
New Research on How Ride-Hailing Impacts Travel Behavior - WisNorCan
http://www.planetizen.com/features/95227-new-research-how-ride-hailing-impacts-travel-behavior
======
ctoth
I cannot drive. I take Uber to and from work every day using a Uber pass. If
my alternative were public transit, a bus to a train to another bus or train
depending, it would take me 1.5 hours per trip, for a total of 3 hours a day.
I would not work in the corporate world if this were the case. Does this study
capture these positive externalities? For blind people, these often-derided
services are the difference between a full life where we can participate, and
being marginalized outcasts who are constantly late, smelling like the bus,
and totally inconvenienced when compared with the guy who can just hop in his
car.

~~~
ibejoeb
Do you regularly get offered the Uber Pass? I've gotten it once, and I used
the hell out of it, so now I'm pretty convinced that I'll never be offered
again.

~~~
sueders101
I'm not the parent comment, but I used to get offered Uber pass immediately
after the previous one expired. Recently they switched over to option to auto-
renew rather than having to manually buy a new pass each time. I'm in
Portland, OR so it may be location specific.

------
yardie
I’m a big proponent of mass transit and when it’s available I use it if I can.
But I can get Lyft door to door for just $1-2 more than a bus or train. If
mass transit wants to keep with rideshare and livery they need to: expand
routes, increase availability, update their equipment.

When I was a kid I knew how to read a bus schedule and train map to plan my
trip. Now, there is an entire generation of kids in school and Uber/Lyft is
what they know.

~~~
justboxing
> expand routes, increase availability, update their equipment.

... and be _faster_. The SFMTA in San Francisco , at an average travel speed
of 5 miles / hour. Is only slightly faster than brisk walking. Also, from the
downtown FiDi out 2 miles in every direction, the Bus has a bus stop at Every
block. Yes, every block.

~~~
smsm42
This is a basic contradiction which I am not sure is solvable. If the stops
are too far away, you (or somebody for whom walking is harder, like older
people, less physically fit people, etc.) won't be able to use it. If stops
are too close, getting through them takes a lot of time. I know there is a
body of work that tries to find optimal setup for such cases, but I'm not sure
it's possible to make everybody happy here. If you want good coverage, you'd
have to sacrifice speed, the bus can't go everywhere and be fast at the same
time, at least not within a single mode of transportation.

In SF, this is made worse by the people's behavior. There is a dedicated line
for the buses, but cars routinely drive on it to turn, get in/out parking or
just feeling they can outsmart everybody by doing so. So in fact, the bus
stops not once but 3-4 times per block to deal with these. And then there are
traffic lights of course. And yes, as a result it's not too much faster than
walking (though somewhat more relaxing, if you get a seat :)

~~~
richk449
> This is a basic contradiction which I am not sure is solvable.

Why do people say things like this? Have you ever been to a major European
city? Most have well designed public transit systems that are much more
convenient than driving. They usually manage this through a combination of
local subways, regional trains to go into and out of the city core, and high
speed rail to travel between cities. Chinese and Indian cities are
implementing the same thing.

If SF actually cared about making public transit convenient (i.e. if Transit
First was anything other than an empty slogan), they would have police ticket
those cars that drive in the bus only lanes.

I just don't understand this bizarre behavior of insisting that problems are
insolvable, when plenty of others have implemented adequate solutions.

~~~
_Tev
To be fair, European cities are often terrible for driving, because the road
system is poorly designed. And expanding public transport takes precedence.

That is also technically achievable in US, but much less politically
achievable.

------
otterley
Link to the actual report: [https://itspubs.ucdavis.edu/wp-
content/themes/ucdavis/pubs/d...](https://itspubs.ucdavis.edu/wp-
content/themes/ucdavis/pubs/download_pdf.php?id=2752)

What it actually says: "Directionally, based on mode substitution and ride-
hailing frequency of use data, we conclude that ride-hailing is currently
_likely to_ contribute to growth in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the major
cities represented in this study." (Emphasis mine)

~~~
jessriedel
Are there realistic situations where a cheaper and more convenient form of
driven transport leads to fewer VMT?

