Uber Hit with Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by blondie9x » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 9:56 PM UTC

Ride sharing in general is worsening traffic and causing less utilization of mass transit.

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2018/02/ride-sharing-actua...

We have to find a way to have better more effective cities built for people that utilize walking, biking, and transit. The less cars the better: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-11/fight-cli...

We have to find a way to stop the laziness/traffic/transit abandonment that spreads with ride sharing. http://devonzuegel.com/post/we-should-be-building-cities-for...

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

#92

Post by rhino369 » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 9:57 PM UTC

djstein wrote: post #43

moorhosj wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

==NYC is one of the few (like 2, maybe 3) America cities with an actual usable rail system== Interested to hear what the other cities are. Chicago? San Fran?

Chicago and DC

DC Metro is having issues on par with NYC's. The cause is likely the same; improper maintenance.

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

#93

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #45

TuringNYC wrote: post #11

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.

It's pretty easy. Undecover bylaw enforcement can hail a cab, ask to be driven to Brooklyn, when the driver refuses, cite them, and pull their medallion for a month. I guarantee you, after a few medallions get pulled, this problem will evaporate. What you have is lack of will in enforcement.

That doesn't work when the people with medallions are buddies with the people who determine the budget for enforcement.

When the medallion owners all tell their politicans that $agency is terrible and bad for business then $agency gets told to knock it off and/or de-prioritized in next years budget.

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

#94

Post by jroblak » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #84

jroblak wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/uber…

> the standard, clean, regulated experience I have every time I jump into a yellow or green cab Huh, haven't been in one where the driver wasn't on the phone in ages. Two weeks ago, my black friend was refused pick-up. Brooklyn-based friends are regularly refused transport. At least the credit card machine broken trick stopped a few years ago.

Every single one of those things is illegal, and can be reported.

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

#95

Post by romwell » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

strict9 wrote: post #74

romwell wrote: 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.

>Except for bus riders [..] that deal with much more congestion.

Seattle might have a word about that. Or two. The words that start with "bus" and end with "lane".

>And cyclists that deal with much more congestion.

Pretty please, really?

>And transit riders that deal with services changes as a result of decreased transit ridership.

Right, blame decreased ridership on Uber, instead of all the problems that make people use Uber instead.

You know when MTA ridership was at its peak? 1946[1]. It has actually been on an increase over the last decade[2], trailing behind population increase, though. Only over the last two years we've seen it drop a little.

Uber has been there before this dip. You know what hasn't been? People getting naked in trains stuck in tunnels without AC[3]. One could think it might have something to do with decrease in ridership.

People want to take the trains. People don't want persistent delays, constantly increasing fares, service changes, shutdowns, being stuck in tunnels, unpredictability. You can blame Uber for many things, but hardly that.

[1]http://web.mta.info/nyct/110Anniversary/ridership.htm

[2]http://web.mta.info/nyct/facts/ridership/

[3]https://jalopnik.com/regular-evening-commute-turns-into-nake...

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

#96

Post by dahdum » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 9:59 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #45

TuringNYC wrote: post #11

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.

It's pretty easy. Undecover bylaw enforcement can hail a cab, ask to be driven to Brooklyn, when the driver refuses, cite them, and pull their medallion for a month. I guarantee you, after a few medallions get pulled, this problem will evaporate. What you have is lack of will in enforcement.

The drivers don't usually own the medallion, they lease the car for a shift and try to make the cost back by picking up fares.

The medallion lobby is strong and politically connected (as we've just seen), so pulling of medallions is highly unlikely.

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

#97

Post by madamelic » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 9:59 PM UTC

jroblak wrote: post #76

romwell wrote: 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/uber…

>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

You and I have had vastly different experiences in cabs.

The cabs are disgusting. I can't understand the driver and he takes the long way around to squeeze more money out of me.

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

#98

Post by zone411 » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 10:00 PM UTC

weeksie wrote: post #56

colinbartlett wrote: post #29

If the problem they are trying to solve is "too many vehicles" then we need a congestion tax. They should certainly not be limiting vehicles that are more likely to take multiple people with a Pool option. If the problem they are trying to solve is "drivers aren't making enough" then they should impose a minimum wage on drivers or force an actual employee relationship. If the problem they are trying to solve is a bai…

Unfortch Bloomberg tried congestion pricing and it got strangled in the cot. That would be my preference too. Simple, market-based, fair, etc. . . . With the ranks of uber cars in the city growing as much as they have the downtown traffic has become insane and I'm for anything that would relieve that congestion. I've been living along the Prince/Spring corridor for ~10 years now and the change in bumper-to-bumper tra…

Your data on the number of daily rides seems quite outdated. It was 400k/day for Uber, 112k for Lyft, and 300k for taxis in the latest article I saw (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/nyregion/uber-taxi-driver...) and I don't see your numbers in this article. You'd at least need to know the average trip length and the work time per driver to make any comparisons as to who's more efficient.

But I agree with you that the congestion pricing would be a better idea.

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

#99

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 10:00 PM UTC

TuringNYC wrote: post #69

TuringNYC wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the problem is that you are mayor and got lots of campaign funding from the taxi lobby and now they want their pound of flesh? http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/don-big-bill-article-1.14... FROM ARTICLE "A review of all contributions to de Blasio raised by or made by taxi lawyers, owners and other associates in the 2013 campaign tallies $254,451, making them de Blasio’s biggest backers by far. Fleet owner Ro…

Not sure why the downvotes. One has to realize that sometimes "solutions" are an answer not to a problem but to address some constituency.

Further than that, we can’t have democracy unless all contributions to politicians/ candidates are reported and published in real time.

Without that we can’t know if a person deserves to hold a position, or even if they are eligible.

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

#100

Post by tomjakubowski » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 10:00 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #68

ddtaylor wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with a vast majority of the vehicles on the road not being owned by the people who use them for transportation? It seems that a large amount of people don't want to purchase and maintain a vehicle they might not always be using and instead pay on-demand like they do for many other services where someone specializes to reduce the cost for others?

Driving a car from A to B is less miles driven than someone driving from X to A to pick you up before driving to B to drop you off them Y to wait for next ride. Thus Uber increases congestion.

Another factor is that the mere existence of options like Uber and Lyft likely means people take trips they otherwise would not.

The thing Uber/Lyft do remove is the need for so much parking. On the flip side, do they need more places to idle and await new rides, if we don't want them to congest roadways while doing that.