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Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown

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71–80 of 303 posts

Re: Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you lie when hailing the cab and once inside say they misheard you and say the genuine destination? Not allowed I imagine but pretty hard to enforce that rule? (Genuine question, as a UK reaident I’ve little experience of the US taxi system and have always had excellent service from taxi firms in the UK - as a result I’ve never really understood the problem Uber is solving in the UK)

Yes, I did that a couple of times. Then once I got in, i changed the destination. It made for a tense ride because you're already in an adverserial transaction for something that should be a default right of rider. Oh, and my mom has bigger problems. Cabs pass her by at Manhattan hospitals. Of course no one knows drivers' intents for sure, but there is some quick eyeballing, i'm sure, of whether the potential passeng…

> There is also a larger problem Uber solves (one of many) -- once you lose density (i.e., outside airport/centercity) it is hard to hail a cab, so you have to dial a cab. You dail, they invariably say "wait outside be there in 5 min" -- sometimes they show up in 5min, sometimes 10min, sometimes 30min, sometimes never. Variable pricing and GPS tracking solves this.

Variable pricing solves this for people with the ability to pay. Rationing scarce goods by wealth is not necessarily a better overall outcome then distributing scarce goods by lottery.

Also, if full-time night-shift cabbies are driven out of business by part-time rideshares, you may end up in a situation where the only night-time service available - ever - is at surge pricing. This is less of an issue in NYC, then it is in smaller towns.

Re: Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown

#72
post #64
post #22

Alternative title: "NYC Taxi mafia strikes back, gives Uber 12 months to come up with a large enough bribe". Really, the life of nearly everyone (who's not a taxi driver, perhaps) improved a bit since Uber entered the city. Even the fabled subway in its theoretical best has been dysfunctional in Brooklyn since the takedown of streetcars a hundred years ago (see how all the tracks are running towards Manhattan and ver…

The flipside is this may actually be good for NYC Uber drivers. Generally I feel like they have to sweat and toil to make a living, more so than Uber drivers in other cities. This may give them some relief as supply stays constant.

>supply stays constant.

Licenses for new drivers are stopped so the supply will dwindle, riders will get frustrated and stop heavy reliance on it.

Re: Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sad. NYC is one of the few (like 2, maybe 3) America cities with an actual usable rail system and it's rotted into disrepair. I'm all for limiting rid share vehicles and better wages for drivers, but they need to dump a shit ton of time and money into the rail system, both the subway and intercity. Fix Penn Station, and get the tracks up to spec! That should be the #1 priority for city transport infrastructur…

Born and raised in Manhattan back when normal people could actually live there. I don't see how the NYC subway system could be other than a complete wreck given their insistence on running a 24/7 service. Shut down the system from midnight to 5am with a corresponding increase in bus service during that time.

In Manhattan they're mostly running a 4-track system, so they can easily shut down half the tracks for maintenance while maintaining 24/7 service. I think they've got other problems.

For alternative examples: BART is not 24/7, and possibly sucks even more than MTA. CTA's 2 main lines are 24/7, but it's nearly 100% a 2-track system, and its biggest problem (IMO, anyway) is that the arrangement of seats inside the cars is so very desperately bonehaded.

Re: Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown

#74
post #22

Alternative title: "NYC Taxi mafia strikes back, gives Uber 12 months to come up with a large enough bribe". Really, the life of nearly everyone (who's not a taxi driver, perhaps) improved a bit since Uber entered the city. Even the fabled subway in its theoretical best has been dysfunctional in Brooklyn since the takedown of streetcars a hundred years ago (see how all the tracks are running towards Manhattan and ver…

>Really, the life of nearly everyone improved a bit since Uber entered the city.

Except for bus riders and cyclists that deal with much more congestion. And transit riders that deal with services changes as a result of decreased transit ridership.

Not to mention behavior like drivers randomly stopping in places that weren't designed for stopped cars.

Re: Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown

#75
post #3

NYC is closing down the L train next year for a year at the very least. So far, the city has proposed more water taxis as the primary solution to handle rerouting the 300k daily riders. Right now, the water taxi ridership is 1370 people per day. Secondarily, the city has indicated it might make some of the bridges carpool or ride-share only. Either way, all signs point to the shutdown heading towards a painful if not…

> So far, the city has proposed more water taxis as the primary solution to handle rerouting the 300k daily riders. I don't understand what your complaint is. Not every L train ride crosses the river (I'll concede at least half probably do, though). MTA is also adding supplemental bus and train service. Do you think they should instead allow ride share to fill the gap? If so, I have doubts the city's geometry (partic…

https://technical.ly/brooklyn/2018/02/19/mta-announces-will-...

