Uber, Lyft Finally Admit They're Making Traffic Congestion Worse In Cities (theverge.com) 83
Uber and Lyft tapped transportation consultancy Fehr & Peers to examine their combined vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in six cities in September 2018, and compare that number to the total VMT in each area for the same month. "The results show that while they are vastly out-stripped by personal and commercial vehicles, Uber and Lyft are still responsible for significant shares of VMT in those cities," reports The Verge. From the report: The analysis looks at Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC. The results are presented on two levels: the regional area, including the surrounding towns and suburbs, and the "core" county of each region that contains the main part of the city with the densest concentration of jobs. The findings show that Uber and Lyft account for just 1-3 percent of VMT in the broader metropolitan areas of each city. But those numbers spike when zooming in on the core county of each city. In San Francisco County, for example, Uber and Lyft make up as much as 13.4 percent of all vehicle miles. In Boston, it's 8 percent; in Washington, DC, it's 7.2 percent.
These figures suggest that Uber and Lyft are hitting some cities harder than previously thought. An independent study commissioned by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority looked at 2017 traffic patterns in the county and concluded that TNCs generated about 6.5 percent of the total VMT on weekdays, and 10 percent on weekends. (TNC, which stands for transportation network company, is an industry term used to describe ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft.) The findings from Fehr & Peers show totals "nearly twice that previous estimate," said Gregory Erhardt, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Kentucky who has researched Uber and Lyft's effects on public transit ridership. "This difference may be due to the continued increase in TNC use over the intervening two years."
These figures suggest that Uber and Lyft are hitting some cities harder than previously thought. An independent study commissioned by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority looked at 2017 traffic patterns in the county and concluded that TNCs generated about 6.5 percent of the total VMT on weekdays, and 10 percent on weekends. (TNC, which stands for transportation network company, is an industry term used to describe ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft.) The findings from Fehr & Peers show totals "nearly twice that previous estimate," said Gregory Erhardt, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Kentucky who has researched Uber and Lyft's effects on public transit ridership. "This difference may be due to the continued increase in TNC use over the intervening two years."
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Yeah, but other things factor in...
If all those taxis and Ubers and Lyfts weren't on the road, imagine the statistical rise in drunken and otherwise incapacitated drivers?
Re:Taxis (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference is that cities can limit the number of taxis by limiting the number of taxi licenses/medallions.
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The difference is that cities can limit the number of taxis by limiting the number of taxi licenses/medallions.
They should instead sell an "unlimited" (only limited if it makes sense in terms of profit and pricing) number of licenses for whatever the market will bear, and use the profits to build up their failing public transportation system. Otherwise traffic can only get worse.
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All the city services for "People" take money from the once well funded public transportation system.
Free care for anyone living in the city?
Thats going to take city money from existing city spending
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Well, too bad Uber and Lyft don't have profits to help with this.
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They should instead sell an "unlimited" (only limited if it makes sense in terms of profit and pricing) number of licenses for whatever the market will bear, and use the profits to build up their failing public transportation system.
For any city designers taxis *are* public transport and therefore come into an organised control of how people move. Release unlimited taxis? Well that would mean that anyone could become a taxi and I recently read an article that says it makes traffic congestion worse.
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Taxis are private. They aren't owned by government. They're regulated, but that's not the same thing.
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The goal should not be "limit traffic", The goal should be "enable people to move where and when they like".
Traffic is one obstacle of many there, and if Uber and Lyft enable more people to go where they'd like, instead of being stuck at home, the world is a better place.
they also don't make money (Score:1)
The best thing to do with Uber and Lyft drivers trying to drop off passengers or wait for them in bus stops and commercial parking zones is to report them to the police, and then block their doors.
It's a start.
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The best thing to do with Uber and Lyft drivers trying to drop off passengers or wait for them in bus stops and commercial parking zones .....
I wish that were the case. Around here they often just stop in the middle of the street when there's no curb parking spot. That causes traffic to back up as cars try to switch over to their left lane to go around the douchebag.
