form my house to Harvard Square. Via mass transit the estimate is an hour and 45 minutes. Plus I have to wait 45 minutes before I can start the trip. This is because it is impossible to do the trip on mass transit without a transfer.

    • Re:Mass transit is of limited use (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26, 2018 @01:05PM (#56189091)

      Mass transit apparently is of limited use where you live. Try Europe for a change. I live in Amsterdam, which, like other Dutch cities, has a dense public transport network, and the country's railway system is one of the densest in the world. In many cases I find it far more convenient to use public transport than to go by car.

      It is possible to have good public transport. It does take a willingness to spend resources on the public interest. Perhaps that willingness is stronger in Europe than in the US.

  • Of course they are. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EzInKy ( 115248 ) on Monday February 26, 2018 @11:15AM (#56188197)

    These companies aren't actually "sharing" rides, they are taxiing people about.

  • Disagree (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Monday February 26, 2018 @11:15AM (#56188203)

    I think buses congest traffic more than regular cars. They stop practically every 10 feet.

    • Yes! Let's replace them with 20 cars stopping every 10 feet instead!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      In my area the bike lanes are wide enough for buses to make their stops without disrupting traffic. It's wonderful. The world needs more bike lanes to get buses and bikes out of our way!

  • Anecdote! (Score:2)

    by eht ( 8912 )

    Anecdotally I only use Lyft/Uber in place of overpriced/unreliable taxis. I would not even begin to think of using them in place of buses, walking, subway, or whatever.

  • According to the article, studies are showing that people who take Lyft and Uber are people who don't have cars. So it's not keeping cars off the road, it's pulling people who normally would have taken public transportation, walked, or biked, or not made the trip at all, out of their houses and into privately-owned automobiles.

    Of course, these studies are being done in cities which already had some public transportation infrastructure. So this is happening where people already could comfortably live lifes

    • In Boston try one-way on commuter rail $7.50 plus $2.25 for the subway. Round trip is $20-25 depending on destination. Uber Pool is cheaper than mass transit if you need to travel to the suburbs. Plus it is door to door. Of course mass transit is cheaper with a monthly pass, but it is still not cheap.

    • vehicle will arrive for pick up "pretty soon" rather than "sometime in the next 45 minutes or perhaps not at all if there is some event or mechanical breakdown"

      Or in the case of bus systems that don't run at all on Sundays or major holidays, "pretty soon" rather than "36 to 60 hours from now". Such systems include those of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

  • I travel for work(along with my coworkers). When I'm in a city like DC where we're not allowed to have cars because of the outrageous hotel parking fees and solid mass transit options, I'll stay somewhere like Crystal City or Pentagon City to be hooked up to the rail and bus systems, but most of my coworkers now stay away from the mass transit and take Uber everywhere, even though it takes longer to take a car to get basically anywhere in the city. Convenience of access tends to overcome everything else f
  • Ottawa, Canada might be the worst example of this. People are willing to pay 1M CAD for a house in a high density, grid layout neighbourhood that is walking distance to shops, cafes and on an express bus to work. The city though constantly approves new subdivisions that are 15km away from where anyone works, full of winding roads, are completely unwalkable, and could never be efficiently serviced with public transit. The city is clueless about bicycle traffic, regularly putting bike lanes on high traffic

    • Why can't the city get more revenue from other sources? Where does their money go now that they can only finance things through additional one time revenues?

  • ride-hailing companies are pulling riders off buses, subways, bicycles and their own feet and putting them in cars instead

    Couldn't you say exactly the same thing about taxis?

  • "One study included surveys of 944 ride-hailing users over four weeks in late 2017 in the Boston area. Nearly six in 10 said they would have used public transportation, walked, biked or skipped the trip if the ride-hailing apps weren't available"
    Well, OBVIOUSLY that broad range is going to be a catchall for alternatives.

    What's the other chocie? Buy a car? A horse?

    "The report also found many riders arenâ(TM)t using hailed rides to connect to a subway or bus line, but instead as a separate mode of tran

    • Sure, blame the person who has actually paid for a right to drive people around on the road. That doesn't seem backwards at all. If it were true that Uber is supplanting urban cars than these studies must be all wrong. If you know better, point out the flaw; otherwise stop making stuff up.

    • Good lord, thanks for pointing this out. It's a self-reported study asking participants a hypothetical. This is about as weak as it gets.

  • The premise behind "ride-sharing" (stupid name) services is that your car spends most of its time idle, and that by changing that you can turn into a source of income.

    If you give people a financial incentive to start driving around their previously mostly-parked cars, it increases the amount of vehicles on the road...and hence congestion. It's a no brainer, really. Also, since Uber is just a cheaper taxi service you call up with an app, no wonder it's pulling in mostly non-driving passengers (traditional ta

  • Misleading title (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mi ( 197448 ) <slashdot-2017q4@virtual-estates.net> on Monday February 26, 2018 @11:56AM (#56188493) Homepage Journal

    The title implies, actual congestion — the number of traffic jams and the average amount of time we spent waiting them — has gone up.

    But the actual study finds only that people use Uber to get places because it is more convenient than the alternatives:

    Nearly six in 10 said they would have used public transportation, walked, biked or skipped the trip if the ride-hailing apps weren't available.

