Uber Admits It Wants To Take Riders Away From Public Transit (cnn.com) 190
"Uber took down the taxi industry and now it wants a piece of public transit," reports CNN, in an article shared by dryriver:
For years, as it aggressively entered new markets, Uber has maintained that it is a complement and ally of public transit. But that messaging changed earlier this month, when Uber released its S-1 ahead of its upcoming initial public offering. In the regulatory filing, Uber said its growth depends on better competing with public transportation, which it identifies as a $1 trillion market it can grab a share of over the long-term. Uber, which lost $1.8 billion in 2018, said it offers incentives to drivers to scale up its network to attract riders away from personal vehicles and public transportation.
Transportation experts say that if Uber grabs a big chunk of its target market -- 4.4 trillion passenger miles on public transportation in the 63 countries in which it operates -- cities would grind to a halt, as there would literally be no space to move on streets....
Uber's rival Lyft didn't describe public transportation as a competitor in its S-1. But while the corporate mission may be different, in practice there's little difference, experts say.
"Try to imagine the island of Manhattan, and everyone taking the subway being in a rideshare. It just doesn't function...." said Christof Spieler, who teaches transportation at Rice University and wrote the book Trains, Buses, People. "It's a world in which large cities essentially break down."
And transportation consultant Jarrett Walker tells CNN that while it may make business sense for Uber and Lyft to pursue this strategy, "it may also be a strategy that's destroying the world."
Transportation experts say that if Uber grabs a big chunk of its target market -- 4.4 trillion passenger miles on public transportation in the 63 countries in which it operates -- cities would grind to a halt, as there would literally be no space to move on streets....
Uber's rival Lyft didn't describe public transportation as a competitor in its S-1. But while the corporate mission may be different, in practice there's little difference, experts say.
"Try to imagine the island of Manhattan, and everyone taking the subway being in a rideshare. It just doesn't function...." said Christof Spieler, who teaches transportation at Rice University and wrote the book Trains, Buses, People. "It's a world in which large cities essentially break down."
And transportation consultant Jarrett Walker tells CNN that while it may make business sense for Uber and Lyft to pursue this strategy, "it may also be a strategy that's destroying the world."
Most people don't live in Manhattan (Score:3)
"Try to imagine the island of Manhattan, and everyone taking the subway being in a rideshare. It just doesn't function...."
Most people don't live in Manhattan.
If ridesharing doesn't provide a better alternative, people won't use it. Problem solved.
Public transit will continue to be successful and widely used in Manhattan and a few other dense cities. Everywhere else, it will continue to suck.
Re:Most people don't live in Manhattan (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Most people don't live in Manhattan (Score:5, Insightful)
Take into account they are losing billions per year charging what they charge today. Any 'defeat' they have over alternative modes of travel they have in the end is a loss for everyone because they'll eventually have to raise prices in order to profit.
To me it just sounds like Uber is getting desperate. They are history's most money-burning startup, have never made a profit, and a couple of years ago basically said the only way they will ever make money is massive deployment of self-driving cars.
As self-driving cars are not going to be ubiquitous anytime soon (it's one thing to run over municipal taxi regulations, quite another to do so over state and national road safety regulations), now they are trying to say they'll grab a share of the public transit market. At some point, Uber is either going to massively downsize operations to a level where they can be profitable (I'm sure there are markets where they are profitable, and can be long-term), or they will just go bankrupt.
Re: Most people don't live in Manhattan (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s incredible Uber manages to lose so much money. They donâ(TM)t pay their drivers that much, and they have no overhead to speak of. So where does all the money go?
I guess with them going public weâ(TM)ll get to see.
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They subsidize the cost of every ride so they look cheaper than taxis. The point was to run all the taxi companies out of business and undercut any other app based transit company (they are not ride sharing companies, stop calling them that). The potential profit from being in a monopoly position over an industry many people are required to use to survive* is massive. I think they underestimated how long it would take to take over everyone. It's a common occurrence with people living in richer areas thi
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People don’t internalize the cost of traffic congestion. The gridlock factor is what kills single passenger vehicles.