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Saw one yesterday that cut across a couple lanes of traffic suddenly to reach the curb and let the passenger out. I really worry that many of these drivers would fail a driving test if sprung on them suddenly. Granted, no worse than the average taxi driver, but for companies who brag about how they're better than taxis you'd expect to see decent drivers. It's almost as if they accept any fool who wants to be a driver and can manage to download the app.
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I really worry that many of these drivers would fail a driving test if sprung on them suddenly.
Just these taxi drivers? I dare say the vast majority of drivers as a whole would fail a driving test if sprung on them suddenly.
Re:they also don't make money (Score:4)
The best thing to do with Uber and Lyft drivers is to properly plan cities and design them to more effectively distribute the population of a city that services it and makes use of services there. Most important in that is the valuation of walk ability, where maintaining that effective healthy exercise is functional in terms of accessing work, play and rest. To extend that walk ability range, publicly accessible low land area resource impact in high walk ability zones. This providing access from nearby zones and well as high speed commuter access from more remote zones.
Or just let the shitty mass pile up of myopic short sighted capitalism destroy American cities, that the other way to go and most definitely the way you are going, as you go there, don't forget to blame everyone else for the problem.
Re: they also don't make money (Score:2)
Easier said than done when the cities already exist.
Re: they also don't make money (Score:1, Funny)
worse than *what* (Score:3)
Worse than what?
What would those people be using if it weren't for TNCs? Public transportation? /. entries are mostly replacing foot instead of cars).
In the US, I doubt it.
These people would be driving their own cars anyway. TNCs aren't increasing the total number of cars, they are just replacing a large number of private cars with a slightly smaller number of drivers' work cars. (say, as opposed to e-scooters which according to recent
In fact they might be diminishing a tiny bit the car traffic: once destination reached, instead of driving around the block until finally finding some parking place like a private car, a hailed ride would drop of the client and immediately proceed to pick up the next client, especially since the modern app-based company are supposed to be efficient at planning rides.
(though again, this is the US and finding a parking spot might not be as time-consuming as it is here around in Europe - aka in big cities plan at least half an hour driving around until you finally find a free spot).
Re:worse than *what* (Score:5, Informative)
1. An individual car goes from A to B, while a hailed car goes first from somewhere to A, then to B and then either back to some waiting position or to the next trip. Thus it makes more trips than the individual car for the same amount of transportation.
2. As hailed cars are cheap and convenient, people tend to hail a car quite often, even if they wouldn't use public transport (too much hassle) or drive themselves (e.g. drunk or tired or otherwise not able to drive) instead. Thus, car hailing services cause trips that would not have happened otherwise. In general, each system that makes trips more cheap or more convenient than before creates trips that wouldn't have happened without the system, as they would have been too cumbersome or too expensive.
Hail car services thus have at least two ways to increase traffic compared to the alternatives: They need more trips for the same amount of effective transport services, and they generate additional trips because they make trips possible or affordable that weren't before.
Re:worse than *what* (Score:4, Informative)
An individual car goes from A to B, can't find a parking spot, then goes to C, D, E, F, and back to B just in case someone might be leaving, then C, D, E, F again, G, H, I, J, oh look a spot finally.
Yes hailed cars are more convenient especially in cities. It's because you don't have to find parking near your destination.
When ever I go downtown, I spent at least 3 times as much time looking for parking as it took me to get there.
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That's why I tend to cycle instead.
Re: worse than *what* (Score:2)
"That's why I tend to cycle instead."
A few cities (e.g. San Francisco) have affordances like bike lane networks and bike racks on transit vehicles that make cycling safe and convenient. Many other cities have limited or zero bicycle affordances, making cycling dangerous and unappealing to all but the most hardcore riders. Climate and distances also make a big difference.
