
People in Los Angeles Are Getting Rid Of Their Cars - andrewfromx
https://www.buzzfeed.com/priya/people-in-los-angeles-are-getting-rid-of-their-cars
======
mturmon
Reading the comments to the story (on the Buzzfeed site), one sees the
dichotomy between younger residents and longtime residents. (I've been here
about 20 years.)

The latter tend to give all kinds of arguments about why owning a car is
necessary, including safety, convenience, and cost. And they may be right --
for them. They live in the hills of a relatively remote area, like La
Crescenta or Burbank or Chatsworth, and have Sunday brunch at some place in
the Valley, and drive to Costco to fill up a freezer and a garage with goods,
and drive to their dentist, doctor, and gym across town as well. It's a whole
series of decisions, and it locks down tighter and tighter.

But newer residents are showing that a different way of life is possible, by
making all these decisions differently. It's fantastic. It has changed the
streetscape a lot, as various local enclaves spring up to offer services
within walking or cycling distance, or near to transit.

But the gap between these two lifestyles really makes for some major
disconnects around subjects like housing development along thoroughfares,
density of development, parking, and bike lanes.

~~~
untog
That's because young people don't have families.

You see this play out with every generation. I read an article recently that
incredulously reported that Millenials - the car rejecting generation! - have
started buying cars. Of course they have, because they're coming into the age
where they get married, have kids and move to the suburbs.

So, you're right, in that this is a young/old split. But don't expect it to
persist as the young become old.

EDIT: the more I think about it, the more interested I'll be to see if there
is, in fact, a trend in the opposite direction. The suburbs are a total
compromise - close to job centers, retail facilities, etc etc, while far
enough from city centers to be affordable. The coming era of remote work and
efficient delivery services might mean that living _further away_ from the
city makes more sense. But there are a lot of caveats in that.

~~~
rayiner
Maybe. My daughter (almost four) has spent pretty much her whole life living
downtown: Chicago, New Rochelle, Wilmington, Baltimore, DC. When she was a
baby we'd take the Metro North to Costco in Port Chester and load the stroller
up and go home. We did that even though we had a car.

I don't think you can really extrapolate from generational history here. As
recently as the 1940s, most kids were raised in the city or in rural areas.
You've got maybe three generations raised in the suburbs. Not exactly ancient
history.

It's also worth noting that what the suburbs are is changing to become less
car dependent. Lots of people having kids in new developments in Reston, VA,
which is a suburb but organized more like the bedroom communities of yore
(with a little downtown) than the sprawling subdivisions that prevailed from
the 1960s to 1990s.

~~~
majormajor
I'm currently discovering that it's amusingly much easier to live without a
car in the city with a family-with-kid than with a family-with-dog. Not a lot
of medium-or-larger-sized-dog-friendly public transport that I've found. But
if there isn't a good park for your dog to run around in close by, and you
don't have a yard cause you live in an apartment... it's suddenly essential to
have a car! Same with getting to the vet, etc.

~~~
coldtea
> _Not a lot of medium-or-larger-sized-dog-friendly public transport that I
> 've found_

Why would you want to transport your dog inside the city? Apart from the
occasional visit to the vet maybe?

For their walks, you could always use your neighborhood and peripheral places
-- shouldn't there be some suitable spot within 1 mile or so at least?

~~~
CydeWeys
> Why would you want to transport your dog inside the city?

My office has an open dog policy, but I almost never see dogs in the office,
and when I do, they're inevitably small (the kinds you can hold on the
subway). Meanwhile, on the Mountain View campus, dogs everywhere. You need a
car to bring your dog to work with you.

~~~
coldtea
> _Meanwhile, on the Mountain View campus, dogs everywhere._

And how does that work for people trying to concentrate while working, with
barking etc? Or are those dogs parked outside of the office?

~~~
potatolicious
> _" And how does that work for people trying to concentrate while working,
> with barking etc?"_

People are considerate enough not to bring poorly-behaved dogs to work. I've
run into many dogs around the office and have never had a barking problem -
they usually just roam in a small area around their owner/team, quietly.

Pretty much the only time I've heard a dog bark at work was when someone
accidentally kicked it...

~~~
coldtea
> _they usually just roam in a small area around their owner /team._

That sounds quite distracting in a small/medium office space by itself.

My experience has been people who bring dogs to work are often oblivious to
the nuisance they cause to others who try to focus.