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That is what is really going on. They are losing billions and they need a pump and dump because it looks very much like the ride is coming to an end. So Uber executive and their bankster buddies want to waffle on about a new market, no matter how unrealistic.
In capital letters 'UBER IPO' https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/2... [cnbc.com]. They will now tell every single fucking lie they can get away with, the initial hedge fund investors, corrupt executives and the banks getting a commision on the transaction. They might w
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Can a car compete with an express train ride into the city from the burbs, rare days yes, most days NO and that doesn't even touch high speed rail. It is BULLSHIT,
You didn't even ask the _real_ question. Can one thousand cars compete with an express ride? (Sticker seen on the back of a bus: "Would you rather have me in front of you, or fifty cars?"
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Most places don't have commuter trains at all, never mind express ones. I live in South Florida, and while Miami has (apparently) a half decent system, Tri-Rail and Brightline (Virgin Trains now) are north-south only. That isn't particularly helpful for 95% of the population. The bus systems north of Miami-Dade are ... unreliable.
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Anyway if the city decides to charge surge pricing for accessing its roads, (London already does, NYC is thinking about it), then it will be a level playing field. Then we can see who wins, private car or the public bus.
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I don't think anyone would ride our buses or light rail for $25/day, which is the true cost of service, not the $5 we're charged.
That's not the true cost of the service because the municipality's job isn't to run a bunch of separate services as independent entities: it's job it to run a city.
If they decided to reflect that "true cost" and everyone moved into cars, the city would probably be at gridlock, which would cost vast amounts of money. The solution is then to spend an incredible amount of money on ro
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lolz that doesn't even include the cost of subsidizing big oil
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"Try to imagine the island of Manhattan, and everyone taking the subway being in a rideshare. It just doesn't function...."
Most people don't live in Manhattan.
If ridesharing doesn't provide a better alternative, people won't use it. Problem solved.
Public transit will continue to be successful and widely used in Manhattan and a few other dense cities. Everywhere else, it will continue to suck.
It doesn't have to be that way. There are other countries which have managed to have good (or even excellent) public transport systems that operate nationwide, not just in dense cities.
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Just curious, what are those other countries, and how large are they?
It sounds like you're edging towards the "America is special because it's big." argument.
The overall size of the country is irrelevant since people don't take a cab from NY to LA. Most people day to day travel within cities, from work to home and back, maybe via shops or schools.
On the hand feel free to keep arguing for exceptionalism from inside a traffic jam in a gridlocked city.
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But I don't think many people realize the greater LA area (Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside counties) is larger than Belgium, and about on-par with Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark, and a host of other countries.
LA is about twice the area of Switzerland with about twice the population (both are about 200 people per square km, slightly denser in LA) with similar GDP per capita (a bit higher in Switzerland). Switzerland is much more mountainous.
The public transportation in Switzerland is excellent
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It sounds like you're edging towards the "America is special because it's big." argument.
The overall size of the country is irrelevant since people don't take a cab from NY to LA.
America is special because so many of its cities were born after the car. They were sited along highways — indeed, when rail lines closed down and highways were built, some towns died because they depended on the rail traffic, and the highway didn't follow the same route. So areas were actually planned with highways in mind. European cities predate the automobile in most cases, so they have a very different situation.
With that said, public transport can be useful here too, and we'd have more of it tod
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Uber is essentially a gentrified transportation service. Poor people can't afford Uber, so they take the bus. Uber's plan now is how to attract more people in the middle since they've already captured the stupid-with-too-much-money market.
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It isn't just poor people, am I going to spend $18 for a taxi, $27 for Uber EACH WAY to work (just looked up price) or am I going to spend $5 for ROUND TRIP?
