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A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes

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Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes

#191

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

gammateam wrote: post #88
nine_k wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe some people, especially urban-based, just like the anti-car narrative, so they link to it as to something that confirms their favorite POV. I bet city officials in most places don't like ride-hailing companies, too, so they would gladly link to something like this, for the same reason. Maybe every other reader would look at it and say: "Hey, this has no data, and the author's position produces an obvious confli…

Why does it have to be an anti-car narrative, or something insidious Why do you think limited-supply medallion systems existed in the first place? Come on this is just classic "I forgot why these regulations existed and now a 100 year old problem is being recreated" A form of limited licensing for ride-hailing companies can exist without any of the inputs from the taxicab lobby and work out really well.

> Why do you think limited-supply medallion systems existed in the first place?

Why do you think Uber and Lyft exist in the first place?

Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes

#192

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

cbhl wrote: post #7

There'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…

Buses partially overlap with the Uber/Lyft use-cases, but not entirely. Late night rides back from the pub, and I-just-need-to-get-from-point-A-to-point-B-in-an-unfamiliar-city being two largely non-overlapping cases.

Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes

#194

Post by hughes »

CydeWeys wrote: post #65
kazinator wrote: post #9

Uber is worse for congestion than someone driving their own car, because in addition to making the same trip, the Uber car also drives considerable distances without a passenger.

Not necessarily. People also spend lots of time driving around looking for an empty free on-street parking spot. In some congested cities this can be a sizable proportion of overall traffic. If the Uber is getting back-to-back trips, they're probably driving more efficiently on average.

Every uber trip also frees up a parking spot compared to driving yourself.

Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes

#195

Post by bcheung »

lewis500 wrote: post #15

I 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 get…

While not very well supported the arguments do make sense logically and it is enough to get people thinking about the problem.

Sure, more rigor is nice but it's not necessary to get people to start looking at a problem.

I don't think someone needs to be an authority to raise legitimate concerns. That shouldn't be a requirement because otherwise we run into "appeal to authority" types of fallacies.

It does make an interesting argument that ride sharing makes transportation by car available to a wider audience (walking, bike, public transportation) and that is why it is causing congestion. Those people would have just suffered through it or not moved to a city that required them to do those things in the first place before ride sharing.

I found this statement funny though:

> There’s no way that ride hailing could move people around as efficiently as mass transit.

Efficiency is subjective to the actual metric. Clearly the metrics people actually care about (time and convenience most likely) are not being addressed; otherwise, they would be using public transportation more.

I personally drive to work despite being walking distance to Caltrain on both ends because it takes me 25 minutes door to door. If I take public transportation it is 60-90 minutes. Plus my time options are extremely limited. No train options past 7:30 AM. Plus it's more expensive than the gas, wear, and tear.

Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes

#196

Post by macspoofing »

gascan wrote: post #188
macspoofing wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why does it have to be an anti-car narrative, or something insidious Because there is an ideological (i.e. irrational) component to some objections. It's true. >Why do you think limited-supply medallion systems existed in the first place Taxi lobby pressuring municipal governments? I cannot imagine you using the past system as an example of a well-run program. There was never a good reason to limit the number of tax…

There was never a good reason to limit the number of taxicabs on the streets. Without some kind of limit/pricing on the public good that is city streets, what in particular is to stop Cab Company X from saturating the roads with cabs in a brute force attempt to capture a higher proportion of the ridership (and incidentally ballooning road wear & travel times to the detriment of everyone else)? Same kind of problem as…

> what in particular is to stop Cab Company X from saturating the roads with cabs in a brute force attempt to capture a higher proportion of the ridership

They can, but so what? The sheer number of cabs it would take to 'saturate the roads' means enormous amount of upfront capital. But that also means cheap prices (essentially 0 profitability) - and isn't that what we want?

Leaving that aside, if the roads get clogged to the extent that service is compromised, people will do what they do today, and that is, rely on mass public transit (LIKE THEY DO TODAY). If I'm in New York or Hong Kong, sometimes I'd rather take the subway than have my taxi or uber fight traffic.

There are no issues here.

>while I go in to shop at this store, my car circles the block for the next hour waiting for me)

I heard that argued before, and I say this: never going to happen. That's a pipe dream of driverless car aficionados.

Your car is never going to be able to compete with a fleet because the base operating cost of a driverless taxi is going to be fuel cost + maintenance and fleets will always be able to underprice you due to economies of scale. In essence, if you rent out your car, you will lose money because you will, at the very least, have to contend with the wear and tear.

But even if you just want the car to 'wait' by circling the block (instead of 'working' while it waits for you) ... it's not cheap to have the car circle the block for an hour. 1 hour of driving is going to cost you in fuel. It's going to put wear and tear on your car. You'll risk collision and traffic tickets. It may not be worth it to do that all the time. HAVING SAID THAT, once in a while, maybe you want to take that hit, and isn't it nice to have the option to do that? Maybe you're running late for your flight, and you want to quickly run in to the store to pick something up - take the hit and the risk.

