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Chariot is shutting down

blog.chariot.com

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Re: Chariot is shutting down

#121

Post by cbhl »

ng12 wrote: post #62
aniketpant wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't what you described an example of how buses work. I know very little about the state of public transport in SF but if it was better won't it solve what Chariot tried to do?

There is a bus that does that route. It follows El Camino (35-40mph most of the way) from San Jose to San Francisco. I used to take it as a broke college student and it was absolutely a last resort. Not only does it make dozens of stops but the bus is generally dirty and a hangout for transients. It ran 24/7 and took well over 2 hours each way, so homeless people would ride it basically all day.

Well, a series of three buses (one by Muni, one by SamTrans, and one by VTA).

But the homeless sleeping on the bus for $6/night is well documented: https://www.mercurynews.com/2013/10/31/homeless-turn-overnig...

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#122

Post by atombender »

hhw wrote: post #114
atombender wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Vancouver ticks a lot of boxes, but it's a bit cold, unfortunately.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#123

Post by wh-uws »

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…

Years too long also.

We'll have self driving cars long before we could restructure many of our cities to have effective public transit.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#124

Post by wpietri »

silotis wrote: post #88
scrumbledober wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the clipper card allow you to use one payment system for caltrain, bart, and muni? I'm not sure if SamTrans busses are included.

Clipper cards work on SamTrans buses too.

And they work on all the ferries I have taken recently. Other than the fact that it's one person per Clipper Card, they're great.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#125

Post by neom »

sethhochberg wrote: post #64
dr_ wrote: post #8

I’ve seen them around NYC, downloaded the app and waited for them to expand their routes but they never did. I’m not sure why. Seems like a good idea - but I suppose it may have been a challenge to compete with the wide variety of services, including public transportation, that are available in the city.

I've seen a lot of startups that have success in SF struggle with NYC because they treat it like the same kind of city. Between the half-dozen mass transit services operating in and around the city, a robust network of express commuter buses (both public _and_ private), dollar vans and gypsy cabs, there is an extremely robust transit network here - even if unconventional at times, and maligned with delays at others.…

I thought it would be useful when the L train shuts down and had planned to use them then, but now that's not happening I suppose they lost that advantage (also amusingly lyft has spent a boat load advertising the shut down around williamsburg recently).

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#126

Post by wpietri »

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…

I have lived in San Francisco since 2000 and have never owned a car. Transit varies a lot by neighborhood, but I think there are plenty of places to live and get by with just transit and/or a bicycle.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#127

Post by save_ferris »

wmab wrote: post #97

It's a shame to say goodbye to something that is quite synonymous with San Francisco life. From the comments a lot of people don't "get it" and then think that this is the reason it failed. I'm sure it's a decision based on the complexities of scaling and working with each city and county to make a truly successful business that they ran into too many problems. Not all businesses need to grow to huge heights to not b…

We're beginning to feel the crunch of car culture in the US, and not everyone is excited at the prospect of footing the bill to overhaul infrastructure and transportation systems at the public level.

> In a capitalist country, the markets will reward those who succeed.

This may be true, but markets will favor a solution that involves maintaining control of the system in order to generate profit.

If we want our transportation system to rival that of Europe's, it won't be done through market competition for transportation services/technology. Why? Because services like ridesharing don't incentivize the development of solid public-use transportation infrastructure. They represent the next revolution of US car culture, which isn't going to benefit as many people directly once cars become unaffordable for too many Americans, a trend that is already being observed[0].

Once this happens, we're going to rely on cars more than ever because we won't have a viable alternative. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that idea.

[0]: http://fortune.com/2017/06/28/car-buy-price/

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#128

Post by maximtheory »

dsl wrote: post #20
aniketpant wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't what you described an example of how buses work. I know very little about the state of public transport in SF but if it was better won't it solve what Chariot tried to do?

SF public transit is pretty disfunctional and Chariot was trying to offer an alternative. - Timeliness - Busses and trains reliability are a joke compared to developed countries - Cleanliness - Due to an unmitigated homeless problem, the busses and trains operate as "day shelters" - Organization - There are dozens of different transit operators for what is one major metro region. Schedules are poorly synced, and even…

It doesn't matter how well you are "solving a pain", when it turns out to be more of a localized pain of a city you reside in. The addressable market reduces to "cities with a dysfunctional transit system".

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#129

Post by metildaa »

maximtheory wrote: post #128
dsl wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF public transit is pretty disfunctional and Chariot was trying to offer an alternative. - Timeliness - Busses and trains reliability are a joke compared to developed countries - Cleanliness - Due to an unmitigated homeless problem, the busses and trains operate as "day shelters" - Organization - There are dozens of different transit operators for what is one major metro region. Schedules are poorly synced, and even…

It doesn't matter how well you are "solving a pain", when it turns out to be more of a localized pain of a city you reside in. The addressable market reduces to "cities with a dysfunctional transit system".

Most US cities are lacking a functional transit system. Seattle, Portland and a few others are odd birds in how transit gets dedicated bus jumps/lanes, signal priority, and is generally notably faster than driving during rush hour.

In Seattle specifically, the city taxes businesses who don't provide transit passes for their employees. It varies from the urban core to the further flung parts of town, but if you buy every employee a transit pass, its often equal cost or cheaper than the tax you pay per employee.

Bikers, people walking to work & those who buy passes elsewhere have to regularly recertify they aren't driving, which is a form that can be a tad annoying to fill out.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#130

Post by syassami »

eCa wrote: post #31
idoh wrote: post #5

I used Chariot a bit a couple years ago. Sad to see it go. For people who haven't heard of it, it worked like this: I live in SF, and worked in Redwood City. Every day, there was some type of large van that would pick me up a couple blocks from where I lived and dropped me off a couple blocks from where I worked. So it was like a middle ground between public transportation and Uber / Lyft.

It sounds a bit like marshrutka[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka

It was even once a thing in SF https://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/the-last-ride-of-...
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