~~~
brianwawok
Sure. A faster / better / cheaper train or bus takes cars directly off the
road. So you can add more subways / trains / buses / etc. to do this.

~~~
DrScump
Adding _more_ units, where existing units are _underutilized_ , makes no
sense.

~~~
TylerE
Imagine a subway that only runs one train per line, such that on average each
station only gets visited once an hour.

No one would use it.

Now add 10 more trains so trains stop every 5 minutes.

Many many people use it.

~~~
isostatic
Depends on the distance - plenty of people get the hourly train from my local
station into Manchester (or change at Crewe for trains to Liverpool,
Birmingham, etc), as long as it's timetabled. But the train is about 30
minutes faster than the car and far more productive.

------
ng12
Gee, it's almost like people only use public transportation when it's
reliable, cost-effective, and efficient.

~~~
pmichaud
I stopped using the BART recently because it's dangerous. Several people I
know personally have been held up at gunpoint on the BART, or in the station.
That's not counting the various news reports, like one [1]. I'll go back when
it's safe, but not before then.

[1]: [http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-
robbery-50...](http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-
robbery-50-to-60-teens-swarm-11094745.php)

~~~
banned1
Unfortunately many of these crimes will go unsolved because BART refuses to
release videos. Apparently, releasing the videos “could lead to stereotypes”

[https://www.google.com/amp/sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/07...](https://www.google.com/amp/sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/07/09/bart-
withholding-surveillance-videos-of-crime-to-avoid-stereotypes/amp/)

~~~
snowmaker
BART doesn't release the videos to the public. They do release them to the
police. There are legitimate reasons not to release them to the public,
including the fact that the media will sensationalize them to make BART look
far more dangerous than the statistics actually reflect.

~~~
banned1
Replace [BART] with Police and [police] with [congress]:

"The Police doesn't release the videos to the public. They do release them to
Congress. There are legitimate reasons not to release them to the public,
including the fact that the media will sensationalize them to make the Police
look far more dangerous than the statistics actually reflect."

Would you still want videos withheld from the public?

After all, BART is a public agency. We are not babies who need to be protected
by The Master Director because we are "the lowly citizen." That's not how it
works in America.

~~~
Dylan16807
Videos of what?

If the police have videos of X person robbing Y person, with no police around,
then I don't mind if they keep those videos private.

~~~
banned1
It's not about whether you mind or not.

It's about whether Y person will get justice.

~~~
Dylan16807
Let me put it differently:

Police actions need to be transparent. There are strong reasons to release
recordings with police actions in them.

But if the recordings are unrelated to any police officers or police actions,
then all of that goes away. It's completely fine for police to not release
footage of two random people interacting. And _that_ scenario is what is
analogous to BART surveillance videos.

~~~
DrScump

      two random people interacting
    

That's an odd way to paraphrase the pairing of a felony perpetrator and a
felony victim.

~~~
Dylan16807
It's in the context of the previous comments, "X person robbing Y person". I
didn't want to be redundant. No matter what crimes are happening, _there are
no police involved_ , so there is no police transparency motive to release the
video.

~~~
banned1
The motive is to provide the public with information. Some of this information
may be useful to identify the (gang of) attackers.

~~~
Dylan16807
That's a perfectly fine motive, but it's not enough to force _anyone_ that has
such a video to release it completely publicly. And BART in this case is
basically an "anyone". They have no particular involvement.

------
mycodebreaks
Transit systems in the US need some payment technology upgrade.

On a couple of occasions, I haven't been able to board a bus due to not having
exact change. Once, I was with kids & family visiting NYC. We were planning to
take a public bus from a suburb to the city. The fare turned out to be $16 for
all of us, but I had $11 and some $100 bills. Guess what, I couldn't board the
bus as they can't return change. The bus driver cannot accept partial fare
from me. I couldn't give up 80+ dollars as change. If I had $20, I wouldn't
mind not getting back $4.

I wondered why they cannot start accepting credit cards, Apple Pay, Android
Pay or any reasonable alternative. I then had to find a train station nearby
which could accept credit card.

~~~
distances
Drivers not giving change sounds ridiculous. What's the reasoning behind that?
In Europe it doesn't seem to be a problem.

