
LA is using ride-hailing startup Via to shuttle people to public transit - prostoalex
https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/28/los-angeles-is-using-ride-hailing-startup-via-to-shuttle-people-to-public-transit/
======
cbcoutinho
Where I used to live in the Netherlands (Friesland in the north to be
specific), it's very sparsely populated. Although the public transportation
system here is incredible, in the more remote regions of the province they
also suffer from the last mile problem. The way the local train/bus operator
deals with the issue is by directly subsidizing local taxis to get you to your
nearest bus stop for 2.50eu - essentially a cup of coffee. I use it whenever I
need to get around up there and it works great.

[https://www.arriva.nl/friesland-en-
waddeneilanden/reisinform...](https://www.arriva.nl/friesland-en-
waddeneilanden/reisinformatie/aanvullend-vervoer.htm)

------
logicx24
I lived in LA for a year, and the biggest hurdle I had with using public
transit in the city was exactly this: that stations, especially for the newer
metro lines, often were 2-3 miles from my starting location and destination.
Using public transit meant that I either was already near a stop or had a
destination immediately next to stop. In every other case, Uber/Lyft'ing
through traffic was faster (and cheaper when you add the price to Uber to and
from the stations).

So I think this idea has potential, though its eventual success will depend
two things: first, whether the price of the last-mile via's can be kept low
enough to make the diversion to the transit stop affordable, and second,
whether the via's and the public transit can reasonably compete on timeliness
with ridesharing services.

~~~
Retric
Using a bike for ~2 mile trip is very fast and cheap. Seems like a much better
and possibly faster way to get to and from the metro station most days.

~~~
cbhl
But also super lethal per vehicle mile traveled. It might be different if you
are on a dedicated right-of-way...

~~~
dima55
"Super lethal"? Let's keep things in perspective.

~~~
asteli
Here's the perspective: You, or rather, the average "you" incur 1 micromort
(1/1e6 chance of death while conducting a particular activity) for every:

6 miles traveled by motorcycle

10 miles traveled by bicycle

17 miles traveled by foot

230 miles by car

1000 miles by jet plane

So, it really is rather dangerous to get around by bicycle. Not that I
recommend against it (I commute by motorcycle, personally).

[edit: source wiki article -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort#Travel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort#Travel)
]

~~~
Retric
First total bike miles are not rigorously tracked making this statistics
extremely suspect. Which is why both 10 and 20 miles are given as separate
estimates. “Travelling 10 miles (16 km)[25] (or 20 miles (32 km))[24] by
bicycle (accident)”

Subway miles are also very safe at ~ 1/20 the risk of driving your car. So, a
2 mile bike ride to a subway + a 20 mile subway trip is about the same risk as
a 22 mile commute. Though with very large error bars on that estimate based on
personal habits and local conditions.

PS: Don’t become a bike messenger it pays well, but the risks are more
significant when people are running red lights etc.

~~~
dima55
Not only that, but the references on that wikipedia page about bicycling are
extremely poor: neither contains any sort of justification for the claim. I
was hoping for a link to a paper, or something.

------
duxup
I worry about tethering public transport to unprofitable / not yet self
sustainable companies who could eventually become so critical to public to
transportation that they become their own version of "too big to fail"... and
then just milk government for all they can, or if they go out of business the
whole system is dorked up.

~~~
bouncing
Like most cities, LA's public transit system used to be a privately-owned, for
profit network, mostly from Pacific Electric and Los Angeles Railway. By the
50s, those companies had shuttered most of their routes because of competition
from private cars and buses, so eventually they were bought by local
government and became the public transit system.

Same thing happened in Chicago. Before there was the CTA, there were private,
for-profit rail roads connecting the city, owned mostly by the Chicago Rapid
Transit Company.

So, if Via is unsustainable and unprofitable, and was acquired by local
government, that wouldn't really be any different from how the LA Metro got
started.

~~~
et-al
> _So, if Via is unsustainable and unprofitable, and was acquired by local
> government, that wouldn 't really be any different from how the LA Metro got
> started._

Why would LA Metro pay to acquire Via when it can just run identical bus
routes? Also, LA transit planners probably already know which areas would
benefit from new bus route, but are constrained by their budget.

Unless advertisers are thinking it's profitable to blast ads to commuters for
their 30-45 min commute, affordable transit will continue to need to be
subsidised by tax dollars (yes, yes.. transit in Asia, real-estate).

~~~
Spooky23
It’s probably easier to bootstrap and acquire than to deal with the union
issues in an ongoing operation.

Seniority rules for assignment and training requirements for example may be
hard to deal with.

------
Strang
Completely off-topic, but this headline is an excellent example of why we
shouldn't let companies stylize their own names and brands. It's unreadable in
its current state. "via" should of course be capitalized, no matter what the
company's "brand guidelines" say.

~~~
exolymph
Always drives me crazy too. Uncapitalized company names are not a thing, get
over yourselves.