Yup it's a no-brainer, public transportation it is
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You have the pricing for Taxi vs Uber reversed, but you're right otherwise. Uber each way to work would be about $20-25 for me, so about $50/day vs $5 for the bus. MOST of the time it makes more sense for me to take the bus, but that ride is at least 1.5 hours each way with a change of busses, and occasionally a bus doesn't show up, or I have something to do after work, or the weather is inclimate enough to make the 20 minute walk between the bus stop and my office untenable. In those cases, the extra cost
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Not reversed, Taxi is indeed cheaper here for that long run, I've taken it when public transport was down due to someone deciding suicide by being struck by CTA train would make people notice their name for at least the duration of rush hour plus the evening news. Cost of Uber was right from website.
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Most people don't live in Manhattan.
>
A lot of people go there to work, though.
Admits? (Score:3)
Haven't used uber yet (Score:3)
a bus ride from my neighborhood to downtown is $1
it's about 25 miles, how much would an uber ride be?
Downsides to the bus, it takes a while and there are only 2 trips in the morning and 2 in the late afternoon.
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Installing the app would need you to register, etc. A deposit of $20 or so can be applied towards your first ride, if I remember correctly (Credit or debit card) Rideshares via uber depend on distance & timing (rush hour etc)
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Business wants to make more money any way they can (Score:2)
... Film at 11.
They don't care (Score:4, Insightful)
And transportation consultant Jarrett Walker tells CNN that while it may make business sense for Uber and Lyft to pursue this strategy, "it may also be a strategy that's destroying the world."
And the executives at Uber will respond with, "So what?"
Really, they don't give a shit about anything except how much money finds its way to their bank account.
"So we kill a city or two or ten or a hundred, so what?"
Most people dont get the value till it is gone ... (Score:5, Insightful)
People see the problems of public transit, the delay, the crowd, empty buses/trains when you are not looking for a ride, your bus alone is over crowded, price hikes, ... America had the best street car system, and people hated it. Politicians promised a car for everyone.
Firestone, Ford and Standard Oil formed a secret cartel to destroy the public transportation. They bought critical backbone routes and shut it down. But they need not have been all that secret. All the people and the politicians hated the public transport so much they would have been cheerleaders.
With public transport destroyed or crippled, most cities ended up with traffic congestion, parking costs and the most insidious thing: So many people living at the bottom end of wages are just one fender bender, one blown alternator, one oil pump failure away from disaster. With public transport, if the friends can chip in for bus fare, you can work that day and slowly get back into workforce. Without it, people not only lose the job, the ability to find/go to another job too. Unless they have a support circle that can get the car back on the road, they eventually become homeless.
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Hated it because cars and gas were at some point free? And even today, you have wealthy people living in NYC who don't own cars because they're too much of a pain in the ass over public transportation.
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Introduce surge pricing. Any vehicle, bus or car or motor cycle occupying publicly owned roads will pay the city a fee based on its foot print area and minutes of occupancy. Surge pricing.
The situation is bad because government is giving access to the road at throw away prices. Set the price correctly, bus companies will turn in a profit and the s
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You can be the most responsible person in the world and still be fucked if there aren't any jobs around that pay decent money in areas with high costs of living.
Competing with public trans? (Score:2)
Buses and trains have limitations like schedules, service areas, speed.
However where I live the bus is $2 including a 2 hour transfer, or $4 for a day pass, and $60 for a monthly unlimited pass.
I took an Uber to work once only when my car broke down recently. $32 plus tip. One way.
I can live with a lot of inconvenience for $4 a day compared to $64 a day.
My car is somewhat more than a bus, but far cheaper than an Uber, around $5 to $5.50 depending on gas prices.
I doubt I want to ride in a $2
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The car costs more then gas. Insurance here is $3-4 a day. Then there is maintenance, which is likely to be another couple of bucks a day. Brakes, tires, oil and other fluid changes, as well as break downs.
They should take over our city bus service. (Score:2)
Then we might know where the bus is and when it is coming. Here in Palo Alto the bus may run early and leave us standing there a half hour for their next round. A great opportunity for Uber.