~~~
smsm42
Most likely reason is to avoid drivers being robbed - if there's no (easy and
accessible for the driver) way to take money out of the thing, local addicts
won't get an idea "let's jump on a bus and take money from the driver" because
driver can't really give the money.

Also a bit of avoiding fraud from driver's side - if the driver is allowed to
take money out, it's impossible to control whether all the payments actually
got to the end point.

That said, I've seen systems where the drivers give change - e.g. in Israel -
and that's wasn't a big deal. So I guess it also depends on the locality.

~~~
kuschku
The European busses solved that ages ago.

Driver presses the button for a special ticket, customer inserts coins or
bills, the machine automatically gives exact change. Alternatively, pay with
NFC, card, etc.

~~~
vultour
Or they have a small cash register and just give change back to dozens of
people in the line, I've never seen a bus being noticably late because of it.

Honestly some of the things mentioned in here are mind bending. I have public
transport experience from both London and a small country on the eastern side
of Europe, and both were efficient, fast and safe. What the fuck is wrong with
the US when people are scared to take public transport because they can get
robbed?

------
orasis
Congestion pricing for use of city streets would quickly solve any problems
due to increased use.

~~~
stretchwithme
Absolutely.

Space on the street is a valuable, limited resource, especially at peak times.
And it should be priced accordingly.

We also need competition in bus service, not government-run, subsidized
monopolies. Then we'd see many more transportation options.

We should look at how these problems are solved in other countries. Or all of
the innovation we had here in the US when cars first became practical, before
the cab monopolies were established.

While some regulations make sense, those that establish monopolies, fixed
supplies, and shortages should be avoided. These inevitably lead to waste,
corruption, more crime and terrible service.

~~~
mrbabbage
> We also need competition in bus service, not government-run, subsidized
> monopolies. Then we'd see many more transportation options.

No local transportation system in America covers its operating costs using
fare revenue. Most local bus agencies in America only cover about 20% of opex
with fares; the best agencies (e.g. BART) might get to 70%. This doesn't even
consider capital costs.

Good luck getting a private entity to run a charity service. Local
transportation is not a profitable endeavor and never has been.

> We should look at how these problems are solved in other countries.

Hint: it's not because the great Euro and Asian cities have competition. Only
a handful like Tokyo have competing systems.

~~~
stretchwithme
[http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mitchell-
jitneys-...](http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mitchell-jitneys-uber-
ride-share-20140713-story.html)

~~~
matchbok
Please present an argument, not a link. This is hacker news, not reddit.

~~~
stretchwithme
Point taken.

My argument is that the US had plenty of competition in transportation before
it was regulation squelched it.

If people are making a living driving ONE person around, how is it that they
would be unable to make money driving MULTIPLE people around?

It certainly can become unprofitable if government decides to operate large
inflexible vehicles that are often empty and that stop constantly. Or whose
driver's compensation is not justified by the volume of customers served.

You can take any ordinarily profitable enterprise and find ways to make it
unprofitable. But you can only sustain that if you can subsidize it with
revenues from other activities, like collecting taxes.

Trying to compete with someone that doesn't need to make a profit is also very
difficult.

------
ecesena
In SF a bus ride used to cost 2.25$, and I think it’s now 2.50$.

Lyft line most of the time is 4$ + 1$ for an extra passenger. Uber is probably
similar and perhaps cheaper, I don’t know.

In short, there’s no benefit in using busses anymore.

~~~
ProAm
> In short, there’s no benefit in using busses anymore.

Except these rides are still heavily subsidized and are more expensive than
the bus at this subsidized rate.

~~~
cdoxsey
Buses are subsidized too.

~~~
so33
Buses are indeed subsidized. But which routes? I bet that the most popular bus
routes, the ones that are always packed to the gills, make money.

What buses are subsidizing are the unpopular bus routes, the ones whose goal
is to increase mobility for those who would otherwise not have it, such as
night routes or relatively infrequent peak-hour commuter routes. Those cost a
lot to run, and ride-hailing has the luxury of not having to run those routes.

