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Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities

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Re: Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities

#121

Post by ergothus »

ars wrote: post #64
tachyoff wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no institutional inertia or political organizing involved in walking, riding your bike, or taking the bus for your next trip. Assuming you live in a bikeable or walkable area, sure. Bus service exists, but it can be patchy and/or underfunded. Some people simply have none of these options. I live in Detroit (yes, Motor City), and this area is crying out for good mass transit. In fact, two out of four necess…

Compared to having your own car, even the absolutely best, world class, mass transit service is just terrible. And I say this having tried both. It just doesn't compare. This is not a battle you are going to win. I'm happy for other people to take mass transit and leave more road space for me. Or I can be more fair and want more road space for everyone. Mass transit is not a good solution, it's a poor solution, that…

> Compared to having your own car, even the absolutely best, world class, mass transit service is just terrible.

That seems an overly strong absolute. I would easily take a quick, clean, close, and reliable bus over car storage, maintenance, insurance, driving in traffic, ensuring I'm mentally alert enough to drive, finding parking, and paying for parking at my destination. That doesn't even mention the purchase experience, which is probably the worst buying experience there is. I've had such transit to some areas of different cities so I know it is possible.

Generally, the more urban the area, the greater the benefits to transit and the higher the costs of car ownership, which makes your comment about properly designed cities questionable - what do you see as "properly designed" that still supports density?

Even if you would never personally see the transit half as worth more than the car ownership half, can you see where others, who have different needs/uses for transportation, would?

Re: Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities

#122

Post by iamdave »

swozey wrote: post #76
iamdave wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound so much like me. Are you me? Are we both talking about Austin? I'm coming back in a couple of days to throw things into a big truck and say my final goodbyes. LET'S COMMISERATE

Dude between paying $400k for a 1975 3/2 house that I also have to spend $700/mo in property taxes on (thanks to the Leges robinhood tax scam) and just generally antagonistic anti-Austin policies.. I'm done here. I've got some interviews in Seattle/PNW going on but I'm also interviewing in Dallas this week. I really just want out of TX. The fact that it's an 8 hour drive minimum just to go to another State or go see…

No I know how you feel, completely.

I'm in the middle of transitioning back to my hometown of Indianapolis. Worse roads, less of a music scene, but the cost of living is much more tolerable...and it's my home. It's where I want to be right now.

Funnily enough, I agree 200% with what you said about Houston and Dallas. Austinites LOVE to hate on those two cities, but...at least it seems like they've figured out how to actually be cities.

Re: Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities

#123

Post by ulisesrmzroche »

true_religion wrote: post #104
mrep wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it is a tragedy and it is also a tragedy how much resources we devote towards computer/software security. There are tons of similar best practice inefficient solutions to society's problems in order to deal with the malicious actors because nobody has solved this problem and I doubt anyone ever will. Do you have an idea for how to stop people from acting maliciously? Considering how subjective that quest…

> Do you have an idea for how to stop people from acting maliciously? Yes,cultural homogeneity results in lower overall levels of malicious actors and free riders. However, in the USA the only way to get such homogeneity is to (a) wait a long time for communications and migration to turn soften differences or (b) create a culture out of whole cloth, and use propaganda to spread it to the young.

Lol

Re: Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities

#124

Post by ergothus »

ergothus wrote: post #115
mrep wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But is it actually an outlier or is that just what you have heard because every women I have talked to has been harrassed on the street. Women just don't talk about it with men because they usually ensue even more harassment saying it happens" AKA: #metoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_Too_movement - My girlfriend's response after showing her this thread

This is almost certainly an issue. I'm in Seattle and am happy with the bus experience itself, though unhappy with the coverage. But I'm white, straight, and male and thus gifted with blissful ignorance of many of the worst problems (and likely unknowingly support some of the problems). FWIW tell your girlfriend that it sucks she's has these experiences and I'm glad you've shared the problem because I hadn't even tho…

...As a topical follow-up, I just confirmed with my wife her Seattle bus experiences, and discovered a few points:

* She has seen issues, but "only" had a few herself. "I'm not pretty enough to be harassed" is a crushing one sentence summary of the existence of harassment, the objectification of women, and what we've done to womens' self-confidence.

* She reminded me of an issue I was present for - a guy was loudly declaring how horrible women (he used a number of other terms too) were. For me it was just extremely awkward, and I never registered how a woman would feel about her safety in the future after seeing that. My wife said that she wasn't afraid at the time, because I was present and several other men on the bus were telling him to sit down and shut up, but that she would definitely be influenced by this if she were boarding a bus that was only lightly occupied. This tells me how much men miss about the atmosphere for women even when present.

* She mentioned that she usually doesn't take the bus downtown when traveling alone anymore because of regularly feeling too tense when she did. I hadn't really registered that. (in my partial defense, doing this when alone meant I wasn't around to see it, but it still seems a huge thing for me to miss).

* She validates that some routes are more problematic than others. Heading to Harborview is worse than heading to Convention Place, as an example.

Re: Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities

#125

Post by ars »

ergothus wrote: post #121
ars wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to having your own car, even the absolutely best, world class, mass transit service is just terrible. And I say this having tried both. It just doesn't compare. This is not a battle you are going to win. I'm happy for other people to take mass transit and leave more road space for me. Or I can be more fair and want more road space for everyone. Mass transit is not a good solution, it's a poor solution, that…

> Compared to having your own car, even the absolutely best, world class, mass transit service is just terrible. That seems an overly strong absolute. I would easily take a quick, clean, close, and reliable bus over car storage, maintenance, insurance, driving in traffic, ensuring I'm mentally alert enough to drive, finding parking, and paying for parking at my destination. That doesn't even mention the purchase expe…

> what do you see as "properly designed" that still supports density?