------
danso
I did this (avoided buying a car in lieu of Uber/Lyft) my first year in Palo
Alto/Menlo Park. I lived in Hew York before coming out West so I was strongly
inclined not to own a car, I didn't even bother replacing my drivers license
after being pickpocketed 5 years ago. Using Uber frequently was actually
pretty enjoyable. My ride was only about 15 min/$12. each way (sometimes I'd
bike), and the drivers were usually interesting to talk to. Last year I did
end up buying a car. With payments, insurance, parking, and gas thrown in (and
the fact that I take Caltrain to get into SF or other cities), the economics
really didn't make sense for me to buy a car, but it did improve quality of
life in terms of just having more impulse to go out and drive to places,
whereas with relying on Uber/Lyft, the thought of the money transaction for
every ride discourages me from using it except for pragmatic reasons (yes,
even though owning a car is more expensive in the long run).

~~~
Decade
Yes, this sheer human irrationality is an impediment to sensible progress.

I know, and you know, that a car just does not make sense mathematically. You
can Uber/Lyft whenever it’s too difficult to walk. But emotionally, and I feel
it too, turning the ride into a transaction makes it something you have to
consider carefully. With a car, the payments, the insurance, the gas, are all
disconnected from the idea of taking a specific trip. As a result, since I
don’t have a car, I very rarely go anywhere that I can’t bike.

Now, combine this with so many people who can’t look at this mathematically,
and say that life without a car is impossible, and we get very poor housing
and transportation policies being supported all over the Bay Area.

~~~
tzs
I just did the math for my car, which is a 2006 Honda CR-V, under the
assumption that the car will have no resale value. My cost per mile over the
10 years I've had it has been about $0.75. The costs were the purchase price,
yearly registration and license fees, insurance, gasoline, regular oil changes
and other minor schedule maintenance, a couple scheduled major services, new
tires, and a few unscheduled fixes (new battery, light bulbs).

That's less than what Google is telling me Uber changes per mile, so at first
glance it looks like for me that a car does make sense mathematically.

~~~
drdeadringer
I'm in process of doing the same calculation, but without the cost of gas [I
never tracked that metric].

~~~
tzs
I didn't track it. I just took total mileage, divided by miles per gallon
(I've got a ScanGauge II [1], which tells me each time I fill up what my miles
per gallon on my previous fill up was), multiplied by $4/gallon. I picked
$4/gallon because I'm pretty sure it never got higher than that here over the
last 10 years (or if it did, it was only briefly), and I was trying to make
sure I'd err on the side of higher prices.

[1]
[https://scangauge.com/shop/scangaugeii/](https://scangauge.com/shop/scangaugeii/)

~~~
drdeadringer
I should probably do the same thing, and plug in some "average" of Prius MPG
too just for kicks and complication [I trend toward complication before I
simplify].

Thanks!

------
creyes
LA resident here. Got rid of my car 2 years ago and haven't looked back. A big
difference for me is that I hate driving - especially here. The stress of it
really got to me.

Financially, I'm not sure that I actually 'save' money. I live within 100yds
of a ton of bars and restaurants, and a 5 minute walk to Trader Joes/Metro. I
Uber most places but also take the Metro to DTLA and Santa Monica pretty
often.

The whole car payment/insurance/gas/maintenance costs for sure are more than
what I pay to Uber/Metro but what I'm not sure how to value the 'cost of
walking.' I definitely pay a premium for my location and I often wonder, if I
lived in a less convenient area (had to drive to groceries, far from Metro) if
I'd be able to not have a car. Because as it stands, car costs <
uber/metro/rent premium

~~~
kchoudhu
I'd value the cost of walking as negative: it's good for your health.

~~~
wrigby
I agree, but I think GP is also considering the premium paid to live in a
"walkable" area.

~~~
creyes
Fact. Just google'd average 1 bedroom rent in LA and I pay a good ~$1k more...
mostly for walkability

~~~
mjevans
I feel like if the premium wasn't there, due to sufficient competition among
buildings and/or walkable areas OUTSIDE of the downtown cores (sub-nodes?)
that it would be more viable for people to make that choice.

------
greggman
LA is a different place because of Uber. LA lost it's amazing public transit
system over 40 or so years from like ~1935 to ~1975. Now they are slowly
building it back, probably just in time for it to be obsoleted by automated
cars given how long it's taking them.

Uber certainly helps deal with the lack of public transportation but the other
big issue is LA is HUGE! My sister lives in Glendora (far east side of LA) I
was staying in Venice Beach. It's about 45 miles. And that's not even one side
of the LA metro area to the other, that's just LA itself. On Uber that would
be ~$55 or so. A similar distance on the train system in Tokyo would be
$10-$20 depending on how many different companies' trains you have to use.

Of course it might still be cheaper than a owning a car if you're not making
the long trips often.