I think in the discussion about costs we forget that public transit is, first
and foremost, a public service.

~~~
criddell
> Those cost a lot to run, and ride-hailing has the luxury of not having to
> run those routes.

It might make sense for some cities to stop running buses on those routes and
instead pay a private company. Imagine being able to book an Uber or Lyft ride
and still only paying the $2.50 fare. Maybe it would be cheaper for the city
and more convenient for users?

------
cbhl
Really?

Loud/disruptive/unpleasant homeless people have reduced mass transit use in SF
and LA. Delaying bus rapid transit by six years[0] because environmental
impact is measured by _car travel times_ reduces mass transit usage. Blocking
the creation of tech shuttle stops to "save" a dozen parking spots reduces
mass transit usage.

Uber/Lyft are increasing VMT is merely a side-effect of the impossible
regulatory environment here. Let's fix that.

[0] [https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2014/07/transit-
proje...](https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2014/07/transit-projects-are-
about-to-get-much-much-easier-in-california/374049/)

------
tmh79
There are a lot of ways to slice the impact of uber and lyft on urban
mobility. As the study shows, VMT have likely increased. But what does this
really mean? Here are some of my postulations:

1) People who did not have physical/temporal access to transit (ex: works at
restaurant but transit doesn't run after closing), and thus did not make many
trips have increased mobility through uber and lyft. This is important in
urban areas because housing that is transit adjacent has become too expensive
for many to afford. This increased physical mobility is unambiguously good for
society and social mobility.

2) People who do have physical/temporal access to transit are using uber/lyft
because, as transit as it is currently implemented in many cities is a
terrible experience. There are untimed transfers, possibly anti-social
behavior, and the busses are stuck in the same traffic as cars. The best way
to improve this would be to add more bus-only lanes and congestion pricing to
every city concerned about congestion. Also, higher density transit with timed
transfers and more consumer oriented policies will help. IMO, transit should
be faster than cars.

3) Much of the US is too low density for effective transit use. Expanding
transit coverage in both routes and frequency to match peoples needs would be
prohibitively expensive and inefficient in many areas. IMO, there are many
places where uber and lyft are a better solution than busses for many folks,
and there are a few low density rural cities that have replaced bus services
with subsidized ride share service successfully.

4) VMT is a good measure of what we're trying to optimize in cities WRT
mobility, but it doesn't account for the cost of parking to society in terms
of high value land being occupied by abandoned vehicles. Measured purely in
VMT terms, driving your own car to a restaurant, parking, and driving home is
better than taking an uber, and having the few minutes of dead head space
between fares.

------
thisisit
It's been established that Uber/Lyft cabs actual cost more than what they cost
end customer. So when the whole thing pops, prices will go back to the normal
level and people back to using mass transits.

~~~
tmh79
this is not true

~~~
thisisit
Which part? The cost of rides being subsidized or people eschewing mass
transit in favor of these ride sharing apps or was it the insinuation that
people are eschewing mass transit because it is cheaper or more convenient for
the price?

Cost of ride: [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9a3vye/uber-
true-...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9a3vye/uber-true-cost-uh-
oh)

2nd point is the highlight of the linked article. 3rd point has been made
repeatedly in this very thread.

~~~
sprw121
It's been shown many times over that this 59% number is terribly
miscalculated.

~~~
propogandist
sources?

my colleague recently took a ~79 mile uber from one airport to a location
1.5hr away, his Uber cost was <$88.

~~~
Dylan16807
The number was based on a misunderstanding of Uber's revenue numbers. The 41%
was based on using the number for _Uber 's cut_ and thinking it was total
fares.

When you look at all the money going through Uber, fares make up 79% of
expenses for that accounting period. But that's not the right number either. A
lot of those expenses are other departments in the company. So fares are
paying for more than 80% of combined driver costs, infrastructure, and
marketing. Possibly quite a bit more. And that number includes all the cities
where they are burning money to expand.

I don't know if fares are greater than costs in established cities, but I
would not at all be surprised if they were.

------
vrikis
I'm not surprised to be honest. In the city I currently live in, since moving
here a year ago, I've never even gotten the bus because an uber is maybe twice
the price but 10x more convenient and 5x as fast to get to the local train
station... To get to the next city along, it's a 15min uber or >1hr public
transport commute... However, if Uber didn't exist here, I don't think I'd be
taking taxis because they are far more expensive.