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They should take over our city bus service. Then we might know where the bus is and when it is coming.
Loads of places have this already without some crazy privatisation scheme. In some places you don't even need a smartphone, you can just text a number written on the bus stop and the system replies with the arrival times.
And that's only for the stops that don't have live displays.
Two words (Score:4, Insightful)
Congestion pricing. More cities are moving towards increasing fees for vehicles which drive in the city at certain times. The whole point of public transportation is to alleviate streets packed with vehicles and the consequent pollution.
If the Uber taxi company wants to go after public transportation by increasing the number of its taxis on the street, cities will simply respond by passing on the fee to them which will in turn be passed on to the customers which will defeat the entire purpose of flagging an Uber taxi in the first place.
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We'll see how it works in NYC soon. America has a habit of being dragged kicking and screaming into the good ideas the rest of the world has been doing for decades, coming up with the worst possible implementation of them, and then when they fail claim "it just doesn't work here".
Re:Two words (Score:5, Interesting)
I would suggest going to Singapore some time. They have had congestion pricing for 20 years. The system significantly reduces traffic, and when you need to take a taxi somewhere it becomes easy and convenient.
While I am not a big fan of the podium apartment block system that is popular today with developers, a smart city fundamentally is one that mixes housing, services, recreation, and employment in a walkable radius. It is amazing what that can do for quality of life.
I don't get it... (Score:2)
What would I do if EVERYONE started pooling and causing traffic chaos in big cities?
Are you kidding me? You mean to say
Re:It is about freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
You think Uber cares about you? You think you are more than a bunch of data points and a source of profit? You think you have ANY power whatsoever to make changes to Uber, as opposed to the minuscule but existing power to change your government through voting?
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We all have power to make changes to Uber when we vote to use it or to not use it. Public transit needs the competition, and will be strengthened by it.
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Jeez, I'm 32 and have never had a surgery. Sounds like they're fucking up natural selection and you should be dead by now. You are the reason we have starving people in africa.
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Yes, you should be "put down" You're a bad person. BAD BOY!
Signed,
Murikan
Re:Good for riders (Score:5, Interesting)
They don't. It costs nothing for my wife to ride the bus every morning to her office on campus (faculty, staff and students ride free in this California college town). A Uber would cost $13-15. The bus is clean, pleasant, always on time, and she doesn't have to chat with the driver or listen to demos by his soundcloud indie band. They even have double-decker buses in the morning so she can sit up high and look at the beautiful scenery on the way. Takes about 18 minutes. If you count parking, it would take longer for her to drive.
If it wasn't for the nationwide war on public transit that's been fought for the past 75 years in the US by oil and car companies, outfits like Uber wouldn't even be able to exist. There was a time when every city in the United States had efficient, profitable public transportation, which included buses and light rail. That's been destroyed in large part now.
http://www.baycrossings.com/Ar... [baycrossings.com]
Re:Good for riders (Score:5, Informative)
If it wasn't for the nationwide war on public transit that's been fought for the past 75 years in the US by oil and car companies, outfits like Uber wouldn't even be able to exist. There was a time when every city in the United States had efficient, profitable public transportation, which included buses and light rail. That's been destroyed in large part now.
Yep. This reminds me of how GM bought up streetcar lines and then destroyed the tracks, effectively forcing people to use (read: buy) cars. And it was all done in the name of profit. People love to label this a "conspiracy" and claim that it "wasn't really like that", but it was.
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People love to label this a "conspiracy" and claim that it "wasn't really like that", but it was.
It happened in ONE place: Los Angeles.
Public transit failed in the rest of America for other reasons: Affordable cars, cheap gas, and low population density.
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Sure, one place, but one very large place with a very large population which today has more cars on the road than most other cities.
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>It happened in ONE place: Los Angeles.
Yeah, you kill ONE person, and everybody is like, Murderer, murderer!