No question, walking and cycling are the greenest forms of transport. I for one would love to see better support for these in the design an
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An individual car goes from A to B, can't find a parking spot
An individual normally going from A to B in a situation where he knew the trip do C D E and F were necessary to find parking often wouldn't use the car in the first place.
Re: worse than *what* (Score:1)
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Exactly! They'd use Uber or Lyft, so they don't need parking.
hunt for parking (Score:2)
An individual car goes from A to B, can't find a parking spot, then goes to C, D, E, F, and back to B just in case someone might be leaving, then C, D, E, F again, G, H, I, J, oh look a spot finally.
^- this!
To me, it looks like in big European cities, I spent 1/3 of the km getting to the destination and 2/3 driving around in circles until I finally manage to find a free spot for the car.
(Which is one of the major reason to use the bike instead as much as possible).
if only 60% of driven km by hailing companies have a client inside, that already looks like an improvement.
also Uber etc. aren't going to take up parking spots, which indirectly will also drive down the kms driven in circles by car owner look
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Uh what. Why would an Uber or Lyft driver go back to where they just came from? They're not limos at a base, or ambulettes at a hospital. They don't HAVE a waiting position. And they won't just drive around for no reason, wasting gas & mileage-wear.
This makes no sense, except in situations like airports, and even then ONLY if there's a sharp drop-off in potential rides between the airport and the surrounding areas - which is not the case in most major
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Too many people. Too many new cars added, too many existing cars in use.
What can a city do?
Buy up all the "space" around roads and build miles of new roads on the sides of existing roads?
Every "hailed ride" is not removing 2 to 3 "private cars"....
An "app-based company" wants to see more of its cars in use. Thats an addition of more and more cars.
Tanking people into a city. With all the existing number of
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I don't buy this. There are people who take uber or lyft for a distance they could easily walk. The data did show that 1/3 of miles travelled by uber/lyft had no passengers (lower than I expected). It would be interesting to see the comparison to similar data from 2 or 3 years ago (if it exists); then see how VMT compares to commercial traffic which is likely to remain relatively steady over that period.
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It's the 'proceed to pick up the next client' part that really boosts traffic congestion. Per the article:
" The memo shows that on average, just 54 to 62 percent of the vehicle miles traveled by Uber and Lyft vehicles were with a rider in the backseat; while a third of VMT occurs with no passenger in the vehicle, also known as deadheading. "
If someone drives from their house to location 1 mile away, parks, then a few hours later drives back home,
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Also the "stopping to pick up/let off passengers, blocking a lane of traffic" thing. Its not unusual to see 5 or 6 cars not make a light due to it in NYC, which backs everything up.
Re: worse than *what* (Score:2)
"it undermines usage of available mass transit options"
That may well be true in a few cities, like Chicago and San Francisco, with useable but inadequate public transport networks. I very much doubt it's the case in New York, which had long had both fairly good public transit and a large fleet of taxis.
However most American cities have quite pathetic public transport. If they have any at all. In that majority of cities I very much doubt that Uber is dissuading people from using public transit they weren't g
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What you say makes no sense. If a single car can provide the travel needs for 5 people for the day then there are 4 cars that were left at home. That is why there are so many taxis in NYC. The only way taxis increase congestion is if people use them in lieu of public transport (very likely)
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This only benefits parking, not congestion. Just look at the bridges as a chokepoint for traffic. If those 5 people live in New Jersey and the driver has to cross a bridge for each passenger, the morning and evening commute requires the driver to cross the bridge TEN times with no passenger. Those are TEN car trips on the bridge that wouldn't have occurred if each passenger drove their own ca
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I always enjoy the GNAA posters. They give me a little chuckle.
The next issue for Slashdot to fix (Score:2)
So? Roads are for people (Score:4, Insightful)
Uber and Lyft drivers pay the same fuel taxes as every other driver. They pay for the roads they use.
Re: So? Roads are for people (Score:2)
Maybe, but they sure as he'll aren't paying for the parking spaces they're waiting in.
how does this prove they worsen congestion? (Score:3)
Contributing a percentage of the congestion doesn't mean they are making it worse. They are replacing others.