------
didip
For my everyday commute in SV, Lyft made it possible for me to even use
Caltrain.

I use Lyft to connect the last mile from/to work, but the bulk of the distance
is covered by Caltrain.

This combo is the most optimal for me because i get to dodge 101 highway
completely.

Also, VTA buses are close to useless to me, not only that they are frequently
late, but they are too dirty/smelly/full of riff raff, don't take credit
card/Apple Pay, etc.

~~~
walshemj
Is it really such a hard ship to walk a mile?

~~~
samtho
It is when you need to be somewhere at a specific time or not be sweaty when
you get there. There are also areas which lack proper pedestrian
infrastructure making it very dangerous to walk.

~~~
true_tuna
Places like Mountain View CA

------
jessriedel
I'm very interested in the convergence of Lyft-Line/Uber-Pool service with bus
service. It's easy to imagine Lyft and Uber running dynamically adjustable
bus/van routes -- basically jitneys/peseros that take advantage of smart
phones -- that are faster, more reliable, _and_ cheaper than city buses. (Vans
are super cheap per passenger if they are always full.)

Lyft has taken small steps in this direction by asking Line riders to get out
a short walk from their destination when it would save the rest of the group a
lot of time, but this strikes me as modest and poorly designed. (Instead of
relying on altruism, why not offer a variable discount, $1-$5, determined by
the amount of time saved so that the rider can easily judge whether it's worth
it?)

Have there been any news/developments on this recently?

~~~
inglor
As the article mentions - this is what Via does
[https://ridewithvia.com/](https://ridewithvia.com/)

~~~
jessriedel
Via (and Chariot) have to be booked in advance, which is really different than
bus/peseros service.

------
cozzyd
One problem I've noticed is that Uber/Lyft drivers like to use bus stops to
pick off or drop off passengers, which obviously slows down buses quite a bit.
I wish buses had cameras that could be used to automatically fine those
drivers...

~~~
ryan_lane
The buses have cameras, and drivers get ticketed for it (at ~$250 per ticket).
Drivers avoid pulling over in bus lanes unless they are _really_ sure no bus
is coming.

~~~
cozzyd
Where is this? If some cities have taken this step, that's great.

~~~
ryan_lane
San Francisco does this.

------
sebleon
I hope urban planning committees use this as a wake up call to step it up and
improve non-car transportation options.

Rather than banning Uber/Lyft because consumers prefer them, cities should
beat the competition by making public transit really good.

------
raiyu
This study is definitely flawed and should differentiate between hyper dense
cities like NYC and other major metro areas.

In the first graph they ask people what they would do if Uber/Lyft wasn't
available and only 1% responded they would use a taxi.

This is completely untrue. Being a New Yorker for 25+ years, and completely
switching my commute preferences for Lyft/Uber I would certainly use Taxi's
much more frequently if there were no ride-hailing services available.

Can't believe that 99% of occurrences would do something other than use a
taxi.

------
nowarninglabel
Eh, only 6% less using mass transit if you read the ITS report: • Ride-hailing
attracts Americans away from bus services (a 6% reduction) and light rail
services (a 3% reduction)

Given that cities have had populations on the rise, this is actually good
because it helps the overloaded transit systems in many places. Of course,
perhaps it prevent more investment in them as well. They also noted more
people may take commuter rail when they can leverage a Lyft to get from the
station to their final destination.

~~~
swampthinker
"Only" 3% of the MBTA annual ridership is still 5 million + rides.

~~~
true_tuna
Trains and busses in my area are standing room only for six hours a day.
taking some load off those systems so they can preserve what quality of
service they have left is beneficial as far as I'm concerned. Using Lyft line
when possible helps alleviate congestion too.

------
chiefalchemist
Even if you presume it's true the next question is: what are some of the
measurable benefits? For example, waiting for the bus, even with a mobile
device, likely cuts into productivity.

If I have a concern it's the loss of public trans as a social/class equalizer
(if you will). That is the better well to-dos will have less direct
interaction with the less well to-dos. Awareness is the foundation of empathy.
Less socisl "mixing" (if you will) probably isn't a good thing.