Or, to put it more lightly:
A young man is walking through a small village one day and decides to stop by a bar and have a beer. He walks into a bar, and sees a grizzled old man, crying into his beer. Curious, the young man sits down and says, "Hey old timer, why the long face?"
The old man looks at him and points out the window, "See that dock out there? I built that dock with my own two hands, plan
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Wait did he kill the goat before he fucked it? or after?
Re:Good for riders (Score:5, Informative)
People love to label this a "conspiracy" and claim that it "wasn't really like that", but it was.
It happened in ONE place: Los Angeles.
It was actually about 25 cities [wikipedia.org]. And the offending corporations were actually convicted by a jury, but then handslapped as usual.
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At least two places. It also happened in the East Bay of the Bay Area. The Key System was an extensive light rail line that was purchased by GM and shut down. Some of the right-of-ways are used by BART but many just became bus lines.
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No, Bill. It happened in lots of other cities. You can tell which cities by finding out if they have paved over unused trolley tracks. In almost every case, it's because those profitable streetcars were scrapped and the tracks covered so that fat municipal contracts could be given to GM affiliates to put gas-burning buses on the streets (which never
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Sane people stay as far away from LA as they can. Last time I went there I realized why people get shot in traffic.
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You do realize taxis exist even in places with good public transport, right?
The only advantage public transport is almost guaranteed to have is cost, and even that is often because of subsidies. In very dense and congested environments it might also be faster, but at the expense of flexibility.
Still, I'm all for everyone else riding the bus, so this isn't great. But ultimately the problem will solve itself as increased congestion and slower travel times will make public transport more attractive again.
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The problem is more about development patterns than mode of transit per-se. When you spread out to the burbs and eliminate or de-prioritize city/town centers in the process it becomes very difficult to make transit work effectively. At the same time, when your only transportation option is a car, roads quickly get clogged.
I generally love taking transit when I am not walking or riding my bike, but when it doesn’t offer a speed advantage its utility is comprised.
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And almost always it offers a speed penalty. When I moved about 20 years ago, I started taking the "express" bus downtown to work. By dint of geography and the route layout, this bus cost me 50 minutes each way (first stop going in, last stop coming home, plus a 10 minute walk to the stop).
Driving was something like 25 minutes each way. Parking cost more, but for the $100 premium in parking, I was able to cut out over 2 hours spent commuting each week, in addition to the much greater flexibility of not f
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In California's Bay Area at least, it is faster (and cheaper) to take the BART and a streetcar/bus to within a few blocks of your destination than it is to drive and pay for parking.
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In California's Bay Area at least, it is faster (and cheaper) to take the BART and a streetcar/bus to within a few blocks
Unless the roads are clear, then it's faster to drive. BART isn't cheap, either.
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Sure, at 2 in the morning there's no traffic and it's easier to find a parking space. If you're going with a group of people from the end of the line in the east bay out to the airport, it might be cheaper to rent a car than have everyone pop for BART tickets, but it's hard to top the economics of mass transit. What we should do is subsidize it the way we do roads and highways, so it's free to use.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/1... [nytimes.com]
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The only advantage public transport is almost guaranteed to have is cost, and even that is often because of subsidies. In very dense and congested environments it might also be faster, but at the expense of flexibility.
I remember trying to get from Times Square to LaGuardia Airport during the evening rush hour many years ago. I got in a taxi and got caught up in the standstill traffic. The subways in this situation are vastly better than cars and taxis.
Almost all public transport systems are tax subsidized. The subsidies result from a belief that a public transport system engenders societal benefits including reduced traffic, affordability for low-income people, etc. Uber is also subsidized, i.e., by venture capital.
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Gasoline is subsidized. The auto industry is subsidized. The highways are subsidized. Your house is subsidized via mortgage interest deductions. Your kids' school is subsidized. The corn syrup in your can of pop is subsidized.
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They don't. It costs nothing for my wife to ride the bus every morning to her office on campus (faculty, staff and students ride free in this California college town). A Uber would cost $13-15. The bus is clean, pleasant, always on time, and she doesn't have to chat with the driver or listen to demos by his soundcloud indie band.
