
A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes - aaronbrethorst
https://www.axios.com/ride-hailing-sharing-services-uber-lyft-global-cities-traffic-26816575-fff8-44b0-a608-9dd86e8b5a10.html
======
lewis500
I don’t understand why this study is receiving so much attention. It’s not
peer reviewed. It doesn’t contain actual data collection (the estimates are
all extrapolated in a way the author considers reasonable, not measured data
from traffic detectors or surveys). Schaller is not a researcher or engineer,
but a consultant mainly working for taxi regulation.

That doesn’t mean it’s wrong. But I’m surprised the study gets so much press
because some guy published something on his personal website.

~~~
quxbar
Wow, that's gross. Braess's Paradox says adding more capacity to roads can
cause more congestion, I guess the narrative would be 'rip up roads to solve
traffic' then? It really makes me sick to my stomach how often 'authorities'
lack any background in formal reasoning, and see no need to apply it to
decisions for the public welfare.

~~~
bobthepanda
This actually happened:

The Embarcadero in SF was turned into a surface road after the Loma Prieta
earthquake permanently damaged it:
[http://www.preservenet.com/freeways/FreewaysEmbarcadero.html](http://www.preservenet.com/freeways/FreewaysEmbarcadero.html)

Chonggyecheon, Seoul was restored as a stream after the highway capping it was
demolished: [https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2017/09/14/braess-
paradox...](https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2017/09/14/braess-paradox-the-
cheonggyecheon-restoration-project/)

------
cbhl
There's a simple solution to this -- buses!

We don't even need public tax dollars to pay for them. There were plenty of
startups that wanted to run "Uber, but with a bus instead of a Car" and they
all died because of regulation from the cities.

Hell, Google (and other tech companies) will happily pay for its own buses to
reduce VMT, but taking away street parking to add bus stops is political
suicide in San Francisco right now.

~~~
lotsofpulp
One of the major benefits in some cities of Uber/Lyft over public
transportation is not risking interaction with thementally ill, inebriated,
panhandlers, or otherwise dangerous people (like the dancers on the NYC
subway).

~~~
nradov
Several people (mainly women) have told me that they're afraid to take public
transit in the SF Bay Area due to the other riders. I'm not sure how we fix
that problem without restricting civil rights in ways that would be
unconstitutional and politically unacceptable. It's a real dilemma.

~~~
fipple
You set rules for society and harshly punish people who break them. Look at
Singapore.

~~~
komali2
Or you make healthcare and education free-or-nearly-so and set up fantastic
social welfare safety nets. Look at swaths of Europe, Taiwan, etc.

Kind of hard to fine someone that doesn't have the money to pay for it. Kind
of hard to put a person in jail when the jail is already full of kids with
marijuana sentences.

I don't think this "Singapore Solution" would work in the USA.

~~~
colemannugent
> _...make healthcare and education free-or-nearly-so..._

Free for who?

~~~
komali2
Literally everyone.

Imagine the tax income down the line if every citizen that wanted a high-
training-required career could get that career. Imagine the burden reduction
on welfare.

~~~
shard972
What about the people who are sub 100 IQ (namely about half the population)
who don't really have the capacity to work in a highly trained job?

You seem to just assume if we give people free stuff they will all go get
PHD's. That's just simply a fantasy.

~~~
komali2
Or the people that don't want to, don't forget

I didn't say "mandatory higher education," I said "free." It already is free
for twelve years so it seems silly to think slapping on another 2-6 would be
some massive burden against the expected returns.