~~~
erispoe
Given enough density, transit will never be "obsoleted by automated cars". It
might be true in the suburbs where transit is highly inefficient and road
space abundant relative to the population. But automated or not, cars are
still an order of magnitude or two less space efficient than mass transit for
moving people around.

A rail line can move as much as 20 car lanes today. Even if you double the
space efficiency of cars with automation (a long shot considering you still
need to accommodate for pedestrians, cycles...), transit will keep being
vastly more efficient.

Automated cars will optimize parking and make on demand transit more
affordable in the suburbs, but it will not solve transportation in dense
cities.

LA is a dense place on average. The greater LA is more dense than the greater
NY.

~~~
Zigurd
Automated vehicles will come in a range of sizes, from 2-seat pods to, at
least, mini-bus sizes.

Currently we have about the worst utilization of vehicles possible. Drivers
drive alone, and park their cars for long intervals. This is why one can claim
that trains move enough people to fill 20 car lanes. At the other end of the
spectrum, diesel busses are noisy, smokey, need a professional driver, and go
from underutilized to packed, depending on time of day.

A mix of automated vehicles will be able to much more closely approach optimal
load factors at all times of day. 6 or 8 passengers can ride in a car-sized
automated vehicle. That makes streets a lo-capex alternative to rail.

~~~
erispoe
With bigger vehicles, it becomes very impractical to not run them on a fixed
route. Pairing people together works well enough, given enough demand, on
UberPool and Lyft Line, it's inefficient for the bus sized vehicles you need
to use street space efficiently. You need to pair routes while maintaining an
acceptable waiting time.

Automated or not, mass transit is just geometrically way more efficient,
there's no way around it in dense urban environments.

Your argument might be valid for a mid-sized american city, or a suburb, but
it doesn't work for a european city, or even a dense american downtown.

~~~
Zigurd
> _Automated or not, mass transit is just geometrically way more efficient_

Actually diesel busses are only "efficient" when they are full. They're barely
as efficient as single occupant cars just on fuel use when you factor in the
bus running underutilized much of the day. That's not counting the cost of the
driver, and assuming bus capex is efficient.

So even a commute-sharing system like that being tested in Waze would be more
efficient than busses.

~~~
erispoe
The bus is only "underutilized much of the day" in low density areas where
automated on-demand cars would make sense. In cities like San Francisco or New
York, or even Los Angeles, buses are relatively full even in the middle of the
day.

Buses take as much space as 3 cars. Even if you can manage to optimize
everything perfectly to pack 4 people in these cars at all time, you only move
12 people using the same amount of road of a bus transporting 60 to 90 people,
much more in articulated vehicles. There is just not enough room in dense
cities.

You have to consider the overall efficiency of a bus network, not one
particular trip. In urban centers where buses are run on frequency, not
timetable, a transit line is attractive because it runs often. People take the
bus in rush hours in part because they know they can depend on it all day.
These seemingly low-efficiency trips where the bus is half empty are actually
very important to the overall efficiency of the network, because they induce
demand.

The case for transit is a space argument, not a fuel argument. Mass transit is
simply the most space efficient way of moving people around.

------
cpprototypes
FTA:

 _LA Metro opened up the Expo Line, a light rail between downtown LA and Santa
Monica, in May as part of its effort to wean people off car ownership. When it
began running, Uber ran a promotion for $5 off Pool rides to or from Expo line
stations. For ride-hail companies, partnering with public transportation
agencies to market themselves as companion services can increase mutual
ridership. Kan, Lyft’s LA general manager, said three of the top 10
destinations for Lyft rides are metro stations._

If this trend continues and becomes more common, it has potential to really
change transportation in LA. LA Metro is working on expanding the rail lines
but there's always the "last mile" problem (not literally 1 mile, but usually
last few miles to get/from rail station to destination). UberPool/Lyft Line
can be the solution for this and the more people use it, the better solution
it becomes.

~~~
honkhonkpants
Once that last mile has more than about 50 people per hour on it, it makes way
more sense to just have bus service.

UberPool is just about the least efficient last mile solution, except for
driving and parking your own car.

~~~
aninhumer
Makes more sense in what way? Sure a bus is more efficient, but it's less
convenient.

Getting people to take a train for the majority of their journey is far more
efficient than having them drive because the bus doesn't stop outside their
door exactly when they want it.

