
Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities - monsieurpng
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/02/25/uber-lyft-congest-cities/
======
bparsons
Cars congest cities. Articles like this encourage policy makers to target
users of ride sharing, while ignoring the obvious broader problem.

If cities build appropriate multi modal transportation networks and restrict
the amount of space allowed for vehicle traffic, people will walk, bike or
take the train rather than drive. All three are preferable to being stuck in
traffic.

~~~
mrep
> people will walk, bike or take the train rather than drive. All three are
> preferable to being stuck in traffic.

Maybe for you but my girlfriend could write a book about all of the harassment
she has received from random strangers in Seattle. She has even been assaulted
which is why we are now car shopping after trying to go without one for 2
years and that is just so she can feel safe traveling. She would easily drive
multi hour commutes to avoid having our future kids risk/deal with what she
experiences while walking around downtown.

~~~
ShabbosGoy
I’m sorry for your girlfriend’s experience. If it makes you feel any better,
it cuts both ways.

For example, I was in an Uber Pool yesterday in SF. My driver picks up the
next passengers (two women), and they refuse to get in after asking what my
name is. (Who even asks that?!)

They cancel, and we pick up another passenger who’s also female. Keep in mind
that my driver and I are both of Indian descent. She instantaneously showed
signs of fear and pretended to be asleep while throwing herself on me. I felt
a mixture of pity and anger. Mostly anger though, why would you assume that
two brown guys are going to rape you? Not to trivialize what happens to women,
but it’s certainly an odd reaction to have.

In short, I’m glad I don’t live in SF anymore. I thought things were bad in
2015-2016, but what happens there now is much, much worse.

~~~
candiodari
> why would you assume that two brown guys are going to rape you? Not to
> trivialize what happens to women, but it’s certainly an odd reaction to
> have.

Because of the extreme cost of a false negative, ...

~~~
ergothus
I wish i could give you more votes. Without race the equation says high if
still small chance of something very bad happening vs guaranteed delay but
large percentage decrease in odds of a very bad result.

Add in unconscious bias (by race or culture) and the risk seems larger before
even without explicitly racist thoughts.

Experience what women do for as long as women do, and the odds rank much
higher than they do to a man making that evaluation. I'm sure women sharing
stories within their cohort for mutual awareness (odds that a woman has heard
more horror stories about women in uber/lyft the a man has heard are higher)
further alter the different cost/benefit results by gender, though that
doesn't say their calculations are unrealistic, just different.

I'm guessing many men make subconscious choices about what is "safer" (locking
your door, deciding where to park, not flashing any wad of money you might
have, etc.) but are baffled that women would do so for decisions where a man
doesn't (I know I have been) which just highlights how our culture hasn't
discussed the threats to/experiences of the various genders.

------
schiffern
Autonomous fleet parking has all the 3D density advantages of robot parking
structures[1], but at dumb concrete prices. There's no aisle because there's
no "random access" of a particular vehicle. No extra headroom (because they're
identical) extra width (because they're precise), ventilation (because they're
electric), or even lights. It's the best of both worlds.

Where land is cheap, simply drive the cars along a space-filling curve in a
parking lot. One possible path is a double-spiral. Picture these lines[2] as
the curb (except there's no curb, or even painted lines).

The spiral path is simple enough to calculate. One can rotate the whole spiral
as viewed from above, growing and shrinking it and "wear leveling" across the
entire paved surface. And the technique should generalize to any shape parking
lot.

I expect writhing double-headed masses of autonomous cars near urban centers
soon.

This design eliminates entirely any 3D architecture, at the small expense of
some wasted space in the center determined by the turning radius[3].

Anyone know the most efficient shape would be in 3D (geometrically and
structurally)? A helix is the obvious extrapolation, but I'm not convinced
it's optimal.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_parking_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_parking_system)

[2] [https://openclipart.org/detail/216988/double-linear-
spiral](https://openclipart.org/detail/216988/double-linear-spiral)

[3] edit: now that I think about it, you can park cars there too

~~~
thaumasiotes
> [no] ventilation (because they're electric)

This seems... iffy. For one thing, my computers run on electricity, and they
need ventilation. For another, I think it makes sense to have it be _possible_
for humans to enter the car storage.

On a similar note, it's a much worse idea to have your car constantly drive
through the parking lot than to park it in the parking lot.

~~~
schiffern
>This seems... iffy. For one thing, ...

At first I wrote "no _oversized_ ventilation," but I shortened it during
revision after thinking, "no, no-one would think I meant something so dumb."
Thanks for the correction. :P

Yes, there will be ventilation, emergency lighting, and access paths. Those
contingency systems are still much cheaper and take up less volume than the
corresponding full-time systems.

>it's a much worse idea to have your car constantly drive through the parking
lot than to park it in the parking lot

You say that as though it's obvious, but why? Parking lots are $$$, and this
~quadruples the density. It's not like you're paying drivers, so the only cost
is a tiny amount of electricity (a parking robot would certainly use more,
since A) it's heavier and B) it moves faster). I also presume the vehicles
will be stationary most of the time, allowing them to de-energize power
electronics in the common case.