For those that don't want it or can't test into it because they literally are
too stupid (this is after fixing inequal access to early education), there's
no associated cost. They just to to work, same as it was before.

~~~
shard972
> For those that don't want it or can't test into it because they literally
> are too stupid (this is after fixing inequal access to early education),
> there's no associated cost. They just to to work, same as it was before.

I think you will find the IQ benefits of education itself is not really that
large. I could be wrong but it seems like scientists are looking more into
diet these days as bigger influencers than quality education.

Which is to say, of course there is contrast between a child who never goes to
school and is just left to leisure around the house until they are adults to
one that goes to a quality school that are beyond simply a diet but that in
western countries, diets could be a bigger reason for poorer socio-economic
populations scoring lower on IQ tests.

I think though that you would have to rebalance the culture when it comes to
higher education before making it free because in countries like the USA, you
already have too many people going to university and then going into non-
skilled jobs despite the insane prices.

Lowering the price to free is only going to increase that when many kids see
college as an experience more than a critical education for a high end role.

------
dokein
A week ago, at the stop nearest me, the E train uptown was re-routed. The C
train had an 18 minute wait (the next one after that -- 19 minutes). The
station was somewhere north of 100 degrees F and packed. As the trains were
one floor below the turnstiles, these issues were only visible AFTER swiping
$3(A) to get into the station. The escalator was broken too, which is fine for
me but bad for many others.

Meanwhile, I am already paying one of the highest state and local taxes in the
nation. But I'm not complaining about the taxes -- rather, I'm complaining
that these dollars don't go very far -- it cost 3.5 BILLION per mile of
track(B) because of graft and poor city management.

For those in parts of Brooklyn, looks like the L train will take 15 months to
fix. Would anyone take a $100 bet that it finishes on schedule (at 1:1 odds)?

The last time I was in a cab, the driver yelled at me for using an iPhone,
accusing me of using Chinese children to assemble them. Somewhat confusingly,
he also yelled at me for being Chinese and taking away jobs. I looked up how
to report this and it involves showing up in person at a hearing during work
hours.

Uber isn't perfect, but banning it doesn't magically fix the subway. Even if
the ride takes just as long, at least it's quiet and air-conditioned, and I
can read or nap. Rather, Uber's major fault seems to be not greasing the
politicans' hands like the medallion industry is. The parent article
references the book "The Power Broker" when citing traffic. Funny, because it
sure seems that Tammany Hall is still around.

(A) The metro card fare is $2.75, but the machine prevents you from putting in
exact change -- only $5 increments -- so anyone who visits town usually wastes
some fare.

(B) [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-
subway-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-
construction-costs.html)

~~~
sharkmerry
>> Uber isn't perfect, but banning it doesn't magically fix the subway.

There's no doubt there are issues with public transit, but letting the
rideshare services run rampant, while being effectively subsidized by the
taxpayers roads, etc is no solution either.

>> U.S. ridership is surging, he said — up 37% last year, to 2.6 billion
passengers, from 2016.

>> It found that, in U.S. cities, 49% to 61% of ride-hailing trips would have
not been made at all — or by walking, biking, or public transit.

Given these two notes from the article, Thats alot of extra demand added to
road infrastructure. A medallion system makes the ride-share services
contribute their share for the increase in wear & tear on infrastructure. Its
not perfect, but letting them run wild isnt working either.

~~~
pwned1
Ubers and Lyfts pay the $0.25 per gallon New York gas tax, _plus_ sales tax on
top of both state and federal gas taxes (tax on a tax), so they are paying for
road infrastructure, just like everyone else.

It's important to note that public transit agencies don't pay gas tax, and a
large portion of the federal highway fund is diverted to public transit
agencies.

~~~
vkou
Gas tax does not go nearly enough of the way to paying for infrastructure.
Most road maintenance is paid for by property and income taxes.

$0.25/gallon is peanuts. New York (State) consumed ~135 million barrels of gas
last year. That's 1.35 billion dollars of gas taxes. (Less in reality, because
some commercial uses are exempt from these taxes, or can deduct them as
expenses.)

The NY DOT's maintenance budget, alone is ~$4.5 billion USD. Not to mention
another $7 billion earmarked for new construction.

Increase the gas taxes to $2.5/gallon, and then I'll agree that road users, in
aggregate, are paying their way, instead of freeriding.

~~~
nine_k
Is NY DOT known for frugal and efficient use of funds?

(I don't know, so I'm asking. E.g. MTA is known for the opposite.)

~~~
Spooky23
MTA has many onerous labor issues that the NYS and NYC DOT don't need to deal
with.