I don't support density. I understand some like it, and that's good for them.

But I personally hate it, and I know a lot of other people that hate it as well.

I would hate to see the US switch to that being the primary form of life. But I'm not really worried - enough people hate it, that it's unlikely.

The highest density I'm willing to consider is a 2 family row house (i.e. side to side, not up and down) on each plot of land. Anything denser than that and I'm not going to live there. Each house should have a front and back yard, at least some space on the sides between houses.

We are not animals, there's no reason to pack people in like battery farming.

Unless that's what you like. If you like that, more power to you.

Re: Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities

#126

Post by tmnvix »

mrep wrote: post #111
tmnvix wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like with helicopter parenting, I think that by trying to avoid risk in this way you are giving up more than you are gaining - even though in isolation this might seem like the rational choice. If everyone took your approach we would end up as a sharply segregated society where the public domain becomes the preserve of 'malicious actors' and those without the ability to avoid it. That would be a classic dystopia. The…

> If everyone took your approach we would end up as a sharply segregated society where the public domain becomes the preserve of 'malicious actors' and those without the ability to avoid it. When you frame it like that, isn't that kind of what it has already become? Cities are full of crime so people with money move to the suburbs where it is safer.

To different degrees, yes. It happens in other areas of public life too. Public schools and healthcare systems are good examples. When wealthy people leave in preference for exclusive alternatives, the whole system suffers from their absence.

There is probably a name for this phenomenon. It's a sort of reverse tragedy of the commons.

> Cities are full of crime so people with money move to the suburbs where it is safer.

I think this was happening most in the middle of last century. Now, inner-city areas around the world are being gentrified by wealthy people that (I believe) recognise the lack of communal life afforded by suburbs - things such as the day to day passing of friends and strangers in the street, at the local cafe or shops, and a generally higher level of engagement that's possible when you spend less of your 'public' time in a vehicle.

Re: Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities

#127

Post by ergothus »

ars wrote: post #125
ergothus wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compared to having your own car, even the absolutely best, world class, mass transit service is just terrible. That seems an overly strong absolute. I would easily take a quick, clean, close, and reliable bus over car storage, maintenance, insurance, driving in traffic, ensuring I'm mentally alert enough to drive, finding parking, and paying for parking at my destination. That doesn't even mention the purchase expe…

> what do you see as "properly designed" that still supports density? I don't support density. I understand some like it, and that's good for them. But I personally hate it, and I know a lot of other people that hate it as well. I would hate to see the US switch to that being the primary form of life. But I'm not really worried - enough people hate it, that it's unlikely. The highest density I'm willing to consider i…

Thanks for the reply (and for answering my question in it)! I disagree on some conclusions, but that's not really relevant to this topic no matter how interesting it'd be.

I'm a bit lost on one aspect though - in relation to the original purpose, I thought you were saying that advocating for mass transit in a city is a battle that cannot be won, and that cities could be designed to avoid the need for mass transit. Now I'm reading you as saying that not everyone will like mass transit and that a significant group will avoid cities - which are different statements than my original reading (and points I agree with). Am I missing something, or do I now get your core points?

Re: Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities

#128

Post by DrScump »

lsc wrote: post #106
DrScump wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Own car: To work, to grocery store, to home = 3 trips. Your method: trip to pick you up, trip to drop you at work, trip to pick you up at work, trip to take you home, trip for grocery picker to store, trip for groceries to your home... there's six trips. The traffic burden you create is increased , not lessened.

except that most of those trips are pooled; the grocery picker (I use amazon fresh, but have used the Safeway delivery in the past, but the same idea applies to both... the insticart model may be different, but I haven't used them.) makes a bunch of deliveries in one trip. That should be lots more efficient than me driving to the store and back for just my groceries. Same with taking one of the pool mode rideshares t…

  the grocery picker... makes a bunch of deliveries in one trip
That would mean that the customer who is the farthest along the delivery route had better not bought any perishables like ice cream or rotisserie chicken.

In actual practice, that model doesn't work for anything but dry goods... which means somebody is making an additional trip yet for temperature-critical perishables.

Webvan crashed and burned partly because they failed to think out the "edge cases".

Re: Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities

#129

Post by DrScump »

ShabbosGoy wrote: post #116
DrScump wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

while throwing herself on me I see how someone who would write that could elicit discomfort in strangers.

That was poor phrasing on my part. I didn’t mean it in the figurative sense, i.e. “she was practically throwing herself at me”. I meant that in the literal sense; she was invading my personal space due to being inebriated.

You didn't mention her being inebriated, only (allegedly) fearful of you because of your apparent ethnicity.

Generally, drunk people are not fearful.

Re: Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities

#130

Post by DrScump »

jboles wrote: post #105
DrScump wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bus agencies could do better if they were a bit more adaptable/flexible too - other countries have experimented with bus-on-demand, and having smaller buses ("shuttles") would help on lower demand routes" Has that worked (financially) anywhere? This model was a catastrophic failure when tried in Santa Clara County ("Dial-a-ride").

The list is long: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi#Jitney

Instead of "anywhere", I should have written "anywhere in the USA".
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