If the people they carry weren't in the vehicles of one of these services, they'd be in their own, a traditional taxi service, or a rental. If they were in their own or a rental, they'd have to spend a lot of time obstructing traffic while driving slow to find parking places, often even stopping in the middle of the road to wait for a car pulling out. With these services, the stop for pickup and drop off is often trivial and not as obstructive.
It would take a lot of simulation to figure out whether the true effect is positive or negative and it would differ depending on local factors such as difficulty in finding parking and type of parking provisions.
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I see people taking rideshare who otherwise would be taking mass transit. Rideshare is more upscale, chic, and hipster than taking a bus with all the poor people.
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Possibly. But rideshare is not cheap. I personally doubt that anyone that can afford rideshare is likely to choose taking a bus. I know that I wouldn't due to a super bad experience (like undercover ETF agent squaring off with gun-toting-first-day-out-of-prison-gangster with me in the seat between them bad) on my one and only bus ride outside of school buses.
The point is that the fact that rideshare vehicles are a double digit percentage of the traffic in some markets does not answer the question of whether
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In NYC a LOT of people choose between rideshare and train. They can afford a rideshare, but don't want the problems of a car in Manhattan (or the hefty parking bills). Without rideshare they'd normally take the subway. With it they get the car. (They could get a taxi without rideshare, but hailing a cab takes effort/time- there's definite times you'd use Uber since its available, but would go to the train otherwise).
Re: how does this prove they worsen congestion? (Score:2)
"more upscale, chic, and hipster than taking a bus with all the poor people"
Buses suck goat balls. Slow, stuck in traffic, bad ride quality. If we want people to voluntarily use public transit we need to build more rail. Especially subways and elevated trains. At-grade light rail (without fully separate right of way) often suffers the same problem of getting stuck in car traffic.
Problem is, heavy rail is a huge front-loaded investment. One that never pays off until there is a large enough rail network to ma
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Rideshare is more upscale, chic, and hipster than taking a bus with all the poor people.
Or, as soemone who didn't hate his fellow man would say, rideshare provides a higher standard of living. A higher standard of living is the goal.
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I'm not sure this is the case. What are most people using these services for? Are they using them to commute to work? That seems unlikely.
Are they using them to meet friends, go to the bar, go to meetings? That seems more probable.
In the case of meetings, they would likely still have to go. That's work, after all, though some meetings may get cancelled, or be done over the phone/video chat.
In the case of meeting friends and going to the bar/dinner, the situation is probably the same.
In either case, I b
Changes the 'DD' culture as well (Score:5, Insightful)
Lots of good comments, but one thing to point out is that in some car-focused cities, the availability of Uber and Lyft has dramatically altered other cultural uses of cars during evening and nighttime events. Although this doesn't affect *commute congestion* since it's not during rush hour, it's still a net increase in car traffic and miles driven.
How, do you say? Well, in San Diego the geography is such that it's basically like a really, really big small town. Most of Greater San Diego is single-family detached homes and public transit really doesn't have a chance at providing the needs of residents outside of commuter corridors. There are only a few nighttime entertainment districts with restaurants, bars, and nightclubs... the primary one being the Gaslamp Quarter in Downtown San Diego.
Until about six years ago, San Diegans wanting to go downtown on a Friday or Saturday night usually went in groups and had one person acting as DD -- the Designated Driver. The group parked, everyone partied, and the DD drove everyone back to their home(s) safely. The alternative to this was calling a cab, but taxis are basically non-existent outside of the central core, so that meant calling a service and waiting -- so no one ever did that. (Also, cab fares are expensive.) The other alternative, common around colleges at night, were party busses... Buy a ticket and they'll take you from the parking lot to downtown, and then back at the end of the night, and you could usually figure out a way to get back to your dorm, apartment, whatever.