They are reasonably efficient stewards of tax dollars. Most of their spending
is at least partially federally funded, so they are subject to many layers of
audit.

------
rossdavidh
I live in Austin, which for a period of time had basically driven out Uber and
Lyft with regulation. Then, the Texas state government overruled the city, and
Uber and Lyft came back. I can say from personal experience, our traffic did
not get the slightest bit better when Uber and Lyft were gone. However, our
drunk driving rates did apparently go up.

~~~
enraged_camel
I live in Austin too. The reason you didn't notice much change is that several
new services swooped in to fill the gap left by Uber and Lyft. There was even
a very popular Facebook group where people (illegally) solicited ride-sharing
services.

So, in a sense, ride-sharing never really went away.

~~~
shard972
I don't have a FB account but i use uber so that's just not a solution that
everybody would easily be able to jump over to.

------
maxander
The "build more roads, people fill them with more cars" is just a symptom of a
huge problem that's existed for so long that people can't see it anymore- that
there's orders of magnitude more demand for intra-city transport than there is
supply. The problem isn't a law of nature; keep giving people more ways to get
from A to B and _eventually_ you'll reach the point where you have more routes
than people to travel them.

...But, in a car-based society, this won't happen until your entire city is a
single level surface of pavement. There is _no way_ to get the required
efficiency out of a system where one person usually takes up a full 6'-by-10'
lot of street space, and where speed is limited by the inherent dangers of
having multi-ton masses of steel and aluminum passing within feet of
pedestrians. Self driving cars might up throughput by a factor of two; I'd
estimate we need about a factor of a hundred before we can call the problem
solved.

------
NickBusey
>> .. when people use a ride-hailing company, they are opting to do so rather
than take public transportation, walk or bike. They generally are not choosing
between hailing and driving themselves.

This doesn't seem correct to me. If I can ride my bike or walk somewhere, I
will do that pretty much every time. The only time I ever consider an Uber or
Lyft is if the distance is too far to bike, and I would rather not drive for
whatever reason. I know this is just one anecdote, but that seems like quite a
bold claim from the article, and a claim that doesn't match up at all with the
reality of how I and others I know use the services.

~~~
eli
You left out "public transportation." There is very strong anecdotal evidence
that here in DC a large number of people take Uber where they used to take
Metro.

~~~
manigandham
Many places, like in California, do not have good public transportation and
Uber is the only decent option. That statement in the article is definitely a
heavy assumption.

~~~
komali2
The counter argument is that you no longer feel pressure to kick the issue to
your congressperson to push for public transit, because a "good enough"
solution has been presented (a solution that isn't as good for the environment
or city than a bus).

~~~
manigandham
Maybe, but perhaps the politicians should automatically look out and plan for
the public good instead of needing a line-by-line spec sheet for their job.

~~~
komali2
Now this is a form of optimism I can get behind :)

------
tibbon
One of the biggest issues that I see is where the cars pull over to pick up /
drop off people. They almost always just stop in the middle of streets, double
parking. Rarely do they pull over into an empty spot that's safer for them and
passengers. This often causes traffic backup, at least in the Boston area.

~~~
almost_usual
Definitely the same in SF, Uber / Lyft notoriously double park illegally.

~~~
lhorie
In SF, I see people double parking everywhere, Uber or not - and I mean
_parked_, not idling. My kid's school literally spent 20 minutes last parents
night begging people not to do that in front of the school (and it's _still_ a
problem).

Going westbound on Golden Gate st around Fillmore is one of the weirdest thing
I've ever seen. You can see entire lines of double parked cars with no drivers
inside (sometimes on both sides of the road!)

Then you also have the way-too-small MUNI bus stops where the bus has to
double park (e.g. along Fulton), the delivery vans and the random dudes
waiting for a parking spot to hopefully free up somewhere in the block.

Even without considering Ubers, driving in SF is already a shitshow...

~~~
almost_usual
FYI many people double park on Golden Gate around Fillmore on Sundays because
of church. I don’t think it’s technically legal but it’s not really enforced.

------
habosa
I'm not sure if Uber/Lyft put more cars on the road, but I'm sure that Uber
and Lyft drivers do things that cause traffic.

