Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chariot is shutting down

blog.chariot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 200 posts

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#111

Post by michaelleslie »

scrumbledober wrote: post #56

I had a chariot driver cut me off on my bike while i was riding down second street and he was turning left onto second across my lane. He stopped once in my lane and I didn't have enough time to stop so I hit the side of his van, somewhat damaging my bike. He looked right at me and then drove away. I tried to contact chariot about this and got absolutely nowhere. Glad to see them go.

Their vans are an absolute terror whenever I ride down Market Street on my commute. Muni clearly has higher driver hiring standards.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#112

Post by ghaff »

atombender wrote: post #99
Rebelgecko wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible on the West Coast, and actually probably easier to do in bigger cities. However you need to be particular about where you live and work, which usually involves paying more money. It also becomes much harder if you have a significant other and kids.

Sure. Looking for specific examples, though! Currently residing in NYC and pretty unhappy about the difficulty of getting out in nature. My ideal town is on the water; not too big; good public transportation; flat enough for biking; forests, mountains and lakes easily reachable by bike/walking/subway; dense urban core for apartment living or small house; decent downtown with some brand name shopping; temperate climat…

Raleigh has a small downtown area that is walkable. I’m there a number of times a year and my hotel is a few blocks from my office. There are some downtown condos. I doubt any professionals live downtown without a car.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#113

Post by usaar333 »

lemoncucumber wrote: post #71
brezina wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The core of san francisco, probably 30% of the city's 49 sq mile landmass, and where 60%+ of the population lives, was built before cars existed. Most of SF was a walking/horse city, and then a walking/streetcar/cablecar city.

It's no coincidence that SF is the only part of the Bay Area where it's truly viable to live without a car.

True, alongside downtown Berkeley, Oakland, and Palo Alto (maybe a few others)

Nonetheless, mass transit in SF is still pretty crappy. Muni is notoriously unreliable and slow (it's often faster to jog than take Muni -- to say nothing of biking).

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#114

Post by hhw »

atombender wrote: post #78
geofft wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the history of transit-disrupting startups in the SF Bay Area can be attributed to how truly bad public transit in the SF Bay Area is. I understood Uber a lot more after trying to hail a taxi in SF. (Same with Boring Company and LA traffic.) A real disruptive solution for humanity - but a hard one to monetize - would be to figure out why cities with good public transit / shared transit infrastructure managed…

I don't know the West coast very well, so I'm curious -- are there any (smaller) cities there where you can actually get by without a car to do grocery shopping, commute to one's office (assuming it's in the same town/city), etc.? I'm thinking something comparable to Amsterdam, Copenhagen or Berlin, where you can get by with a bike and/or subway, or often just walking. Portland? Seattle? I've visited Silicon Valley a…

Vancouver, BC is probably the easiest city on the West Coast to manage without a car. The downtown core is very walkable, and there is reasonable public transit through most of the greater metro area. There's a high proportion of residential buildings downtown, and many have pretty empty parking lots as cars aren't necessary for a lot of people most of the time, and there are a number of competing car share services the rest of the time.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#115

Post by cbhl »

dabockster wrote: post #41
rconti wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco and Redwood City are roughly 30 miles apart. In the Bay Area, in particular, buses tend to work on a city or county level, which would mean to make this trip, assuming buses were conveniently located, timed, and without too many stops, it would involve using several transit systems, unfortunately. San Francisco and Redwood City not only have dozens of other cities between them, but they're also in 2 dif…

This sounds like why Sound Transit exists in the Seattle-Tacoma metro area. It basically creates an adapter pattern-like third agency that manages the long distance routes between the major cities and counties.

The problem is that two municipalities (one on each side of the bay) voted down the measures that would have funded the regional transit agency.

Thus, the train lines stop at the borders of these two municipalities, and there are two other train systems that cover the missing area.

(BART, Amtrak, and Caltrain.)

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#116

Post by beardedwizard »

scrumbledober wrote: post #56

I had a chariot driver cut me off on my bike while i was riding down second street and he was turning left onto second across my lane. He stopped once in my lane and I didn't have enough time to stop so I hit the side of his van, somewhat damaging my bike. He looked right at me and then drove away. I tried to contact chariot about this and got absolutely nowhere. Glad to see them go.

I have had frequent encounters with these drivers as well as the Bauer drivers.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#117

Post by ghaff »

kelp wrote: post #93
SilasX wrote: post #55

Wasn't it profitable when Ford acquired? Isn't there a pretty reliable userbase? How did they mess it up? I don't mean to be the conspiracy guy, but it matches the pattern of the streetcar thing: Buy car-obviating service, shut it down.

This is purely my own speculation informed by some Clayton Christiansen, but it's possible that someone at Ford sees Ford as a transportation company, not a car company. So the job to be done is moving people and things around. Ford also sponsors the Ford GoBikes that you see all over San Francisco. This could be seen as competing with the Ford the car company. Or it's just part of the portfolio of products from Ford…

What you’re describing is actually Theodore Levitt Marketing Myopia. Probably overapplied. https://www.cnet.com/news/marketing-myopia-isnt/

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#118

Post by cbhl »

blt wrote: post #45
geofft wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the history of transit-disrupting startups in the SF Bay Area can be attributed to how truly bad public transit in the SF Bay Area is. I understood Uber a lot more after trying to hail a taxi in SF. (Same with Boring Company and LA traffic.) A real disruptive solution for humanity - but a hard one to monetize - would be to figure out why cities with good public transit / shared transit infrastructure managed…

old cities: built dense for walking, because cars didn't exist. new cities: built dense for walking and public transit because private car ownership isn't that common in China 20th century USA cities: built for cars. Sprawl makes public transit too expensive because it requires many lines with low ridership. Wide roads, long distances, and cars flying around everywhere makes walking scary. Driving becomes the only at…

Also add:

- years of racism (then: buses are only for white people. now: buses are only for poor people of color, and thus should not be funded.)

- a history of destruction happening primarily in neighbourhoods of ethnic minorities (e.g. the razing of SoMa in the 80s)

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#119

Post by gnicholas »

elektor wrote: post #108

For the people that used this and are upset about Chariot shutting down, you should give Waze Carpool a try.

Can you share some experience on how you’ve used Waze Carpool, or how the economics work? I’ve wondered about it but not tried it out.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#120

Post by cbhl »

coccinelle wrote: post #58
rsynnott wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicken and egg problem. You can’t have a good transport system if people don’t use it (too expensive) and people won’t use it unless it’s good. Was in San Francisco recently and it really is mostly impressively bad, but one of the major sources of badness is that it’s mostly pretty infrequent. Presumably because people don’t use it. Edit: One thing they could fix, easily; unified, visitor accessible, payment system.…

I thought the same (bad transit, people don't use it, it becomes even worse), but after no longer being able to ride my bike, I realized that many buses and Muni trains are packed at least at rush hour. People do use public transit in SF, so its sorry state is even more of a shame.

My pet theory: the people who use it (immigrants, environmentalists, folks new to town) are not the people who make funding decisions ("san francisco natives").
Post reply on HN