Nowadays, it's very common for people going Downtown, even if they're meeting up as a group, to have everyone get their own Ubers from their own houses, all get dropped off, and then all get their own Ubers back home. That could be a 3x-5x increase in car traffic over DDs, and way more than that for college students that used to use party busses. It's one the MAIN causes of traffic going from bad to horrible downtown during nights out, even with them blocking all parking on 5th Ave to aid in ride-share pickups on the main street.
So with that all said, I absolutely can see Ubers and Lyfts altering behavior to increase miles and trips. It's not the same as simply people having individual cars and not using public transit themselves, because people had other solutions to this problem before they came around. (And this doesn't even address the other externalities to the loss of DD culture -- like having at least one sober person in groups resulted in fewer disturbances, fights, and other problems.)
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When I was in San Diego, the bus lines were very good and provided a lot of access to most places. You might need to walk a few blocks though.
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You must have lived downtown. I lived in Rnacho Bernardo- the buses were only for if you were absolutely desperate. They were the 2 hour commute type of buses.
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You must have lived downtown. I lived in Rnacho Bernardo- the buses were only for if you were absolutely desperate. They were the 2 hour commute type of buses.
Same. In my teens had to take the bus from Skyline to Downtown, La Mesa to SDSU, Skyline to SDSU, and occasionally Poway to SDSU, and these were all 1-2 hour rides, PLUS wait and transfer time on top of that (and heaven forbid if you missed one).
Unless you live on University Ave and plan your entire life around getting between SDSU and Downtown on the whim of the 7, busses are not a serious option. Commuter corridors can work, but anything else is only viable if you want to intentionally burn a Sunday after
Re: Changes the 'DD' culture as well (Score:2)
Re: Changes the 'DD' culture as well (Score:2)
The data on that shows that the differences there are minimal for Downtown.
There IS a delta in PB, but they also are running fewer DUI checkpoints coming out of there as well.
Surprisingly, most DUIs in San Diego on Friday/Saturday nights are NOT long trips to major destinations. It's usually the people driving 2-3 miles to a local bar/pub that are the biggest issues.
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PARKING
What the Uber haters never consider is that owning a car means it spends 99% of its time sitting on drives/car parks.
That's fine. We have a relatively lot of street space. And a car parked isn't a car congesting traffic pretty much by definition.
If I can press a button and a car shows up and takes me where I want to go, I don't need to own a car. The car then goes of to service someone else. It's way more efficient.
That's called rental, and the result is a loss for you if you need a car more than a few times a week or aren't a tourist*. Somehow everyone out west not from San Francisco and parts of LA realizes this. Uber is hemorrhaging money because the math simply doesn't work. It didn't work back in the day [gizmodo.com] either.
*(Unplanned or business tourists not renting cars as much is actually a loss
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Who's this "we" in "we have a lot of street space"?
Take a look at your average city with cars parked down both sides. Now try and think how that would cause congestion. It's not hard.
"We" is "Greater San Diego County". -- Have you ever been here? We're not an "average city", we're a large, spread out small town. Despite the best efforts of hipsters, San Diego is a car-centric town. "Has car or access to car in household" is at something like >98%... because you HAVE to. Unless you have a medical issue, or are literally just starting out as an 18 year-old, the only people who don't have a car are recent 2 month transplants who haven't given up the struggle to make it work yet.
I didn't
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Visit London. Or Manchester. Or anywhere outside of your tiny bubble.
I have visited London. It's a wonderful city. Have you visited San Diego, California? (Or any place in the Western US outside of San Francisco?)
A non-driver focused transportation approach makes sense for cities and regions that were not designed for driving in the first place. That includes places like New York City, and *definitely* includes places that were laid out 300-750 years ago.
Most of Greater San Diego outside of Downtown and Old Town was just farmland and canyons and valleys still in the 1960s. (
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So with that all said, I absolutely can see Ubers and Lyfts altering behavior to increase miles and trips. It's not the same as simply people having individual cars and not using public transit themselves, because people had other solutions to this problem before they came around. (And this doesn't even address the other externalities to the loss of DD culture -- like having at least one sober person in groups resulted in fewer disturbances, fights, and other problems.)