Many analyses of traffic have shown that individual drivers can cause huge
downstream traffic effects. When you see an Uber driver just stop at a corner
at a major intersection, there can be 10-15 cars slowed by having to wait or
go around.

Biking around SF has made me very wary of certain car models popular for Uber.
If I see a Prius I assume it could stop anywhere at any time.

Even with all that ... These services may still be a net positive. I use them
a lot on the weekends and would never be able to get around the city like I do
without them.

------
kazinator
Uber is worse for congestion than someone driving their own car, because in
addition to making the same trip, the Uber car also drives considerable
distances without a passenger.

~~~
CydeWeys
Not necessarily. People also spend lots of time driving around looking for an
empty free on-street parking spot. In some congested cities this can be a
sizable proportion of overall traffic.

If the Uber is getting back-to-back trips, they're probably driving more
efficiently on average.

~~~
hughes
Every uber trip also frees up a parking spot compared to driving yourself.

~~~
CydeWeys
Also a good point. Parking accounts for double digit percentages of land use
in nearly all American cities. It's such a huge waste of space, and the cities
would be denser, more walkable, and way more pleasant without it. More info
here: [https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/07/12/american-cities-
are-d...](https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/07/12/american-cities-are-drowning-
in-car-storage/)

------
munificent
I don't use ride shares that often, but when I do, it's almost always because
I don't want to deal with parking downtown. If ride shares are increasing
traffic, it could be that, to some degree, they are turning roads into "living
parking lots". Where before my car would be parked at some lot near my
destination, now "my car" is a Lyft that is out cruising the streets when I'm
not in it.

------
almost_usual
I like the idea of ride sharing but the problem comes when it's abused to the
extreme. It's not out of the ordinary for someone to order 3-4 Lyfts on the
weekend in a single evening. That is a ton of unnecessary driving to hang out
or fulfill the social obligations people have. I sometimes wonder what San
Francisco was like before ride sharing. I imagine people would just pick a
neighborhood and hang out there.

~~~
Spivak
People chose a DD and then drove -- I mean it's not like we need a historian
to remember back that far.

~~~
almost_usual
I have a hard time believing a designated driver would be willing to go to 3-4
different neighborhoods in a night and then be willing to drive everyone to
their own home. Who knows, maybe I'm just selfish.

I also wonder if people used to go out on dates and not drink in that
scenario? Or would only one person drink? Double dates? Hrmmm.

------
abalone
Doesn't link to the study. Why is there no mention of taxis? Clearly if people
are ridesharing instead of taking public transit, that's less efficient. But
ridesharing is vastly more efficient than how it used to be with taxi hailing.
They'd circle the streets looking for fares and there was little to no
pooling.

It's highly plausible that people are choosing rideshares over public transit
/ walking / biking, leading to an overall increase. It's believable. But to
truly assess it we need to deduct the old taxi system. With no mention of that
and no link to the source study it's hard to tell if they did.

------
rakamotog
Well, I personally believe its true in India. In last 7 years, my time to
office has increased from 20 minutes to 35 minutes to now 60+ minutes. The
number of vehicles increased a lot but the biggest culprit is Uber and other
cab services. These yellow plates (commercial vehicles) cut lanes a lot and
make me break at least 15 times each trip just to get a few feets of
advantage. And the worst part is other drivers seem to take them as an example
and overall road traffic has become rowdier resulting in very high
inefficiency.

------
mancerayder
In NYC they cause woes because the public transit system has become a
nightmare for those not in Manhattan, a la "The Outer Boroughs". Many
Manhattan people barely register that there's an issue, and see more traffic
than before. Oh gosh, the traffic is slow going uptown.

If only the trains weren't breaking down, signals weren't needing repair,
there wasn't a mid 60 percent on-time rating at present. If only the train
service wasn't cut so viciously weekends. If only subways themselves weren't
filled with miscreants, behaving rudely by playing music on their phones,
bringing bikes, etc. If the subway platforms weren't 100 degrees F during the
summer, when the next train is 10 minutes away. If only the buses were an
alternative, instead of being beset by slow traffic thanks to bicycle lanes,
double parking that's not ticketed, construction vehicles, and parking on both
sides of the street.

Then I'd be open to being concerned about the fact that I'm contributing to
"traffic congestion" by taking Lyft and Uber (mostly Lyft) about 5x or more a
week.

------
saudioger
I'd be interested in reading more studies about this, but anecdotally I feel
like this has to be true. I live next door to a large house with 8 college
students, and two have them claimed to have ~never~ taken public transit in
the city since living here, not ever (they've been here over a year now). When
they have a party you can easily count a dozen Ubers rolling up, no one's
walking to the train station anymore.

We're one of the most expensive cities in the country, and our public transit
system is pretty decent. I commuted using it exclusively for over 10 years.

5 years ago it would be insane to hear a college student say they've never
taken a train here. Maybe it's the combination of low Uber prices and high
housing expenses? I feel like the local student population has been becoming
wealthier (because they have to come from richer families to afford
housing)... and Uber pool pricing is generally within $1-2 of a non-discounted
trip on a train.

------
thegayngler
Public transportation is totally unreliable at best and unusable at worst in
the urban areas of the US. If it takes an hour or two to go anywhere then
people are going to opt for something better.

------
tzury
VIA is the answer!

    
    
        Via is an on-demand transit system that takes multiple 
        passengers heading in the same direction and books them 
        into a shared vehicle. Think of Via as a bus that’s smart 
        enough to come when you want it and where you want it...
    

[https://ridewithvia.com/](https://ridewithvia.com/)

and

[https://www.viavan.com/](https://www.viavan.com/)

