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Chariot is shutting down

blog.chariot.com

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Re: Chariot is shutting down

#151

Post by eob »

I just wanted to chime in to thank Chariot for the service they provided.

In my experience, few startups literally make your entire day better. I’ve been using Chariot to commute across SF for about two years and it has given me more time at home with my wife and son, better ability to predict when I’ll arrive at work, and a way to use my commute as a quiet space for the reading I could never quite manage on a crowded bus.

So thanks to the whole team. Very sorry that the numbers didn’t quite work out at the end of the day, as it often turns out in the startup game.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#152

Post by justapassenger »

fouc wrote: post #89
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.

I think it's a fairly common pattern by now, startup gets bought out, and then shut down a few years later. There is probably strategic reasons for doing things like this.. Even if it does screw over the customers of the startup.

There's few common reasons: - Startups focus mostly on growth. Once you're part of a big company, they may look at your business and see that there is a lot of fraud (even if it wasn't intentional by the startup, but they just didn't focus at it) that makes it unsustainable - Lots of startups operate in space that just not profitable, but big companies buy them, out of fear of missing out. Then they realize, that there's really no money to be made there - Acqui-hiring - Startups often overrepresent what they can actually do or deliver

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#153

Post by johncalvinyoung »

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’s a pretty nice area, but not remotely reasonable for public transit except on very specific (and limited) corridors.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#154

Post by johncalvinyoung »

ghaff wrote: post #112
atombender wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I know ~one. It’s not common, and in general not very feasible.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#156

Post by crucini »

dba7dba wrote: post #146
wutbrodo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't quite true for many of the big cities of interest. There was an active high-modernist effort in the ~70s to destroy the walkable, transitable, livable parts of many American cities and cut freeways across them like big ugly neighborhood-destroying scars. Even transit wastelands like LA had an actual urban core (that they're now rebuilding), as well as a relatively extensive network of streetcars.

Los Angeles area had very advanced light railway system including Los Angeles Railway and Pacific Electric Railway Company up until 1960s. Check the map of Pacific Electric Railway Company, and you can see a railway running on the beach from Hermosa Beach up to Santa Monica. The famous Venice Beach Bike Path was originally what the Pacific Electric Railway Company rail used to be. Can you imagine light rails ON the b…

I've heard that story plenty of times, but I have my doubts, which increase over time. I think people simply didn't like streetcars once buses were available. I think streetcars were seen as a horrible, dangerous, inconvenient technology with massive infrastructure costs.

The first crack in my belief was a comment by a former Baltimore fire chief (I think) who had worked as a streetcar and bus driver earlier. He talked about how scary it was to operate a streetcar with its very poor braking, and how during the transition period every operator was jumping at the chance to become a bus driver.

I'm sure there's a grain of truth in there, about lobbying - but was it really the decisive factor? Could Amazon lobby and get Ebay shut down? Did landline phones fade away because of lobbying from the cellular industry?

Streetcars were a very cool idea but unfortunately motor buses were better in every objective way.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#157

Post by mncharity »

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

NYC has "dollar vans", legal and otherwise.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/nyregion/inside-the-dolla... https://projects.newyorker.com/story/nyc-dollar-vans/

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#158

Post by hindsightbias »

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…

Hundreds of thousands of San Franciscans shop from local markets and commute to work downtown every day. A single bus line has over 50K riders every day. I would guess 10’s of thousands commute to work by bike within sf.

This place is not Dallas.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#159

Post by laurencerowe »

atombender wrote: post #138
dmode wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are looking for San Francisco

Isn't SF/Bay Area notorious for its terrible traffic? My impression is that while it's easier, distance-wise, to get out of SF into nature than NYC, it's in a similar spot in terms of rush-hour traffic.

Getting out into nature from SF without a car is a little tricky. I still miss being able to take a train out into the countryside, walk in the hills finishing at a pub before taking a train home...

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#160

Post by zapita »

crucini wrote: post #156
dba7dba wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Los Angeles area had very advanced light railway system including Los Angeles Railway and Pacific Electric Railway Company up until 1960s. Check the map of Pacific Electric Railway Company, and you can see a railway running on the beach from Hermosa Beach up to Santa Monica. The famous Venice Beach Bike Path was originally what the Pacific Electric Railway Company rail used to be. Can you imagine light rails ON the b…

I've heard that story plenty of times, but I have my doubts, which increase over time. I think people simply didn't like streetcars once buses were available. I think streetcars were seen as a horrible, dangerous, inconvenient technology with massive infrastructure costs. The first crack in my belief was a comment by a former Baltimore fire chief (I think) who had worked as a streetcar and bus driver earlier. He talk…

> I'm sure there's a grain of truth in there, about lobbying - but was it really the decisive factor? Could Amazon lobby and get Ebay shut down? Did landline phones fade away because of lobbying from the cellular industry?

Streetcar companies were bought up by GM proxy companies and dismantled. Lobbying had nothing to do with it.

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