You're describing a commuter line. They're always great compared to the other 99.5% of routes transit agencies run.
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No, it's just part of a well-run municipal transit system. It's one of the bus lines that all sorts of people use to get around town. It's only free for students and faculty and staff of the university, which is the primary employer in town, but you'll see all sorts of other people riding it every day too. All the buses have bike racks on the front and back and the ones that go down to the beach have racks for surf boards. California is a very cool place. It's expensi
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The Twin Cities had an extensive streetcar system, but while it's end was ignominious and involved a colorful local organized crime figure, everything I've read indicated it was suffering from declining ridership and capital depletion for decades. Maybe some broader conspiracy might have hastened it, but everything I've read suggests that it was doomed.
I figure it's a mix of non-conspiracy real causes. The biggest one seems to be WW II -- lack of investment capital and wartime rationing caused rolling stoc
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I hate people, so while I can understand the "she doesn't have to chat with the driver or listen to demos by his soundcloud indie band." I also hate people on busses as they invade my personal space. The key to this would be capsul seats on a bus, or the separation windows like limos have in ubers. Until then I will continue to drive myself.
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Don't be an ass-wipe. It's part of the cost of living here, which is well worth it. And from the housing values, it appears to be worth it for a lot of other people too.
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It costs nothing for my wife to ride the bus
As usual, you're full of shit, Ratzo. It's not "free." The cost is covered by taxes, paid by people regardless of whether they ride the bus or not.
How do you know it's covered by taxes and not from tuition fees?
Also, what would be the cost in congestion, pollution, and car parking space, for the 30 or more journeys each day that would be needed if people didn't take the bus? That gets paid by other people too, and so the net cost is less than you might imagine.
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Why shouldn't riders use Uber if Uber provides a superior service?
Even if that 'superior service' destroys the livability of your city and ruins it for everyone else?
Are you really that shortsighted?
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What's superior about uber? Maybe it's convenient, but it's seriously broken in so many ways. It puts MORE cars on the road and it's overpriced with underpaid workers. Yes, the kids love it, they take uber three blocks instead of walking on a sunny day, and we're supposed to applaud that? All it's really done is making taking a taxi cool because it's exactly the same but not called a "taxi".
Take the bus, take the light rail, or take the train, if you care about the environment or want to save money.
Re: Ban Uber & Lyft!!! (Score:2)
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They are not illegal only because no one ever expected them so no laws were ever passed to prevent their creation.
Now that they exist, it's too late to ban them outright, so many cities/states are limiting them and attempting to regulate them. NYC and NJ come to mind as recent examples.
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They're illegal here (BC). To contract driving passengers around, you need the right insurance, the right drivers license, and then there are the municipal regulations, business licenses and such.
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And have one of those really valuable medallons.
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Not really sure about that in most of the Province, though possibly true in the bigger cities.
Re: Ban Uber & Lyft!!! (Score:2)
Re: Devil is in ithe details.. (Score:2)
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My phone cost $60 CDN, it is easy to turn off location services, does everything I need it to do, though I did add a microssd for another $20. Even if I have to replace it every 2 years, it would take quite a while to spend the $1000-$1500 that an Apple phone would cost and the Apple phone would probably be locked down in various ways such as which network you can use it on and where you can get apps, though the cell phone company would likely subsidize the IPhone and advertise that it is free after the $12
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All the while drivers are shuttling around the public transportation unwashed, crazy, and criminal, Uber will be looking for new ways to dick them on compensation.
Only in market-free fantasy land. In the real world, the unwashed, crazy and criminal that frequent public transportation won't be able to pony up for private transportation. And Uber can't lower prices to the level where they can -- they're not going to run their business at negative margins.
They're talking about taking the most lucrative slice off the top of the public transportation space, not replacing it wholesale.