------
jandrese
It seems very LA to need a car to get to the nearest bus stop.

~~~
ahoy
"Park and Ride" is a fairly common thing for commuter rail in the US. Using it
for busses is a new one though.

~~~
dragonwriter
> "Park and Ride" is a fairly common thing for commuter rail in the US.

It's a fairly common thing for commuter transit generally in the US, not just
commuter rail.

> Using it for busses is a new one though.

No, it's not. There's lots of Park and Ride locations in CA (and.I would
assume elsewhere) that are served by bus exclusively or are at multimodal
transit centers that include bus along with ferry and/or light rail.

~~~
reaperducer
_It 's a fairly common thing for commuter transit generally in the US_

Yep. I've used park-and-ride to get to buses in New York and New Jersey.

------
drtz
Dallas has the same problem as LA. I live about 3 miles from a light rail park
& ride but I don't even have bus service. I'd love to be able to use a ride
share service, but taking Uber or Lyft adds another $10-15 to my daily
commute.

~~~
joshandrews
DART just launched a new service that does exactly this. 4 zones launched
today, but many more are coming throughout the year. Try out planning a trip
in the updated GoPass app and, depending on where you're going, you should see
options for GoLink.

~~~
drtz
I'm in Allen which is outside of the DART service area, though, so I'm
probably not covered. Although I'm just across the Plano-Allen border. Maybe I
could just walk a couple blocks south and summon a ride. :D

Thanks for the info! I'll definitely check it out.

------
joshandrews
We (sparelabs.com) just launched a very similar on-demand transit system in
Dallas today! The service is primarily used to link up the suburbs and working
hubs to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) light rail network. Happy to
answer any questions about this here!

------
trixie_
Wait for my Via, wait for my bus, wait in the bus in traffic, wait for the bus
to make all the stops.

I live in LA. I would rather sit in my car than take public transit here. The
few times I have taken it, it has been such a bad experience I will never take
it again. Party due to the amount of time spent waiting for trains/buses (they
are infrequent). Partly due to how unsafe it feels.

I've lived in NYC, it's a total 180 experience. Ideally if you can live close
to your job in LA the commute is negligible. The roads are ok as well as long
as you don't travel during rush hour.

~~~
reaperducer
I used to feel that way until smartphones and laptops became common. Now I'd
rather poke at my phone on a bus than sit in traffic in a car.

~~~
trixie_
I'd agree if the time spent was the same.

In LA it will take you easily twice as long to get where you're going with
public transit.

~~~
reaperducer
Not just L.A. when I lived in Chicago, I could have driven to work in 30
minutes. Instead I took a train and a bus 75 minutes each way and kept my
sanity.

~~~
trixie_
I guess to each their own. Though I suspect the majority of people would
rather spend 1 hour driving than 2.5 hours in a bus everyday.

------
geekrax
Perhaps this is what Chariot should have pivoted to. Right now, the public
transit is not the problem in places like Bay Area and LA if your source and
destination are near the public transit stop or if those stops are accessible
via a car/bike/scooter.

------
fiachamp
Still seems gigantically space inefficient. Would love to see this experiment
done with scooters, especially in LA where the weather is pretty good year-
round. I say this as someone incredibly annoyed with people leaving Bird
scooters all over the street.

~~~
bouncing
If the "official" answer to the last mile problem is scooters, that'll run
into all kinds of resistance from people with disabilities.

~~~
randyrand
Why? Cars and scooters are not mutually exclusive.

Moreso, scooters take up way less space than cars and a properly designed
scooter city will have much more room for disabled parking.

Not to mention electric wheelchairs can be surprisingly fast.

------
reaperducer
There was an article in the New York Times last year about how New Jersey
suburbs are paying ride-sharing people to ferry commuters to train stations so
that the towns don't have to build larger parking lots.

~~~
Arbalest
You're making it sound like this is only of benefit to the city. This makes
things more space efficient and for those who might struggle with the expenses
of a private car, is gold.

------
Arbalest
So essentially, we've downsized the busses running through suburbia with much
smaller, more flexible vehicles. Seeing this as a failure of public transport
is a bit short sighted, if anything I think this is a good evolution. Busses
are only more efficient when ridership is medium-high. Busses are not
commodity in the way cars are, some places have pretty damn old busses, which
spews large amounts of diesel particles.

------
pbalau
I think that public transport can radically shape an area, for example, see
this video [1] about how the Edgware area developed, after getting a tube
station (and how other areas lost). I recommend the entire channel btw, very
informative and funny videos.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anHLOwH2HWU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anHLOwH2HWU)

------
brendanmc6
I just started working with Ioki, we are a Deutsche Bahn company doing this
exact thing-- we use mobility analytics to find 'sweet spots' for our service,
and are preparing heavily for fully automated services too.

Feel free to ask questions! We are also hiring like crazy in Frankfurt :)

------
Kiro
Fix the capital V in the title please.

~~~
sctb
Done. Thanks!

