
Ride-Hailing Apps Are Clogging New York's Streets - dsr12
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/12/ride-hailing-new-york-traffic/549131/?single_page=true
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Tiktaalik
"Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up."

This is something both anti-regulation political ideologues and entrepreneurs
a little too enthused about disruption seem to forget.

The impacts of increased traffic congestion is one of the many reasons that
taxis became regulated in the first place.

British Columbia is one of the last holdouts where ride sharing services are
still not allowed, and I'm convinced that among other reasons, the fact that
the city of Vancouver is so committed to public transit and active
transportation is a contributing factor to this.

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tomjen3
Oh we know why the fence was put up: to give more money to scum who are not
willing to freely compete. So it is with all regulations that limits who can
get in to a given business.

edit: also this article skirts around the real problem: shitty public
transportation. Make that better and see if it doesn't bring people back.

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so33
>That adds up to more than 600 million miles of motor-vehicle traffic in the
past 3 years alone—reflecting not only the staggering growth in rides, but
also a trend toward lengthier trips and more “deadheading,” or cars traveling
without passengers.

My 2 cents: If and when self-driving cars take off, and if this on-demand
ride-hailing model persists, I predict that the streets will be clogged with
empty self-driving Ubers and Lyfts, skirting parking fees and constantly
circling around for fares.

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closeparen
Is there any evidence to support the oft-repeated claim that destroying
alternatives to public transit yields better transit? Is it credible that New
York suffers from a lack of public pressure to maintain/improve its public
transit? My understanding is that the MTA is not managing to convert any
amount of money or popular support into service improvements, and that over
reliance on transit limits its ability to take things down for maintenance
when needed.

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thisisit
The attached video:

[https://vimeo.com/247866390](https://vimeo.com/247866390)

has an idea to solve the issue - Add to surcharge fees from these ride hailing
apps and spend the money in to mass transit. It might not be that bad except
government budgets tend to divert money to other purposes and the mass transit
might remain the same.

I do wish companies pushed towards more pooling services like UberPool etc.

~~~
iamdave
_I do wish companies pushed towards more pooling services like UberPool etc._

I can't recall their name off the top of my head, but there's a company
piloting this here in Austin Texas; they exclusively do poolsharing and have a
fleet of vans that you'll see following close to some of the same routes as
CapMetro does in the city core (if anyone else lives here and can think of the
name please share it, they drive the blue and grey vans).

It's something I only even learned about because my company signed on with
them as a service to the workforce a few months ago; people who live south,
but work in the North Austin office can park their cars in our garage
downtown, and use the shuttle to get north. People who live north, but work in
the downtown office park at the North office, and shuttle downtown. Or if you
have a meeting at North office but work downtown, shuttles leave every two
hours.

As someone who has a car, but takes the bus (because for me there would be no
transfers and the total ride lasts about 15 minutes) to work, it's been such a
game changer.