------
abiox
my car was out of commission for a while.

i found that to get to work, the only bus route available was a 1.5 hour slog
(one way)...and that's if i arrived at the bus stop right on time to minimize
waiting. taking lyft was a 15 minute ride, max.

losing (at least) 3 hours to transit is brutal.

~~~
revelation
Well, yes, you always take the personal car, first time you check out the
transit schedule is when it's broken.. surprise, you will wake up finding
there is no good bus transit!

I wonder how that came to be. If Lyft is 15 minutes you could just as well
bike.

------
abalone
tl;dr

People use ridesharing mostly to go out to eat and drink (62% of trips).

Riders are actually _more_ likely to own cars. They don't want to drive when
they're going out because they don't want to deal with parking or drive drunk.
They don't ride the bus because it's too slow, unreliable or unavailable.

If ridesharing didn't exist, two fifths of the time they'd walk, bike or use
public transit instead, and a fifth of the trips just wouldn't happen. While
ridesharing supports pooling, it also wastes "deadhead" passengerless miles
between fares. As a result, ridesharing actually increases total vehicle miles
traveled.

~~~
ibejoeb
That all seems like a net positive to me, especially in major urban areas that
a very car dependent like Los Angles, Atlanta, Houston...

In LA, driving drunk was just the way of life, and it was a real problem. Now,
I don't know anyone who prefers driving over ridesharing given the option.
Uber Pool makes getting from the east side to the west side faster that public
transit for about $10-15, which is less than 1 drink and 1000x less than a
DUI.

It is disingenuous to fault ridesharing for public transit's problems. Of
course people are going to opt for the most value. We could raise taxes and
invest in improvements that may materialize in 10 years, but that's a hard
sell when you have a really good option right now.

~~~
benbristow
$10-15 for a drink? Of liquid gold?

~~~
ghaff
Pretty typical price range for a cocktail in a major (or even not so major)
city. Even a beer is, outside of happy hour prices, getting near $10 with tip.

~~~
wolco
For a pitcher?

~~~
btian
For a bottle.

Or in a German restaurant, 500ml. 1 liter of beer goes for $16-18

------
lithos
I imagine traffic caused by Ride Hailing will get worse after you can get rid
of the drivers. Since you'll have more corps getting into the space, and an AI
won't get impatient driving up and down the same "popular street" to wait.

------
GigabyteCoin
The class of people that can pay $40 for an uber ride home right to their door
is entirely different from the class of people who would wait 15 minutes out
in the elements to pay $2 for a ride that would take them within a 10 minute
walk of their home.

I don't really consider myself an uber or a bus person... I drive myself
around most of the time and just choose not to drink too much when I am out.

But I have never shared an uber with anybody who I regularly take public
transit with.

And i have never shared a public transit ride with anybody who I regularly
share an uber ride home with.

All I am getting at is I do not believe that Uber is stealing away too many
people from the bus system at least where I reside.

------
noddy1
I really think that an 8 seater vehicle running uberpool will be the sweet
spot here. Buses are slow and annoying and crap. I think algorithmically
directed minibuses will be the gamechanger.

~~~
blueline
buses are largely slow and annoying because they rarely if ever have
designated space to operate effectively.

In correct conditions they're an incredibly effective and space efficient
(especially relative to cars) way to move people around, but 'correct
conditions' can't happen if every square inch of street space is reserved for
use of private cars.

Don't let your experiences with presumably crappy underfunded bus systems
cloud your perception of a good means of mass transit.

------
ilamont
_The research (and ride-hailing firms themselves) suggest that ride-hailing
can be complementary to public transit._

I'm a former PT taxi driver (suburban city next to large urban area) and a lot
of our business was from or to mass transit stations and the airport. These
services (car and mass transit) complemented each other, but I don't recall
anyone criticizing them for taking riders away from buses or the subway. The
main complaint was cab rides were too expensive and the medallion system was
unfair.

One thing that was different then compared to the use of ride-sharing services
now: Rarely did we have a pickup from a private home or random street address
to another home, random street address, restaurant, or movie theater. However,
this was before the smart phone era, so random street pickups were either
flag-downs or via public phones.

I also used to live in London where private car services used to be very
common before the rise of the smart phone or ride-sharing services. They were
necessary, particularly in neighborhoods where it was hard to get black cabs
or there were no tube stations nearby. The main complaints against the private
car services came from the black cab industry.

------
capkutay
Its pretty disappointing that transit advocacy groups spend more time fighting
ride-share and jitney transit services than actually working to improve
transit in their cities.

Instead of looking for solutions to making faster, cleaner, more reliable
transit more feasible, they're blaming riders and ride-share companies for a
5% reduction in ridership.