~~~
romski
The problem with this service is it needs tremendous amounts of capital to own
all those buses. Is this company really going to raise billions and billions
of dollars to own a large enough fleet to make a meaningful difference?

------
smileysteve
> Urban traffic woes

Isn't this what last mile inevitably does? If a part of town is walkable, it
doesn't decrease street traffic; If it's bikeable - or scooterable, it doesn't
decrease those vehicles.

Yes, this is induced demand; which is why this information shouldn't be used
to make more highways or lanes. Indeed; a large part of the negative traffic
impact from rideshare is probably lack of suitable drop off curb space.

------
kovacs
Uber/Lyft are taxi services. They need to be regulated. The cars need to be
marked, have numbers, drivers accountable to the community (not just the
passenger), for bad driving.

As a driver who's lived in SF for a long time I've seen first hand the
terrible impact these services have had to the city. They clog streets and
disregard any and all traffic laws. Just yesterday an Uber driver made a left
turn from the middle lane on Hyde street. He backed up traffic as he refused
to move until someone let him make his illegal turn. He was the recipient of a
lot of honks.

His response? Gave everyone the finger after he finally made his left hand
turn. Lovely. He should lose his license, period. In the days before these
services existed cab drivers were petrified of getting in trouble. Many
Uber/Lyft drivers are modern day lawless pirates.