I'm smelling fallacy of the false alternative here. Everyone perfectly used a designated driver previously?
At least being able to call a ride means that there's room for some failure without catastrophic consequences.
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So with that all said, I absolutely can see Ubers and Lyfts altering behavior to increase miles and trips. It's not the same as simply people having individual cars and not using public transit themselves, because people had other solutions to this problem before they came around. (And this doesn't even address the other externalities to the loss of DD culture -- like having at least one sober person in groups resulted in fewer disturbances, fights, and other problems.)
I'm smelling fallacy of the false alternative here. Everyone perfectly used a designated driver previously?
At least being able to call a ride means that there's room for some failure without catastrophic consequences.
Perfectly? No, of course not, but having grown up here, lived here, and spent way too much time as an undergrad, and now actually living Downtown and *IN* the Gaslamp Quarter, I feel I've been able to the situation from a lot of different angles and over a long period of time. The fight/disturbance situation has *definitely* gotten worse, and the 'DD' concept had broad support socially and culturally for as long as I can remember (which probably dates back to the MADD ad pushes of the late '80s and early '9
I am a long-term rideshare driver, here's the deal (Score:4, Informative)
Once you get wise, though, you realize that miles on the meter are your entire compensation (it drops to about $4/hr. when a passenger's in the car and you're not moving)-- and you don't make *anything* when you don't have a passenger. So if every rideshare driver gets better at not putting miles in when they aren't being paid, it *would* help reduce traffic. The real problem is, without better targeted incentives, a large portion of them probably won't ever get better. They'll just behave irrationally for a while and then quit.
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That certainly contributes to it, but you're missing the expanded market that was created as a result of low cost transportation options. I too have called an Uber in situations where in the past I would have simply taken public transport or walked. And why wouldn't I, it's cheap!
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I think you make a valid point here. But I'd just comment that the fear of a driver "getting stuck driving a long distance back home" is one of the real downsides to services like Uber and Lyft for folks like me. I live in a small community (about 6,000 people) that's about 20 minutes from a more major city and a good 60 minutes outside DC. Nonetheless? A lot of us living here, or in similar small towns in the area, do so because we had to move this far from DC itself to find affordable housing, big enough
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You'd be amazed how many times I've given Uber drivers suggestions, and they literally had no idea and never even thought in that direction.
No surprises here (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, Uber and Lyft make congestion "worse" because they offer an alternative to horrific mass transit. So people take it instead of the subway / rail / bus.
There's an old and simple experiment you can try in practically any city. Pull up Google Maps, enter two random addresses, and look at the travel time comparison between Uber and mass transit. Repeat a few dozen times. And there you have the reason why Uber and Lyft are so popular.
And I won't even mention the issues with mentally ill people, beggars, and out-and-out creeps harassing people on buses and trains, especially women. It only takes one bad experience for many people to swear off mass transit forever.
Congestion may be "worse", but until it gets to the point where Uber and Lyft are slower than mass transit, the people who can afford it will opt for rides on demand.
Re: No surprises here (Score:2)
"people take it instead of the subway / rail / bus."
Nah. People take Uber instead of taking the bus, cycling in dangerous traffic conditions, driving your own car and paying (in money or time) for parking, or driving home drunk.
You'd have to be pretty dim to pay a big premium for a longer trip stuck in traffic when you had the option of just hopping on the subway.
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Well, if London is an example of "practically any city", you'd generally be better off walking than taking a bus or a taxi, certainly during the rush hour.
Perhaps if you had social policies that treated mentally-ill people and provided for the destitute you wouldn't have to hide in your personal planet-destroying vehicles. Come to think of it, threatening the extinction of all life on earth just to save yourself from encountering the less-fortunate is probably the epitome of mental illness...