~~~
zten
If you're in a city that mostly moves people by bus, and has incredibly high
construction costs, of course this is the solution they're going to chase. The
bus service suffers with more competing vehicles on the road. People prefer
rail and dedicated right-of-ways, but they also don't want their neighborhood
destroyed while it's built. The transit advocacy groups end up hamstrung by
these competing desires.

Uber and Lyft have given everyone a taste of the self-driving car dream (on-
demand comfortable private transit) -- they just need to figure out how to get
rid of the drivers. It's already producing political pressure to stall or end
hugely expensive transit projects because of uncertainty about what a city
might really need in 20-30 years.

Hopefully someone's smart enough to show that we'll all still be stuck in the
same dumb traffic of our own making, regardless of a human or computer driver,
because we really need to be solving for space and land use by minimizing the
distance and frequency of vehicle trips instead, public transit included.

~~~
aninhumer
I think once people are used to getting around by opening a smartphone and
putting in a destination, there's a lot of potential for offering transport-
as-a-service more efficiently than a private car the whole way. I've already
seen Uber appearing in Google Maps directions, and with a bit more work you
could combine that to offer Taxi -> Train -> Taxi for the full journey.

Indeed, I think there are a lot of benefits once these systems start being
integrated. It would likely facilitate ride grouping, since you'll have a lot
of people arriving or departing from the same place at the same time. Combined
ticketing could also allow stations to have special entrances for taxis that
bypass ticket barriers, since they know everyone inside has already paid.

------
sixQuarks
I love technology, but I have a bad gut feeling about self-driving cars and
the likelihood of unforeseen emergent outcomes. Some people think it will free
up the streets, I think it's more likely to cause more congestion, with people
sending the vehicles out for errands.

------
webosdude
The study claims that "After using ride-hailing, the average net change in
transit use is a 6% reduction among Americans in major cities." Where is the
supporting data or facts to back those claims? Being located in Bay Area I
know for a fact that BART ridership is down this year due to variety of
reasons. May be Ride-sharing companies is one of the reason. But I don't see
specific data from different cities mentioned in the study.
[http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/23/bart-ridership-
contin...](http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/23/bart-ridership-continues-to-
decline-board-mulls-service-cuts-fare-increases/)

------
Feniks
Does the US even have mass transit? Seems to me most cities rely on shitty
unreliable bus services.

------
dr_
or on the flip side of it, perhaps in a city like NYC, yellow taxi cabs are
the cause of major traffic, especially when they are just driving around
looking for passengers, slowing down at corners where they may pick someone
up, lining up near hotels, carrying only one group of passengers at a time,
etc. Or construction vehicles and road blockages have added traffic to major
cities - many of which appear to be undergoing a construction boom. And while
I'm a proponent of mass transit, id argue that large buses- too large to
navigate city streets especially when it comes to making turns - are a cause
for major traffic in the city. They should be replaced by services like Via.

------
alpb
> As of 2016, transportation surpassed the power sector as the largest
> contributor to the U.S. climate problem.

Straight out wrong. Largest contributor to climate problems such as global
heating and Co2 emissions is animal agriculture.

~~~
frandroid
> U.S.

> Global

Maybe you're not comparing the same thing... (And I'm with you on the
seriousness of animal agriculture pollution!)

------
davidmr
The cities included in the study are Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York,
San Francisco/Bay Area, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.

I haven't really spent huge amounts of time in a couple of these cities, but I
wonder how uniformly over the cities the data factored into the decision. My
impression is that NYC, Chicago, and DC have much more comprehensive public
transit systems than do the others in the list (except Boston, about which I
know next to nothing.)

Is my impression just wrong? Public Transit just didn't seem to be nearly as
big a thing in LA, SF, or Seattle in the time I spent there.