Wear-and-tear at those speeds is negligible, and multiple "lanes" means that
if a car breaks down the other cars simply drive around it. Heck, at those
speeds the following vehicle could _push_ a disabled car out of a bottleneck
(mature shared-use vehicle designs will likely feature non-scratch bumpers).

------
dpflan
Perhaps carpooling hasn't been incentivized enough: the current in-app
economics for 'pooling' appears to be an increased time to destination but
decreased fare (+/\- social interactions with driver and passenger(s)). If
congestion is a function of cars on road, car size, number of passengers, and
path to destination, then perhaps shorter rides with more passengers in
smaller cars should be incentivized more. This seems to lend itself to toll-
roads/congestion-charges for different locations; this may be a gateway to a
managed congestion area that is served exclusively by human-driver ride-share
vehicles - could this improve congestion in those areas?

“Why get on a bus with 50 people when you can get into a car and maybe if
you’re lucky, you’ll be the only person in it?” Demand for "personalized"
transport is here to stay.

~~~
so33
A bus with 50 people is 49 cars taken off the road.

Even with a self driving carpool option the bus still takes off 9 other
vehicles (assuming 5 passengers in a vehicle).

~~~
ams6110
What is a 50-person bus with 1 passenger aboard? That is a very common sight
in my town. There are a few routes that are heavily used, but the rest of them
are just huge vehicles very inefficiently transporting a couple of people and
blocking lanes of traffic and frustrating drivers at the same time.

~~~
awalton
> What is a 50-person bus with 1 passenger aboard?

A poorly designed bus route. But, that's not surprising giving the state of
urban sprawl; it's quite a hard problem to design a route that maintains
ridership, simply because everything that people need access to is so spread
out and randomized that people will prefer cars/lyft and 15 minutes of travel
time to taking three buses over 50 minutes and then walking the last mile to
get to where they want to go.

Bus agencies could do better if they were a bit more adaptable/flexible too -
other countries have experimented with bus-on-demand, and having smaller buses
("shuttles") would help on lower demand routes. But it's already hard enough
for these transit agencies to maintain budgets when ridership is so poor that
it's difficult for them to spend money to try something new - it's a self-
defeating cycle.

~~~
DrScump
"Bus agencies could do better if they were a bit more adaptable/flexible too -
other countries have experimented with bus-on-demand, and having smaller buses
("shuttles") would help on lower demand routes"

Has that _worked_ (financially) anywhere? This model was a catastrophic
failure when tried in Santa Clara County ("Dial-a-ride").

~~~
jboles
The list is long:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi#Jitney](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi#Jitney)

~~~
DrScump
Instead of "anywhere", I should have written "anywhere in the USA".

------
echevil
This result is not surprising at all. When these taxi service becomes much
more affordable, more people will use them instead of other transportation and
more people will be stuck in traffic. Uber has been giving me tons of discount
last year, making it even cheaper than Muni, so I’ve been taking Uber a lot
more than necessary.

The reduce congestion, we need much better train system like those in east
Asia so that people would love to take trains. Trains can also go much faster
and they are much more predictable during busy hours

------
adrianparsons
This makes total sense. Uber & Lyft lowered the barrier to entry for private
transportation. Instead of paying $20,000 for a car, I only need $10 and I can
ride in comfort from lower Manhattan to Brooklyn.

~~~
blitzo
Another point is, private car owners now has been incentivized to cover their
gas tank so they can stay on the roads even more.

~~~
ams6110
I'm not following. "Cover their gas tank" ? You mean lock it in some way? Are
Uber drivers siphoning gas from other parked cars?

------
hasbroslasher
I'd like to propose the following: public-private ride share. In short, US
Federal Gov't buys or finances the development of ride-sharing software and
licenses it to cities. Cities act as Uber does now, skimming a (much smaller)
percentage of their revenue as a tax, adjusting the variables in favor of
local interests (e.g. incentivizing carpooling or service in lower-income
areas), and studying the ways that ride sharing can complement existing
transit options.

I know that's a socialist longshot in capitalist America, but I really think
that going forward the government is going to have to take a larger stake in
tech in order to avoid the types of conflicts we've been seeing between
private companies and public interests.

~~~
csydas
After having lived in Russia for a bit, I'm mildly surprised that a US
equivalent of Marshrutki [1] haven't really popped up in US cities. While St.
Petersburg and Moscow have really well built out public transit systems, the
urban sprawl and construction of the cities just doesn't allow for access by
anything but non-bus-sized vehicles. The tl;dr of the wiki link below is
imagine a passenger van that runs a fixed route - you can board or exit
anywhere along the route by signaling the driver, and while slightly more
expensive than public transit, you get the benefit of flexibility.

Here in SPB the marshrutki usually run parallel to major routes for a bit then
deviate to hit residential areas or give fast-access to shopping centers, and
combined with public transport you have just about everything you need to get
around fast and conveniently. I suppose that such a system would suffer from
the same issue of "everyone already has a car" that public transit in the US
does, but it's a nice trade off.

(An aside, it's also a thrill ride each time, but when you need to get 10 km
in a few minutes and have no care for your well-being, it's the best way to
travel)

[1] =
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka)

------
jseliger
Solution: Toll roads.