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33% more miles, but 50% less parking (Score:3)
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Ding-ding-ding, we have a winner! Someone should do a study on the # of DUI arrests in any particular area, with "before Uber" and "after Uber" numbers. I'm willing to bet that the numbers declined dramatically. And of course, since law enforcement isn't about public safety but about revenue generation, a LOT of people are NOT happy about that.
Uber and Lyft are not really rideshares (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: Uber and Lyft are not really rideshares (Score:2)
Last time I was in LA, Uber was doing big business with their shared ride service. Let's say you're staying near the beach and want to go out at night in the center city. Take Metro to get there; take a shared Uber to get home. The algo matches you up with random strangers headed to the same part of town.
That worked well in LA because of the long distances involved. A single passenger ride from Hollywood to Venice is quite pricey. So it's worth the minor inconvenience to save 50%. Probably not as appealing
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They do that. It is called UberPool or something.
Did anyne bothe to read TFA before posting? (Score:3)
Absent a spike in total VMT, which was not mentioned in TFA, there's no indication one way or the other that Uber/Lyft is increasing congestion....
So ... (Score:2)
... the problem is that they are effectively providing a service that people want?
Nobody's stopping you from packing into buses. Go ahead. Oh wait, not all of you actually want to.
Best Option Downtown (Score:1)
1. Walk (ok if weather and time permit, often this is not great for those two reasons)
2. Subway - depending on where I am going this either costs about half of an Uber and/or takes 3 times as long
3. Bikeshare - cost is a bit high, I end up arriving sweaty and the ride is often not too safe or is on the slower side
4. Electric Scooter - almost the same cost as Uber, probably a bit slower in most cases, not as safe
5. Drive - parking is
Impact: Not the quantity, but the lane-blocking (Score:2)
To those who claim ride-share is taking from mass transit... perhaps a bit, but mass transit simply isn't a practical option for a huge chunk of residents. And mass transit lines/schedules get so politicized (at least in the north
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The real problem at least in my area isn't how many ride-share drivers there are; it's that they stop in a traffic lane, blocking other vehicles. For this, we need draconian enforcement, because the odds of getting caught are so low. It really has to be a career-ending penalty.
To those who claim ride-share is taking from mass transit... perhaps a bit, but mass transit simply isn't a practical option for a huge chunk of residents. And mass transit lines/schedules get so politicized (at least in the northwest) to prioritize the "marginalized" over actual workers. Around eight years ago, I lived in a bedroom community that had a direct express bus route into town. Express routes run for a few hours in the morning and a few hours, the other way, in the evening. And it was always over-filled during the middle of the route. But... with upper-middle-class workers. So the transit gurus decided it was "empty" by counting a phantom trip back across and capacity for the whole round-trip.
This got the route that was over 100% capacity in the middle down to an average of 24% per mile, by counting those phantom buses. Which allowed them to cut the route in favor of the "under-served" community that was below that number but had other factors for their SJW counters. And our alternatives were not just not expresses, but took a more circuitous route.
Net effect: Time to commute by mass transit in my neighborhood jumped from ~23 minutes to a minimum of 58 minutes.
Bypassing that via rideshare is not "ride share taking from mass transit"... it is "mass transit screwing up and ride share reducing private vehicles."
I am not terribly concerned with the lane blocking, usually, but where they choose to do the lane blocking. In my neighborhood there is little option but to block a lane. It's when they do it at intersections with a green light as they drop someone off on a corner that really irritates me. And only during commute hours. It really does mess up traffic badly when someone is blocking a perfectly serviceable lane in certain areas. In one spot on my street they often drop people off on a corner less than 100
Re: (Score:2)
What do you suggest we do in places like New York City, San Francisco, and Chicago? Level entire blocks and re-draw the street grid? Because quite often, there IS. NO. OTHER. OPTION. except stopping in a lane. Regardless of the type of vehicle - private, bus, or TNC.
Also, what are we doing about garbage trucks that park diagonally across both lanes? School buses that stop in the middle of the in