Although I can't help wondering if it would eventually become worthwhile to
run a full size bus as a carpool taxi vehicle.

~~~
honkhonkpants
Uber doesn't stop outside your door exactly when you want it, either.
Especially not Uber Pool.

------
jboggan
Santa Monica resident here. Last year my commuting motorcycle was stolen.
During the insurance and replacement process I rented a car for 3 months.
About 6 months later my new bike was damaged and out for repairs for almost as
long, but that time I chose to not rent a car and just Uber everywhere,
including to and from work in Playa Vista every day. The two periods came out
to about equivalent costs, with greatly increased convenience and less hassle
due to never caring about parking or having a few drinks after work. I didn't
take any long trips out of town, but for getting around it was great.

I haven't owned a car since I moved to LA 4 years ago, it's pretty great.

~~~
flatfilefan
I wonder why not more people own motorcycle or a scooter there. Is this the
summer heat or just a cultural thing? Because otherwise it would be very
convenient with that traffic and parking situation.

------
jpetitto
I moved to Los Angeles about four months ago and was surprised how little I
drive. Uber and Lyft are insanely cheap here when using the pool/line options.
I've taken 10 mile trips for $4! The metro is great too if you live near a
line.

Certain parts of the city are easier without a car than others. A lot of it
comes down to how far you live from work too. I walk to work everyday (10
minutes) and there's a plethora of stores in my area to walk to and shop at.

I'm about to sell my car and I'm not sure if I'll be getting another anytime
soon.

~~~
d4mi3n
This was _very_ different from my own experiences living and working in LA in
the late 90s and early 2000s. The buses were a joke, the Metro had terrible
coverage, and the traffic was consistently terrible.

FWIW I was living near Arcadia/Covina and commuting to Santa Monica. What area
of LA did you live and work in to have such a nice commute?

~~~
jpetitto
I live and work in Pasadena with a metro stop across the street from my
apartment.

Your commute was definitely a tough one! A big issue I've noticed is that a
lot of people work in west LA, but the housing prices are so high that most
can't afford to live there. This also leads to much higher traffic for
commuting in that direction.

~~~
d4mi3n
That is quite a nice area to work/commute from. I hear they're extending the
gold line down to El Monte--that would have made my life a lot easier at the
time.

I certainly hope LA has strong, long term plans to improve the
commuting/traffic situation for the area.

------
Zafira
It looks like a lot of people here are arguing that this is happening or
possible, with the rather limiting constraint that you're in or around West
LA. It being an older neighborhood, has more density which doesn't exist in
many of the post-World War II neighborhoods with Irvine being a good example
of this. The Uber map for better wait times seems unsurprisingly biased to
being around tourist areas like Santa Monica, Disneyland or Huntington Beach.

I suppose it depends on what you're definition of Los Angeles is, but if you
argue that Thousand Oaks or Chino Hills is considered "Los Angeles", then this
argument doesn't really hold water. The urban sprawl was built on the
assumption of commuting and 2-3 hour commutes are not unusual around here. I
realize LA might be a bit of an anomaly, but you can drive from Santa Monica
to San Bernardino before you've really "left" the city and trying to argue
that a carless life is really going to happen using this definition is a bit
suspect.

------
yodsanklai
> People in Los Angeles Are Getting Rid Of Their Cars Instead, they’re riding
> Uber and Lyft to work.

Commuting is one thing, but cars are often necessary for other things (for
instance, going hiking/skiing on weekends) where public transportation/uber
isn't an option.

I wonder what is the recommended solution for this. In my case for instance,
rental wouldn't be cheaper than owning a car. There's a car sharing service in
my city but again, not significantly cheaper than owning the car.

~~~
toomanybeersies
I'm in the same boat. I need a car for going on hunting and hiking trips in
the weekend, and will soon be upgrading to a 4wd.

Buses just don't offer the same time convenience, and don't go to the right
places, they're also a lot slower than a car. Rental cars are more expensive
than maintaining my own car, and I just park my car out of town at my
brother's place to save on parking.

------
unabst
There are a lot of car haters voicing their hate but if you already hate cars,
don't drive. That's not why people in LA are getting rid of their cars (if
they are).

There is an introvert/extrovert angle here also. A car is completely private.
You can go anywhere in your pajamas in total asocial mode with a car, and I
wonder if that's why so many people are in their Pajamas at Ralphs. A car
service requires contact with strangers.