------
LeicaLatte
Am I the only one that finds mass transit so much more expensive compared to a
Lyft? Public transit is also definitely unsafer.

Mass transit simply hasn't kept up. It can easily go the way of the open web,
headphone jack.

------
madengr
I thought the whole premise of Uber and Lyft was that you’d use it to catch a
ride with someone already going in that direction.

It has turned into a taxi service with full time drivers. Was that always the
intention?

------
Yhippa
Where I live it is nearly cost equivalent or even cheaper to use an app to
pre-pay for parking and go into the city from the suburbs instead of taking
public transit. It's faster too. I will take one or the other depending on how
much I feel like I want to zone out or be stressed by the traffic.

------
jwilliams
I read the link and the report. The added "traffic/congestion" seems to be
implied from the usage data - unless I'm missing something?

Because that doesn't necessarily follow. One of the main drivers was parking
and drinking when going out. The usage patterns could be totally different.

------
diogenescynic
Because most mass transit in the US is awful. For $3 more, I don't have to
deal with people using drugs or defecating on the bus in my vicinity.
Honestly, this is a failure on the the public transit cops and administrators
for failing to keep stations, trains, and buses clean.

------
booleandilemma
Uber and Lyft have saved my butt more than a few times when the NYC subway
trains weren’t running.

Maybe if the subway trains weren’t regularly delayed, overcrowded, and filled
with performers and the homeless I wouldn’t be so quick to use Uber/Lyft.

------
d1ffuz0r
Microtransit is called Marshrutka, it's been forever in Russia
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka)

------
epa
Correct me if i'm wrong - but wasn't the medallion system originally created
in NYC due to influx of traffic from people trying to make money being a taxi
driver after the great depression?

------
scott00
Does anyone find the results of how users would travel absent Uber/Lyft
strange to the point of disbelief? Only 1% of users would replace Uber/Lyft by
a taxi?

------
swang
aren't lyfts/ubers still heavily subsidized? the true cost of a line or pool
isn't ~$4, or at least won't be $4 forever.

~~~
harigov
Imagine if they achieve economies of scale and started introducing buses
instead of cars. Imagine they improve efficiency by driving routes as
requested by customers in realtime. Imagine if they were to charge customers
based on how much it actually costs them to drive in real time so each
customer can decide if its worth it based on their own needs. I can definitely
see that such a world will be a lot more efficient in terms of transportation
costs and time. If it requires subsidies so that they can achieve that
economies of scale, so be it.

~~~
cozzyd
Especially if they can get the operator to purchase / maintain the bus!

------
dmritard96
uber and lyft are the next mass transit (at least in concept). think of trains
and busses as circuit switched networks and cars (in a rideshare context) as
packet switched networks. packet switched flexibility wins over the efficiency
gains of metal wheels (lower friction) and the economies of scale of busses or
trains. my 2c

------
chisleu
Right, just like taxis... Oh wait

~~~
Smaug123
Taxis, as so many have bemoaned on Hacker News, are usually artificially
limited in number. For example, by the existence of the medallion system.

~~~
isostatic
Is there such a system in general use? Aside from NY, and London with its
archaic "knowlege", is there any artificial limitations on most cities?

The problems with taxis has always been how inconvienent they are - hailing,
having to pay, having to beg for a receipt (and then in NY the forced adverts)

Uber etc makes taxis easy. It's cheap too, but that's to be expected in the
near future with automated driving.

------
andrewdon
UberPool is the future

------
eradicatethots
What this shows is that the people of the city are more interested in taking
uber and lyft than mass transit - and the people aren’t stupid, it’s better to
assume they’re just as aware as environmental issues as anyone else.

------
holydude
Sorry i get less sick when i commute by car hence i refuse to spend time with
other people using buses/trams/subway.

~~~
romanovcode
Maybe you should stop touching your face often and wash your hands properly.

~~~
jblow
It is my pet peeve that people believe this.

If this were actually true, why wouldn’t we have evolved an extreme aversion
to touching our faces?

Also, have you ever seen a baby? What does a baby do if you leave it alone to
crawl around?

~~~
upvotinglurker
We evolved in small communities where whatever germs existed were likely
shared by the whole community, and contact with strangers was rare compared to
today.