It's less of a complaint, but rather my belief that the water ferry system currently transports so few passengers that I do not believe it will absorb much of the excess spillover.

I don't know if more rideshare permits are the optimal solution, but I won't pass legislation that limits licenses a half a year away from a major public transportation shutdown. I have my doubts it would support 300k trips as well, but if it can support 25k through rideshare services or carpool services like Via, it at least helps solve the problem.

Re: Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown

#76
post #22

Alternative title: "NYC Taxi mafia strikes back, gives Uber 12 months to come up with a large enough bribe". Really, the life of nearly everyone (who's not a taxi driver, perhaps) improved a bit since Uber entered the city. Even the fabled subway in its theoretical best has been dysfunctional in Brooklyn since the takedown of streetcars a hundred years ago (see how all the tracks are running towards Manhattan and ver…

There is a lot of ridiculous hyperbole and disingenuousness in this post so it's a little hard to take seriously.

As someone who has lived in New York for the past ten years, the entrance of Uber hasn't changed my life at all, other than some VCs subsidizing/coercing some lower income drivers into taking $10 off my fare when I go to the airport.

Public transportation, which you deride, usage utterly dwarfs taxis/ubers/etc (notice all of the large buildings _in Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn_ where people work?). The MTA definitely has some issues, but calling it dysfunctional because it takes a little extra time to go from Astoria to Prospect Park is absurd.

I don't need to be reminded of the standard, clean, regulated experience I have every time I jump into a yellow or green cab. Boro taxis were introduced into the city _two years after_ Uber entered NYC. How can you possible hand wave them away with "too little too late"? And Uber has its fair share of drivers who have no idea where they're going (actually, definitely more, but I will say they're better about following GPS, which can be both good and bad).

They're taking about limited the number and providing a minimum wage, hardly life changing stuff.

Re: Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown

#77
post #22

Alternative title: "NYC Taxi mafia strikes back, gives Uber 12 months to come up with a large enough bribe". Really, the life of nearly everyone (who's not a taxi driver, perhaps) improved a bit since Uber entered the city. Even the fabled subway in its theoretical best has been dysfunctional in Brooklyn since the takedown of streetcars a hundred years ago (see how all the tracks are running towards Manhattan and ver…

[deleted]

Re: Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure, but green cabs do address the bias against the non-Manhattan crowd. It is very common for yellow cabs in NYC to refuse rides to Brooklyn/etc. Destination discrimination "isnt allowed" but there isn't really a way to enforce the rule.

Could you lie when hailing the cab and once inside say they misheard you and say the genuine destination? Not allowed I imagine but pretty hard to enforce that rule? (Genuine question, as a UK reaident I’ve little experience of the US taxi system and have always had excellent service from taxi firms in the UK - as a result I’ve never really understood the problem Uber is solving in the UK)

  I’ve never really understood the
  problem Uber is solving in the UK
I've had excellent service from taxi firms in my hometown in the UK, and I always try to use a local service before I resort to Uber.

Times I've resorted to Uber include when I visited Bournemouth and got scammed by a driver who "didn't have change" for £20 on a £16 fare, when I visited Coventry where taxis don't accept credit cards, and when I visited Montreal where their homegrown uber-equivalent doesn't support foreign phone numbers.

In other words, fairly basic service delivery issues that local taxis could easily solve, but that for some reason they haven't solved.

Re: Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown

#79
post #22

Alternative title: "NYC Taxi mafia strikes back, gives Uber 12 months to come up with a large enough bribe". Really, the life of nearly everyone (who's not a taxi driver, perhaps) improved a bit since Uber entered the city. Even the fabled subway in its theoretical best has been dysfunctional in Brooklyn since the takedown of streetcars a hundred years ago (see how all the tracks are running towards Manhattan and ver…

i live in nyc and im glad this is happening. we have a traffic congestion problem here - i dont want more ubers, lyfts or yellow cabs on the street, i want less. i wish nyc would copy london and actually tax people for enter every bridge, tunnel etc in rush hours to stop it.

the law of diminishing returns is in full effect here, regardless of what the engineers and SC want to tell themselves.

Re: Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown

#80
post #22

Alternative title: "NYC Taxi mafia strikes back, gives Uber 12 months to come up with a large enough bribe". Really, the life of nearly everyone (who's not a taxi driver, perhaps) improved a bit since Uber entered the city. Even the fabled subway in its theoretical best has been dysfunctional in Brooklyn since the takedown of streetcars a hundred years ago (see how all the tracks are running towards Manhattan and ver…

This post is full of schlock. I live in brooklyn and commute to manhattan via subway everyday. It's reliable and good.
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