I am in LA and I tried getting a bike once, but it was impossible. Road
conditions are horrible, and I had nowhere to park my new mango colored bike
comfortably. People would yell "nice bike" from their cars, and it was
uncomfortable. And everyone I knew who rode a bike had multiple accident
stories. If some idiot is going to hit me or suddenly open their door, I want
to be in a car.

For me, Tokyo is the perfect train city. Fukuoka is the perfect bicycle city.
And LA is still the perfect car city. But if you hate to drive, now you have
options. It used to be you had none!

------
tbarbugli
Based on half dozen people telling that to buzzfeed...

~~~
gjtorikian
Right? I burst out laughing when I read that line. So it's gotta to be about
seven or eight people, since it's "More than a half-dozen". Can't be be close
to twelve, or else it'd read "Nearly a dozen".

------
seizethecheese
This article does not back up it's claim. The article includes some anecdotes,
and some data of Uber/Lyft becoming more popular, but does not include
anything to indicate that car ownership is declining in significant amounts.

~~~
thaw13579
Yes, the only data they report is:

* current number of cars

* current percentage of people commuting by car

* percentage drop in taxi use

* uber commute cost breakdown for one person

There's no evidence here, just speculation and anecdotes.

------
hackuser
I'd like articles on this subject to at least mention two other significant
costs:

Impact on jobs:

Unless and until Uber starts treating their workers fairly (treating them like
employees and allowing them some negotiating power over their own livelihoods)
not only is it bad for those workers and working people in general, but it's
also bad for the country, which has to cover health care and other needs for
those workers. Does anyone know how Lyft does in that regard?

Climate impact:

* Buying a new car creates the impact of mining raw materials, processing them, manufacturing, shipping, etc. I have no idea what that impact is.

* For purposes of the trip itself, I think using standard taxi/Uber/Lyft services probably increases climate impact over a personal car: The ride-hailing cars drive around empty part of the time, waiting for rides; your personal car is parked when you don't use it. Otherwise, whether you are in someone else's car or your own for the trip, the impact is the same (unless your car is more/less efficient than the ride-hailing car)

* Sharing rides, such as in trains, buses, carpool, UberPool, etc., obviously is much more efficient. I suspect the more people in the vehicle, the more efficient it is: Trains beat buses beat carpools, but I really don't know that.

~~~
woodandsteel
As far as climate impact goes, I think the long-term idea is on-demand, self-
driving electric cars that get their energy from wind and solar.

Remember, the present system, which is destroying the climate, has many parts,
so you have to change most or all of them to really fix things. But the parts
will not be changed all at once. So for each component you need something new
that will sell on its own, but also fit into the new overall pattern you want
to get to eventually. What the transportation-on-demand companies are doing is
a good example of this.

~~~
hackuser
> As far as climate impact goes, I think the long-term idea is on-demand,
> self-driving electric cars that get their energy from wind and solar.

Hmmm ...

* Is there research showing that self-driving cars impact climate significantly less than person-driven cars?

* On-demand should reduce the number of cars manufactured compared to individually owned cars, which helps but I have no idea how much.

* There may be much more efficient public transport, such as buses and trains, than a fleet of on-demand self-driving cars.

* If wind and solar can power self-driving cars, they probably can power any other kind. I don't see how the energy source ties in with the rest.

~~~
woodandsteel
On-demand helps with mass transit because it solves the last-mile problem.

On-demand self-driving cars are cheaper to use than on-demand with a paid
driver, so more people will use them, which cuts the total number of cars
needed. As you say, that means less energy expended on building cars. It also
means less energy for road construction and maintenance, and less city
parking. Less city parking means more density, which cuts transportation
costs.

I forgot to say in my OP that the new pattern would also include extensive car
pooling, which on-demand makes possible and I am guessing that self-driving
makes somewhat easier.

~~~
hackuser
Great points; thanks.

------
donretag
Here are some more anecdotes from a recent article:
[http://laist.com/2016/08/29/so_just_how_do_las_legions_of_ca...](http://laist.com/2016/08/29/so_just_how_do_las_legions_of_car-f.php)

I also live car-free in Los Angeles. It is not that I don't want a car, I have
just been too lazy to buy one. Money is not an issue and I have a dedicated
parking spot that sits empty. I live by the Metro, so I can get to
DTLA/Hollywood pretty easy. Live in walkable neighborhood, so I can walk to
get groceries, with Amazon providing the rest. Even when I had a car in other
locales, I would still use Amazon for various things.

