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.
A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
11–20 of 253 posts
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> 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 tr…
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.
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.
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#13There'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…
Yeah, look at places like London, dedicated bus lanes make sure that buses are almost always on their set schedule.
At least in Southern California we have the extra lanes that could be dedicated that.
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#14It'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.
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#15I 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.
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#16It'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…
Is there any reason that a person who owns a car has more of a right to have a ride than a person renting a ride?
Many people 'aren't even from the bay area' and drive in; hell they even take up space in the bay area to store their car when it's not in use!
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#17A 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,…
>> 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 tr…
> while being effectively subsidized by the taxpayers roads
Uber driver pays taxes including whatever is in the gasoline and vehicle insurance and whatnot.
The proper "get off my lawn" way to complain about non-payers of road taxes is to focus on cyclists.
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#18>> .. 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.
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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 i…
> 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.
Ride hailing drivers pay income tax.
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#20>> .. 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 dr…
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.