make public transit suck less
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.
A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
51–60 of 253 posts
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#52The "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.
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#53Don'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!
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#54Earlier 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.
Where did you find that out? When you google uber gas tax new york. Your comment is the top result.
Heres what I did find, https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/alb... a per-ride fee. but doenst have a .25/gallon fee
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#55There'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…
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).
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.
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Road funding should be raised by using gasoline, tolls, and/or mileage taxes. That would force uber to pay for their usage of roads. Many/most jurisdictions already do this.
Why stop there? Why not put tolls on the sidewalks and park benches and charge per usage? We as a society have decided that it's best for all of us is we collectively eat the cost of letting people use certain resources as much as they want at low/no cost or at a cost not proportional to usage. Roads are one of these resources. Increasing the cost of transportation basically increases the cost of physical distance. T…
>> We as a society have decided that it's best for all of us is we collectively eat the cost of letting people use certain resources as much as they want at low/no cost or at a cost not proportional to usage. Roads are one of these resources.
But we decided this based on the idea that those that use the roads for profit will pay extra as they are making income off a public resource
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
We can reduce the risk, if we beefed up our funding of mental help institutions, social safety nets, and educational facilities. But until then, people will pay a premium to avoid the hassles of public transportation.
A well functioning society requires effort. You can't unicorn app the hard work away. If transportation network consumers wish to use those services, they should be able to. And cities should tax those rides to offset additional congestion and improve public transportation. Everyone wins.
> If transportation network consumers wish to use those services, they should be able to. And cities should tax those rides to offset additional congestion and improve public transportation. Everyone wins.
Would the revenue generated from those taxes result in successful public transit reform to address the issues that are pushing the public away? Not arguing that it doesn't, I'm genuinely curious because I don't know enough about the problem to say that insufficient funding is the root of the issue for most cities' transit systems. I'd agree that it's a net win if the additional funding would enable meaningful progress, but nobody wins if money isn't the root of the problem and that money is squandered or spent elsewhere.
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#58There'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…
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).
Do you think that these Ubers-but-with-buses would be cheap enough that the homeless could ride them? Most urban public transportation operates at a substantial loss; a private busing company would cost several times more than standard fare. It would be about as securely class-protected an experience as an Uber pool ride.
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#59Earlier 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.
Where did you find that out? When you google uber gas tax new york. Your comment is the top result. Heres what I did find, https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/alb... a per-ride fee. but doenst have a .25/gallon fee
The $0.25/gallon is charged at the pump. Everyone pays it, not just Ubers and taxis.
Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you kidding yourself? You think people continuing to rely on cars whether they drive or they are being driven is going to reduce traffic? Buses and rail reduce traffic not cars. Mass van pooling and what not can also help. We have to get off of cars and empty seats. Apps pushing cars and pushing ride sharing are pushing laziness and congestion. Why kid ourselves into thinking that Uber and Lyft are fixing the car…
Could apps pushing car services increase the number of people who don't have cars? Could it make owning a car more vialble? Could it increase the density of a city (due to less parking)? Could this make it more walkable? Could it make mass transit more effective? We should be encouraging ride sharing and working to eliminate parking; parking requirements make cities unwalkable thus making public transit ineffective.
Uber and Lyft are not ride sharing.