There is no free lunch but options are good.

Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes

#197

Post by macspoofing »

seandougall wrote: post #181
macspoofing wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why does it have to be an anti-car narrative, or something insidious Because there is an ideological (i.e. irrational) component to some objections. It's true. >Why do you think limited-supply medallion systems existed in the first place Taxi lobby pressuring municipal governments? I cannot imagine you using the past system as an example of a well-run program. There was never a good reason to limit the number of tax…

> Your argument went away when EVERYONE could afford a car and clogged the streets anyway. I'm not sure I agree. If I drive a car to work, it sits in a parking garage all the rest of the day. If I take a Lyft, it continues to roam the streets waiting for the next fare. Any rideshare (or taxi, for that matter) that is not actively hired is a car that would not otherwise have been out on the road. I don't think they're…

>If I drive a car to work, it sits in a parking garage all the rest of the day. If I take a Lyft, it continues to roam the streets waiting for the next fare.

I argued this in another post, but this is a pipe dream of driverless car aficionados. Your car is never going to be able to compete with fleets. The base operating cost of a driverless car is fuel+maintenance and fleets will always be able to underprice you due to economies of scale. In essence, you will lose money every time you rent out your car. This is also a limiting factor for fleets as well. Too many cars will impact fleet revenues too because if they can't make up fuel and maintenance costs they will also have a operating loss.

Even in the world where this somehow doesn't happen, what's wrong with deploying your capital? If the streets get clogged (like they are today in major municipal centers), people will opt to for mass public transit until some sort of equilibrium is reached (like it does today). When I'm in Hong Kong or New York, sometimes I opt for subways instead of taxis or uber because it may take uber forever to fight through traffic to my destination.

Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes

#198

Post by shard972 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #141
rossdavidh wrote: post #95

I live in Austin, which for a period of time had basically driven out Uber and Lyft with regulation. Then, the Texas state government overruled the city, and Uber and Lyft came back. I can say from personal experience, our traffic did not get the slightest bit better when Uber and Lyft were gone. However, our drunk driving rates did apparently go up.

I live in Austin too. The reason you didn't notice much change is that several new services swooped in to fill the gap left by Uber and Lyft. There was even a very popular Facebook group where people (illegally) solicited ride-sharing services. So, in a sense, ride-sharing never really went away.

I don't have a FB account but i use uber so that's just not a solution that everybody would easily be able to jump over to.

Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes

#199

Post by lotsofpulp »

chimeracoder wrote: post #87
lotsofpulp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> or otherwise dangerous people (like the dancers on the NYC subway). ...what did the dancers ever do to you?

I've seen them taking up valuable space on a crowded train, acting as if they are owed attention, and aggressively panhandling people who are minding their own business. And there are plenty of accounts of them getting violent and rowdy when confronted. They generally increase stress levels.

Re: A new study says services like Uber and Lyft are causing urban traffic woes

#200

Post by macspoofing »

axlprose wrote: post #165
macspoofing wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why does it have to be an anti-car narrative, or something insidious Because there is an ideological (i.e. irrational) component to some objections. It's true. >Why do you think limited-supply medallion systems existed in the first place Taxi lobby pressuring municipal governments? I cannot imagine you using the past system as an example of a well-run program. There was never a good reason to limit the number of tax…

> any transportation option that incentivizes people not to own a car is good. Are companies offering to pay you to drive people around, with little barrier to entry, in a tough economy where it's getting increasingly difficult to afford living in urban centers, not also an incentive to own a car? More so, since the problem isn't so much about car ownership, but rather about the number of cars actually on the road at…

>Are companies offering to pay you to drive people around, with little barrier to entry, in a tough economy where it's getting increasingly difficult to afford living in urban centers, not also an incentive to own a car?

You'd think so, but Uber drivers aren't exactly rolling in money. In fact, if they aren't smart about it (i.e. if they don't know how to pick their routes, their customers, and opportune times where 'surge pricing' is in effect), they'll lose money from fuel costs + wear and tear. Seriously, if you think it's easy to make money driving Uber, try it.

My buddy is a truck mechanic and he sees it all the time. Lots of truckers now are independent contractors who own the truck. Some of those guys will spend as little as possible on a truck, get a couple gigs make some "decent" money. Inevitably they'll go in for maintenance and repairs and get hit with a $15,000 repair bill (or more, there is no upper bound) and watch all their profits evaporate.

>More so, since the problem isn't so much about car ownership, but rather about the number of cars actually on the road at any given time

That's a problem today in major urban centers. Do you know what people do? They take mass transit. I make that decision all the time, and sometimes it's just not worth to grab a cab or an uber because I know it's going to get stuck in traffic and a trip that should take 10 minutes, will take 50 minutes - even when work is willing to pay for my transit.

In a world with unlimited taxi/ride-sharing licenses, an equilibrium will be established, and price will fall. There is no downside. The current medallion system is there to protect capital investment of medallion owners and (to a lesser extent) the income of operators (thought, if they are contractors they make no money anyway).

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