~~~
donatj
The freedom of travel now being open to all, you declare 'Tax the poor!
They're clogging up the roads.'?

If anything I see this as a remarkable step forward for equality.

~~~
arcticbull
Why shouldn't cars be a premium product? Buses and subways are so much more
efficient, and if Europe or Hong Kong is anything to go by, they can be nice,
clean and faster than driving. If people want to spend the extra money to
drive by themselves that is a luxury not a right, and we should be open to
charging it accordingly. I feel ridesharing services have a place, but less so
than then Zipcar.

Lastly, I don't think that it's fair to call this a step forward for equality,
as free parking throughout town is a tax on everyone who doesn't own a
vehicle, or takes public transit, paid out to those wealthy enough to afford
cars and their own parking spots at home.

~~~
IntronExon
When Parisian subways show up in NYC, then make your argument about shafting
the poor because you’re currently not one of them.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
NYC has fantastic transit. Maybe not as good as Paris, but that is an
extremely high bar to meet.

Poor people already don't drive in NYC because it is already too expensive for
them, so it is disingenuous to suggest that they are being shafted by making
it more expensive.

~~~
IntronExon
The chief of the MTA doesn’t agree with you.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/nyregion/subways-new-
york...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/nyregion/subways-new-york-lhota-
mta.html)

~~~
addicted
Because the state and the city have criminally underinvested in it and
diverted MTA money to bail out upstate ski parks and build roads to nowhere.
And forced the MTA to take up high interest rate bonds instead.

------
adrianmonk
This is fairly obvious because it generates extras trips while drivers are en
route to pick up someone and don't have a passenger. If everyone had their own
car and infinite parking existed, these trips wouldn't exist. And those
additional trips as to traffic.

These services have advantages, but reducing the number of cars on the road
isn't one of them.

------
ensei5459
Can confirm with intuitive certainty. For 2 days in Q4 of 2017 here in
Bangalore, India, the ride sharing companies (Uber and Ola) were on a strike
and those 2 days were the best in terms of traffic (or the lack of it) for us.
I'm sure a small segment of the population decided to work-from-home, but
since it was bang in the middle of the week, I'm sure most of them availed
public transport like buses or used their two wheelers. Of course, some of
them used their own cars, but even if they did, it did not reflect in the form
of enhanced or even the usual amount of traffic. I've been thinking about this
ever since and it feels bittersweet to read this. The validation is good, but
the fact that it's actually true to some extent and not just in my head, is
sad.

------
gnicholas
Kind of surprising they didn't mention Waze Carpool at all, since it is
operating in a similar space and could help cut down on congestion. Since it
doesn't pay as much as Uber/Lyft, it's likely to only encourage true
carpooling—where people who were already planning similar trips end up riding
together. Uber and Lyft are different because even if you have multiple riders
going in the same direction, there's always a driver who goes to pick them up,
idles while waiting for riders, etc.

Related note: what would happen if Ubers/Lyfts/taxies couldn't use HOV lanes
unless they had multiple passengers? It's always struck me as odd that a taxi
can go HOV with one passenger, since the whole point of HOV is to encourage
carpooling.

------
brownbat
Can driverless taxi and quadcopter technology have a risky love child already
and let us hurtle towards a future where roads are rare, landing pads are
ubiquitous, and the swarm of rush hour commuters blots out the sun?

C'mon Elon, get on it!

~~~
Eridrus
Has anyone done a serious analysis of the scalability of air taxis? I assume
it would be better than with roads, but air capacity is not infinite, and you
can only land a small amount of taxis on top of a building at a time. Many
buildings probably can't even support a single landing spot.

~~~
gaius
_Has anyone done a serious analysis of the scalability of air taxis_

You mean... helicopters? Because they already exist and have limited use
cases.

~~~
Eridrus
No, I mean the self-flying electric vertical takeoff drones people are
building that I'm pretty sure the GP was talking about, eg

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4444874/Uber-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4444874/Uber-
looks-soar-flying-taxis-2020.html)

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16961688/airbus-vahana-
evt...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16961688/airbus-vahana-evtol-first-
test-flight)

[http://www.ibtimes.com/google-founder-larry-page-funding-
fly...](http://www.ibtimes.com/google-founder-larry-page-funding-flying-car-
companies-zeeaero-kitty-hawk-2380033)

Etc

I don't know how seriously to take all these projects, but they are clearly
quite different to helicopters.

------
sankoz
I experienced this first hand in Bangalore last year, when Uber and Ola (a
company offering similar services) drivers went on strike for a week or so.
Roads were much less congested during that time period.