I am an avid cyclist, yet I never commute anywhere by bicycle. I should look
into getting a commuter bike. My current bike is too expensive to be used for
commuting.

------
bogomipz
A couple of points come to mind:

From the article:

"If there’s anything as frustrating as driving in LA, it’s parking there: The
city issues more than 2.5 million parking citations each year, raking in $165
million."

So in a way the city relies on people owning cars and statistical probability
that its residents will periodically lose in the "great parking game."

Parking tickets are a form of soft tax and not having to pay this tax is not
insignificant. From the following article:

[http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-parking-
tick...](http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-parking-tickets-
reform-20140630-story.html)

"The price of a ticket for overstaying a meter steadily rose from $40 in 2006
to $63 in 2012, and officials have repeatedly acknowledged that the purpose
was to bring in cash. This year, the city expects parking tickets to generate
about $161 million in revenue."

That was 4 years ago. I wasn't able to find a current figure but generally
those number only increase over time.

And it's not just meters. There are also street cleaning violation tickets
that are $75 each. For those not familiar with LA. Street cleaning happens in
residential areas. Twice a week( day for each side of the street)the available
parking capacity is effectively cut in half. Even though the cleaning only
takes place during a two hour window. Many residents will park in the early
evening and then won't use their car again so they don't lose their spot for
the following day. Time spent trying to find a spot to park the night before
street cleaning is a quality of life issue. Sadly anyone who has watched a
street sweeping machine in LA could attest to their dubious effectivity for
actual cleaning purposes.

So an addition to the soft taxes applied in the form of parking tickets,
theres a cognitive load and stress I suppose you could add to the calculations
outlined in the article.

The question is what happens if(when?) ride sharing and car services are so
successful that they begin to erode hundreds of millions of dollars the city
obviously depends on. Then what?

------
incogitomode
Having recently moved to LA from the east coast, and hoping to stay put for
awhile, I've really appreciated the interest in finding new ways of dealing
with transportation in the city. It may be a generational issue, as some have
said, but that doesn't need to be the case. Perhaps the current enthusiasm can
find its way into housing and zoning policy and make a lasting change in a
city that seems to have reached the limits of what sort of population and
density can actually be sustained in an everybody-owns-a-car scenario.

------
misingnoglic
I was an intern at Google Venice for the summer, and it was definitely cheaper
for me to take Uber pool to work every day (especially since I lived with my
parents). It would have been ~35 a day to rent a car, or ~20 a day for Uber
pool, without the added stress of driving.

------
vasilipupkin
seriously? people giving up their cars in LA? Oh, sure, I believe that
buzzfeed was able to find 3 people who gave up their cars. But what do the
statistics say about LA car ownership?

------
tehwebguy
My car mostly sits in front of our house in LA. Last month I rented it out to
an Uber driver for 2 weeks, which paid for the most recent engine work it
required.

------
nickthemagicman
Its one of the major ways people are rent seeked. Gas, insurance, maintenance,
loan, loan interest, etc. Exploitation overdrive. And most people dont have a
choice.

Cars, housing, education and medicine are massive rent seeking areas sucking
people dry and I cant wait until all of these are subverted by new systems.

------
paulsutter
In the article, are those actual wait times or initially estimated wait times?

------
nradov
Overall new car sales are higher than ever. Someone is buying them.

~~~
ams6110
There are more people than ever.

------
gcb0
this is buzzfeed. my guess is that this is a paid puff piece for uber and
nothing else.

------
breck
Title should be: "People in Los Angeles Are Getting Rid Of Their Cars"

~~~
sctb
Thanks, we updated the title from “Los Angeles is a very different city for
Uber stats”.

------
rocky1138
> "They’ve decimated the taxi industry. The number of LA taxi trips dropped
> 30% from 2012."

Decimate means to reduce by 10%, hence deci.

~~~
potatolicious
[http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/09/does-decimate-
mea...](http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/09/does-decimate-mean-destroy-
one-tenth/)

Decimate _may_ have had an archaic definition like that (even then, the jury's
still out), but the modern definition of "destruction of a substantial portion
of" has been well accepted even in academia.

Unless we want to start using words only in their original, millenia-old
definitions can we drop this thing every time someone uses decimation in the
"wrong" way?

~~~
rocky1138
I think the issue I have is one of measurements. We use things like deci,
mega, kilo, etc. In this case, decimetre means 10 centimetres.

~~~
aninhumer
So do you also object to people referring to things as "gigantic" or
"microscopic" which aren't in the order of a gigametres or a micrometres
respectively?

