Who cares what people said? They are obviously wrong because they argued from false premises. Uber succeeded because they made hailing a ride easier. Trying to credit them or blaming them for traffic is insane. Traffic is the consequence of roadway design and allocation, not how the cost of VMT is packaged and sold (by Uber or Toyota).
Uber encouraged this as part of their campaign for legitimacy. Their policy was to ignore local laws trying to expand as quickly as possible and getting the TED types on their side was part of that.
> Trying to credit them or blaming them for traffic is insane.
I realize you’re a fan but that doesn’t change the fact that having a large number of empty vehicles circling waiting for fares creates more traffic.
This combines both threads: note both that it recognizes Uber and Lyft’s past claims that they’d reduce congestion and their own data show the opposite:
I’m not a fan of Uber actually, but I’m also clear headed about the cause of traffic. The data in the study you linked doesn’t show the opposite. It just says about half the VMT of a ride hail is without a passenger. It makes no claims about the total effect on VMT which would benchmark against, eg, time spent parking, substitution effects, etc.