    In other words, Uber/Lyft are guilty of offering a good and convenient service.

    • In other words, Uber/Lyft are guilty of offering a good and convenient service.

      What benefits the individual does not automatically benefit a community as a whole.

      Maximizing indivudal choice seems like a good idealogy to follow. But there are consequences to holding such a philosophy. So I would recommend we carefully weigh and consider everything that we do, rather than rigidly following a dogmatic practice as mentioned above.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by swb ( 14022 )

        There is no "community as a whole", only a collection of individual user benefits which only appears in aggregate to be "the community as a whole." For the most part people defining the benefits to the community as a whole are just pushing a specific agenda that they think actually benefits everyone more or less equally.

  • History is just repeating itself (Score:5, Informative)

    by rayzat ( 733303 ) on Monday February 26, 2018 @11:56AM (#56188495)
    If you look at Manhattan one of the main reasons the medallion system was setup was to reduce congestion from an excessive number of taxis on the street. During the great depression people who had cars but no job just became independent taxi companies. At most times of the day there were more cabs parked or driving then potential passengers grinding traffic to a halt and eliminating street parking for most who were taxi drivers. There were some safety, pricing, and quality issues baked into the medallion design as well but the overall point was to provide as safe and consistent travel experience as possible while not over-congesting streets and parking. The medallion system was far from perfect mainly because modifications to the system and responses to changes in consumption move at a glacial pace but the historical precedent is there.

    • They really should modernize the medallion system to allow companies to lease out the medallions by the hour. So services like Uber could still operate with a limited number of drivers based on Uber's medallion count. They could even work out deals with traditional taxi companies to lease under-used medallions. Thus they'd still be controlling the number of cars on the road, but they'd also allow technology to progress.

  • Studies like this one make me wonder if the people writing them ever ride public transportation themselves, or if they drive to work every day while trying to figure out ways to get everyone else off the road.

    I live about 1.5 miles from my office. Some days I walk, some days I drive, and some days I walk two blocks to catch a bus. If I time everything just right, the bus is actually the fastest commute, because I don't have to waste several minutes looking for a parking space.

    However - the bus only runs e

  • Not new (Score:2)

    by Subm ( 79417 )

    > a new wrinkle

    Not new to anyone who's heard of Jevons Paradox, the rebound effect, or the trend of many (most?) technologies that increase efficiency. From Wikipedia:

    In economics, the Jevons paradox (/dvnz/; sometimes the Jevons effect) occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the rate of consumption of that resource rises because of increasing demand.[1] The Jevons paradox is perhaps the most widely kn

  • There are as many as 10000 Uber/Lyft cars in SF on the weekends from out of towners coming as far away as Fresno who want to get some of that 'congested time' money. It's getting really bad. I will never use an Uber/Lyft in a major city again.

  • "and putting them in cars instead" ... which is apparently where they want to be.

    We can't have that!

  • This is a wake up call to Public Transportation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by roccomaglio ( 520780 ) on Monday February 26, 2018 @12:24PM (#56188747)
    This is a wake up call to Public Transportation. Public Transportation needs to improve its service. If given a choice people will choose the cheapest/easiest/most convenient option. So public transportation needs to provide better service if it wants to out compete Uber/Ride Sharing. When I visit a city, I usually usually use public transportation. Many times, I found it counter intuitive. There is little to no convenience. Last time I was in NY the subway credit card machines were broken and you had to purchase your fares with cash. You were only allowed to buy in certain denominations. The trains arrived on different platforms than marked, because it was after 10pm. Fix those issues, before there is any talk of banning Uber/Ride Sharing.
    • Public transportation can only be as good as a city has taxes to build the system. Do any corporations in Silicon Valley really pay taxes? They should be paying enough taxes to allow the city to build a public transportation system that works for their employees. It's called city planning. I would think with all the money flying around, these major centers would be collecting enough taxes to build the best public transportation in the world.

  • Unreliable, overcrowded, and slow. That's why people take Lyft/Uber. My last commute, from a close-in suburb to Copley Square, would have taken me over an hour on the T, with two changes (bus to Harvard Sq., Red Line to Park St., Green Line to Copley. Often, I"d have to let two or three Red Line trains go by before there was one with enough room for me to cram on.

    By contrast, the same commute took me just over 30 minutes by bicycle, even with my slow, old, fat ass. And I wasn't crammed onto a train car

  • Makes sense (Score:3)

    by reanjr ( 588767 ) on Monday February 26, 2018 @12:47PM (#56188979) Homepage

    I primarily use Uber as a way to avoid parking. I imagine most heavy users - like me - live in congested areas with no parking.

  • When you have a scale of well... "ideal" to "non-ideal" means of transport where say the least ideal is single person in a big gas guzzling SUV and the most ideal is someone walking/cycling everywhere they go that ideal is too impractical for most. So you start having HOV lanes and EV credits and bus/tram/train lines and taxis and every time you add something "in between" there's the risk that more people choose to slide down the scale than up the scale. And then there's the question of how much hassle it i

  • Could these services be encouraging people to go to the bars downtown and get wasted? Hey, if I can manage to crawl from the pub to my Uber ride, I can make it home.

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