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they're not going to run their business at negative margins
Have you seen how much money Uber loses a year? Their plan is to run at negative margins until they're the last surviving company, and then charge what they like.
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Their plan is to run at negative margins until they're the last surviving company
Public transit has been doing that for decades. Good luck to Uber playing their game. It's sort of like mud wrestling with a pig.
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True. Weird thing here is it is the Greens who are pushing legalizing Uber etc. The Greens hold the balance of power in a minority government.
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No, they know that'll never work since there's no big barriers to new competition. Their plan (like that of many companies) is simply to run at negative margins until they've used as much investor money as they can, then go home and enjoy the rewards. Who wouldn't want to get paid a fortune for a decade or two at the cost of the business eventually declaring bankruptcy from which their personal
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While that may well be how it ends, I think Uber really thinks (or thought) that they could get into a monopoly position. Only they know.
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No, they know that'll never work since there's no big barriers to new competition.
Imagine Uber was actually successful and making money. And the next week Google and Apple have a meeting, and the week after there is a new ride sharing app on every single smartphone in the world.
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I rode the bus every day in college. Must've been many thousands of people on it over those years. I recall 2 of them who were a problem. That's actually better luck than I've had as a driver, where despite being in a different vehicle some people manage to make themselves quite annoying and dangerous.
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umm...the kinds of people that rides the bus you dont want them in a car with you, unless they are handcuffed and in the back seat. with a barrier separating the back from the front
Maybe if you live in some sort of dystopian hell-hole. I taken many busses in my home country both city busses (often a few times per week) and country busses (rarely but I don't live in the country) and it's fine.
Even the dreaded night busses have got way more civilised than they used to be. Bloody millenials not drinking as mic
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> Most cities of any size run empty buses all day long because politicians get money from the drivers' union.
No, it's because a bus that doesn't show up (roughly) when you need one is a useless bus. Waiting hours for public transportation isn't a workable solution.
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Manhattan's subways, DC's Metro, SF's BART, Philly's SEPTA, Chicago's El, maybe a few other commuter lines that server thousands of commuters an hour are not the target.
Most cities of any size run empty buses all day long because politicians get money from the drivers' union. Uber would be far more efficient and would provide better service on most routes. I'd even support some subsidies if it's cheaper than the buses.
The buses are often partially empty at non-peak times as it is not cost effective to have a fleet of progressively smaller buses to use during the day. Also you may see a mostly empty bus at the far ends of the lines, but it might be pretty full at other points. In theory you could just cut the length of the run during off-peak hours too, but then you make the schedules more complicated and lose customers. I expect that when smart phones are fully ubiquitous then they will happen as you will be able to easi
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Because spending over $1000.00 / year on insurance alone + car maintenance costs they constantly try to avoid + the rise and fall of gas prices is somehow less than the average fare for a bus.
The cost of relying on the bus includes a few things that some car haters may not have taken into account:
1. Lost wages due to having to reduce work hours to accommodate a commute on a bus that goes all the way downtown to the transfer station before stopping for drop-offs and pick-ups numerous times on the way to the destination.
2. The cost of cab fare for trips when bus drivers are at home with their families. In many cities, this happens at night, on Sundays, and on major holidays.
3. The cost of cab fare
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The cost of relying on the bus includes a few things that some car haters may not have taken into account:
1. Lost wages due to having to reduce work hours to accommodate a commute on a bus that goes all the way downtown to the transfer station before stopping for drop-offs and pick-ups numerous times on the way to the destination.
In every city I've lived in there will be fairly frequent commuter buses going in to the city from the time I am still having a shower to long after I am at work, and a similar story when going back, so it's unlikely that people have to adjust their hours at work to match the bus times unless they have very, very long commutes.
2. The cost of cab fare for trips when bus drivers are at home with their families. In many cities, this happens at night, on Sundays, and on major holidays.
In the UK you accept this as you save on parking at work during the week. But then on the days above, parking tends to be cheaper, and you can drive into the city. What would be nice
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