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Chariot is shutting down

blog.chariot.com

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Re: Chariot is shutting down

#81

Post by pcwalton »

rsynnott wrote: post #49
chrischen wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many cities that do certain things better than others, but what I don't understand is that most local politicians don't travel there and learn from how others govern their cities and don't accept their own problems have been solved elsewhere.

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'm not sure why you got the impression otherwise, but people do use transit in SF, a lot. The 38 Geary is so packed that you frequently can't even get on at major stops like Powell during rush hour.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#82

Post by wutbrodo »

chrischen wrote: post #34
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…

There are many cities that do certain things better than others, but what I don't understand is that most local politicians don't travel there and learn from how others govern their cities and don't accept their own problems have been solved elsewhere.

Follow SF politics for a couple of years, and you'll see that the problem isn't lack of technocratic solutions, it's politics (with some exceptions that tend to be problems larger than a single city's scope). A supervisor can go tour every functional city in the world and when they came back, they wouldn't be any more effective, because knowledge of how to fix things wasn't the blocker.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#83

Post by xaybey »

I used Chariot daily for my commute when I lived in the outer richmond (24th ave). Its existential purpose was to ensure you would only travel with fellow commuters, and not the raving lunatics who rode the muni. It was a kind of bridge above the fray.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#84

Post by justizin »

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 for 15 years with no car, both at the bottom of the nation's income brackets and near the top.

Some people just don't want to mix with "normal" people and a lot of San Franciscans wish they would fucking leave.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#85

Post by blacksmith_tb »

dmazin wrote: post #32
eCa wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Every time I return to Russia these fascinate me. They have many routes and will stop wherever you request. The general term is Share taxi: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi

In Morocco they're called Grands Taxis, and they are quite useful for getting around from village to village. In the morning people come to the public square and once enough passengers who want to travel along the same route have assembled you all pack into an old diesel Mercedes sedan and split the fare. I remember the driver buying all of his passengers lunch on one of my trips!

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#86

Post by rsynnott »

lhorie wrote: post #63
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.…

> visitor accessible, payment system. And more realtime bus information These do exist: purchasing fares via the Muni app is pretty straightforward and services like nextmuni.com and similar apps can tell you when the next bus is coming. Frequency is definitely subpar though. When I first came to SF, I was supposed to meet with a job interviewer for dinner in a place at mission. The subway train took 30 minutes to sh…

I used the Muni app to buy fares; it demanded a US zip code, and crashed repeatedly.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#87

Post by paulie_a »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #35

Pls stop trying to re-invent public transit.

Public transit sucks. In a lot of cases if I am with a friend I can get an Uber pool or express for the same price as public transportation. I might have to pay a small premium of 50 cents at times but the convenience is far better, and no transfers. Hell I can even use commuter benefits.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#88

Post by silotis »

scrumbledober wrote: post #60
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.…

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.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#89

Post by fouc »

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.

Re: Chariot is shutting down

#90

Post by rsynnott »

scrumbledober wrote: post #60
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.…

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.

Huh, I googled before and got the idea you had to get it by post or something. Looks like that’s outdated information.
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