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Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

latimes.com

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Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#171

Post by kbos87 »

twblalock wrote: post #86
kbos87 wrote: post #65

Amen. Uber and Lyft are adding congestion to our roads and undermining public transportation, all while profiting off public infrastructure and a class of driver “partners” who incur all of the costs for a razor thin upside. Id like to see the start of a state owned rideshare network with specially zoned drop off, pick up, and lane privileges that Uber and Lyft don’t get access to.

> Id like to see the start of a state owned rideshare network with specially zoned drop off, pick up, and lane privileges that Uber and Lyft don’t get access to. Uber and Lyft exist because the state didn't build one of those. In fact the state has built a completely inadequate public transit system in LA. Uber and Lyft are widely used because people in LA don't have an alternative.

Fine, but the concept is out in the world now. The cities should be able to replicate the concept, compete and leverage their strengths the same way any for profit entity could.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#172

Post by kbos87 »

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #75
kbos87 wrote: post #65

Amen. Uber and Lyft are adding congestion to our roads and undermining public transportation, all while profiting off public infrastructure and a class of driver “partners” who incur all of the costs for a razor thin upside. Id like to see the start of a state owned rideshare network with specially zoned drop off, pick up, and lane privileges that Uber and Lyft don’t get access to.

State owned rideshare network will be better how exactly? People taking their car or someone else’s makes no difference.

I’m not saying they need to deliver a better service. I’m saying they should meet the current status quo, and use their regulatory power to make Uber and Lyft’s services inferior.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#173

Post by smallgovt »

How do you guys think the trend from public transit to rideshare will look once self-driving cars begin ramping up?

I imagine that without the cost of labor from the driver, rideshares should become dirt cheap. Will anybody use public transit in 10 years? If not, the congestion problem will get many times worse.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#174

Post by will4274 »

shereadsthenews wrote: post #31
jvanderbot wrote: post #27

Comparing rideshare to public transit, this tells me there's clearly a need for easier, faster transit even with higher pricing. Solution? Try to ruin it. Instead, maybe we should embrace it and provide incentives for ridesharing vs driving alone? E.g. give uber a lane on the highway for 2+ passengers and tax only single rider transits. Give a few lyft ride coupons with every monthly bus pass. Provide benefits to usi…

Can we stop with the "rideshare" junk yet? Uber and Lyft are computer-dispatched taxi services. The overwhelming majority of their trips involve the driver going to someplace they have no need of going, with either zero or one other person in the car.

> The overwhelming majority of their trips involve the driver going to someplace they have no need of going, with either zero or one other person in the car.

Can you cite a source? At least where I am (Seattle) Uber Pool and Express are quite popular - and I rarely see hard numbers.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#175

Post by [deleted] »

greeneggs wrote: post #13

> Metro’s rough estimates suggest a 20-cent fee on each trip could bring in $401 million over a decade, while a $2.75 fee could raise $5.5 billion. Hmm, $401 million / 20 cents * $2.75 = $5.51 billion. Is there some "law" that public transportation officials never account for the fact that increased fares or taxes will reduce demand? Maybe most people don't care, but I find it hard to take seriously anyone who doesn'…

[deleted]

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#176

Post by overgard »

Seems like there could be a lot of unintended commercial consequences — people that would be customers deciding not to bother. I don’t know the situation in other places, but in Colorado the RTD smartphones apps are just awful. Twice in the last month I ended up taking an uber home because the ticketing app for the buses was down and I couldn’t access tickets I bought. Not to mention it frequently feels unsafe. I’m fortunate to be a 6’4” male, but if I was say a 5’2” woman I would totally want to avoid the harassment.

Maybe the focus should be in providing better public transportation instead of encouraging people to stay home.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#177

Post by nitwit005 »

habosa wrote: post #160

The congestion caused by Uber and Lyft in SF is bad . It's not because of the number of cars on the road, although that's certainly something, it's because of how those cars behave. Ubers and Lyfts pull over at unpredictable spots (wherever the app says to) and then just throw on their flashers. It doesn't matter if they're blocking a lane in rush hour they just stop. I will never for my life understand why an Uber o…

All the delivery services park illegally as well. For a long time I assumed they had some sort of exemption because it was so common. They just eat the tickets as cost of doing business.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#178

Post by xvedejas »

mikeash wrote: post #136
reaperducer wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the damage is virtually all from large trucks, with sedans and SUVs as a rounding error. Which is why the California tax on gasoline is 48.7¢/gallon and the California tax on diesel fuel is 67¢/gallon.[1] Federal tax on gasoline is 18.4¢/gallon, and diesel fuel is 24.4¢/gallon.[2] I'm not defending the trucking industry. I think more stuff should go by train instead. But truck fuel is taxed more heavily than car f…

It’s taxed slightly more heavily. But trucks cause literally thousands of times more damage than cars.

They also require more gas per mile. It seems like it should roughly add up to paying a few more times than cars (they're a few times less fuel efficient).

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#179

Post by pishpash »

djakjxnanjak wrote: post #147
wjossey wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to your point, they absolutely could solve the chokepoint issues with eminent domain, and adding additional arteries, but they choose not to. For people who think a congestion tax will improve traffic, it won't. Congestion taxes work if they can shift behaviors to alternate modes of transportation. If there aren't any alternatives, it's just a levy.

Congestion taxes can also shift road use to other times. Imagine many people on the roads are making relatively short trips (eg. a trip that takes 20 mins in traffic instead of 10 mins) that generate a lot of lane changes and contribute to congestion. A congestion tax could encourage them to drive in non-peak times, use the bus, or not make the trip.

The city is already built this way and people already made decisions on where to work and live based on facts on the ground. Unless congestion charges are levies only on newcomers, it has no legitimacy. Try these social experiments on a new city.

Re: Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

#180

Post by nodesocket »

nickles wrote: post #3

> Uber and Lyft “are using public roads, and the profit is going to their companies,” Phil Washington, Metro’s chief executive, said at a recent meeting. Public roads are supposed to be paid for through fuel taxes, which every Uber and Lyft driver pays. California has gasoline taxes of: * 55.22c per gallon (second only to Pennsylvania) * 18.4c per gallon (federal) * 2.25% sales tax Additionally, taxing only rideshari…

> Uber and Lyft “are using public roads, and the profit is going to their companies,”

Using this logic, they should be taxing all companies that use public roads (food delivery, package delivery, service companies), instead they are specifically cherry picking Uber and Lyft to target. These sort of anti-business policies are causing companies and people in masses to flee California and New York. Perhaps that is the goal.

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