A modern medallion system driven by traffic/ridership data with as little
chance for corruption as possible would be the best answer to these problems.
Uber/Lyft as they exist today cannot be allowed to continue if we value
quality of life/safety.

~~~
Routhinator
Meanwhile in Canada..

The situation is exactly the opposite. The taxi licensed taxi cartel have no
fear of blocking traffic, speeding, making illegal turns, parking in bus stops
or anything else because they are a licensed taxi. They refuse to take any
rides that don't suit their plans because there is more demand than taxi
licensed so if you need a taxi from downtown to suburban neighborhoods you
might wait 2-3 hours until you get a willing driver or just end up taking the
bus.

Uber/Lyft drivers on the other hand are very respectfully following the rules
of the road because if they cause undue attention someone will report them and
they'll be fined, and they don't have the money of the taxi cartel behind them
to pay the fine for them.

------
stcredzero
One way to think of this, is that Uber and Lyft are transforming the impetus
of parking-pain into car service. People pay money to avoid the hassle of
driving and parking. This means that a number of cars will be utilized more,
and a number of parking spaces will be utilized less.

The 1st question my wife and I ask with regards to Uber is generally, "Will we
be able to park?"

------
Simulacra
I'm confused. Taking Uber or a Lyft, that's like taking a taxi, right? Like
someone driving their own car. People who use ride sharing apps are going to
be in a car either way, why single out Uber and Lyft? That's like saying
people going to work contribute to congestion.

------
paulie_a
I'll be incredibly selfish and simply say, but I am not driving and being
frustrated. Uber isn't a ride sharing platform, it's "I don't have to deal
with assholes" platform. Also I no longer need to pay for the monthly parking.

------
chuckgreenman
I love public transit, when I was living in the Minneapolis / Saint Paul area
I all most never used ride sharing apps, and used the metro every day to
commute. But those services aren't free. The MS/SP system is considered world
class but they have a 30% farebox recovery ratio. It costs the public a lot of
money to maintain that system.

In Cincinnati, the public transit system is terrible. The buses don't run on
schedule, our light rail route is incredibly short. I use ride sharing
services here a lot more as a result.

Even if we do move traffic into public transit systems, that isn't going to
magically shrink the costs of DOT departments around the nation. We'll just be
subsidizing something else.

------
WisNorCan
This should not surprise anyone.

As the price of a service decreases, consumption increases. So, we should
expect that more people are taking taxi rides that would otherwise commute in
different ways (e.g. walking or taking the bus). If we extrapolate to self-
driving cars where the cost comes down by about 2/3, it is easy to see a
tragedy of the commons situation where roads in major cities are saturated
with vehicles.

This is where government intervention is required. This can be done either
through limiting vehicle permits (which NYC introduced) or other forms of
taxes (e.g. congestion taxes).

------
radicaldreamer
It's extremely onerous and difficult to own a car in San Francisco (parking
situation, street cleaning, meters, lack of reserved and available parking
spots) but a bunch of Ubers and Lyft drivers can drive all day in the city
causing massive congestion with plenty of drivers who not only don't reside in
the city, but aren't even from the Bay Area paying nothing to maintain the
roads or congestion or pollution or the fact that they don't know the roads
and drive recklessly to maximize the number of rides per hour.

~~~
sol_remmy
Please consult the facts before you post.

All employers within San Francisco pay a large amount of taxes to the city for
each employee. Those taxes more than pay for the cost of road use of their
employees.

Thank you.

~~~
radicaldreamer
Here’s the thing though, every employer in the Bay Area pays taxes, but only
Uber and Lyft also disproportionately congest streets and add air and noise
pollution. It’s not proportional whatsoever to the residents of these
neighborhoods.

There are solutions which would better fit the problem: congestion pricing for
peak hours or non-residents, pollution surcharge for non-EV ride share
vehicles, surcharge for non-pool/line rides.

The status quo is to publicize the congestion and pollution and risk and
privatize the profits.

------
warmfuzzykitten
Yeah, it's a bitch when people can actually get where they want to go in a
timely manner. Satisfying that demand might actually put more cars on the
road.

------
Grue3
That's strange because traffic woes existed before Uber and Lyft. Did they
cause congestion retroactively?

------
djohnston
make public transit suck less

~~~
dsfyu404ed
I hope you meant that in an absolute sense and not a relative sense. Making
public transit suck less relative to alternatives by making those alternatives
suck more is counterproductive.

~~~
djohnston
haha yes, i did mean in an absolute sense

------
newnewpdro
Don't these ride sharing services in urban centers just cause more people to
travel by car? It seems obvious that this would increase congestion.

The only thing it seems likely to reduce is the amount of parking spaces and
idle vehicles in storage, less vehicle ownership.

But now everyone, even those without cars or even driver's licenses, are just
a smartphone app away from having a car shuttle them around for even the most
trivial of distances. When you make something more convenient and accessible,
it gets utilized more.

A funny thing about the prospect of self-driving cars: what about the people
who used to be in the driver's seats? I suppose some percentage of those will
instead be passengers in the future - oops, even more cars on the road!

------
JeffL
Need more tunnels. Call the Boring Company.

