Taxi, Uber, and Lyft Usage in New York City

I guess it depends on where in NYC.

Currently staying in Manhattan - why wait for an Uber if you can simply flag down a cab?

And all of them have the CC terminals in them now, when did you last get one without?

My last Uber experience here was shit btw, the location near the WTC memorial was slightly off, the driver would not drive over where I told him to - I had my whole family incl. a toddler in a stroller. Fuck him then, flagged down a cab and off we went.

YMMV

I agree with everything but:

>Uber and Lyft should probably be a bit more regulated

The reason behind the taxi situation now is _because_ it is regulated. Regulation never helps the end-consumers, it helps the big corporations hold out competition.

There's another reason I've wondered about. It's not politically correct. All the Ubers I've used had white or sometimes Hispanic-American drivers. But taxis have all (except for Portland) been either African (esp ~ethiopian), Palestinian, some region of India I can't place, etc. They're dominated by recent immigrants.

So I wonder if average young white couple on their way to dinner or whatever, simply likes the white-driver experience.

Another awesome benefit of using Uber I didn't realize until I started using it: you get a detailed invoice of each trip you take on your phone, instead of having to ask for a paper one to the driver, wait for it to be printed and then actually make sure you don't lose it. And that's not all! Uber's invoice includes a map of your route, so you'd be able to see if the uber drive "tried to scam you" by taking a longer road or by making a bunch of unnecessary turns. This is incredibly useful as it's a common practice (at least in my side of the world) with taxi drivers and tourists, and of course Uber drivers won't try to pull it off as they know you'll notice, even if you're not from there. One day our driver made a bunch of mistakes (he admitted as much) driving us home and we ended up with a, say, 20% extra rate for that ride than we'd normally get. This was in Mexico City btw. On the email invoice I could clearly see the funny way we took. I replied to Uber, explained the situation, and within 48 hours they reimbursed me for a chunk of the cost of the ride. If that isn't an absolutely delightful experience overall, I don't know what is. I know Uber as a company is guilty of some predatory behavior to drivers, ignores current legislation for profit and they'll put all their drivers out of a job as soon as they can get their whole fleet to drive itself. But dammit, if they're growing so much and they have so much of support is because the user experience is bliss.

As pinaceae says below, a few of these are non-issues. NYC taxies always have working credit card machines, are relatively clean, drivers are usually polite enough.

In my experience (Manhattan), all taxi services have about the same service, and about the same pricing, with some special variations.

Anecdotally, Most people I know have Uber, Lyft, and Gett (a third service not mentioned in this article) on their phone. When they need to go somewhere, they request a ride on multiple services, usually taking the one with the fastest pickup lowest rate. But, at any point in the process, if there is a taxi driving by then they will just hail it down and cancel the ride requests.

Personally, I will default to the Gett $10 below 110st deal, then check Uber and Lyft. Sometimes I will take a taxi if it's there. Since the real benefit of taxi request services is not waiting, if taking a taxi would be faster, then that is what I will default to.

The only reason I've ever heard for saving taxis is that they paid for medallions and should benefit to the exclusion of people who weren't allowed to buy medallions.

I'm happy to let their graft payments go to waste. Those who collaborate with such rules don't deserve our protection in the end.

There may be a cultural aspect, too. When I was a kid, taxis were for rich people or businessmen. Even if I can afford it now, it just feels like an extravagance to take a taxi. Of course, the lack of price transparency means this bias is never going to be eroded. In my mind, a taxi is going to cost $50 for even the shortest trip, and so I never even bother.

Counterpoint:

* Uber drivers often have no idea how to get around. In my city, they're often suburbanites who have come in to drive the drinking crowd to three or four entertainment strips. Venture outside of that and they don't even know where they are.

* The worst experiences I've ever had being driven by anyone in any context have been in Uber. My theory is that because people are in their own personal cars, they feel justified driving just like they do when they're alone. Whatever the cause, I have had some truly dangerous drivers.

* I don't necessarily need or desire a complete detailed history of every ride I've ever taken. There are huge potential privacy concerns.

> - Most taxi drivers I've met have been incredibly rude and impatient, and then expect a 20% tip. On top of that, I've had a bunch of them lie and say they don't accept credit cards after the trip is complete, even though there is a sign that says they are legally required to. "The machine is broken" isn't a valid excuse.

I commented about this to a taxi driver once, and in a moment of surprising candidness, he told me that one reason this happens is because the taxi company he get dispatch from doesn't pay out credit card payments for something like a month and a half (obviously different companies and different cities will be different here), so drivers who are tight at bill time will insist on cash so they can make ends meet.

I asked an Uber driver and they said they get paid every 2 weeks or so.

Having lived in London for a number of years before moving to NY in Jan, I have an intense, burning hatred of cab companies (whether it's the London black cab or New York's yellow cab). I will always, always use Lyft/Uber wherever possible. My reasons for hatred include:

- After arriving into JFK, I'd used up all my battery on the flight so decided, rather than wait to charge my phone at the airport, I'd get a local cab instead. The cab driver took me to Brooklyn.

We passed La Guardia.

After a heated argument, it still cost over 3x what it would've cost with Uber.

- Since I have a British accent, NY cabbies often assume I'm a tourist and will try and take the long way round (seriously, La Guardia?). I've had to correct them on more than one occasion about which route to take and they are always shocked when I start telling them which bridge to cross into the city or what street they should use.

- In London, I was out with some friends and one woman had missed the last tube home. Night buses from where we were wasn't an option, so we tried to hail a cab. After telling the driver where she needed to go, he told us to "fk off" and drove away. I requested an Uber for her and within 45 minutes, she was safely at home.

These are just highlights in the many terrible experiences of cabs, and my experience has been better with any ride sharing service. Why? Because customer ratings affect their ability to offer rides. Cab drivers have no such incentive, even if you call to complain with their medallion number. Unless the cab driver has done something illegal, I doubt anything happens.

One that's especially relevant in New York is that I never have to worry about a cab trying to get rid of me when they find out I'm going to an outer borough. It's technically illegal but that doesn't stop a lot of them from being shady, plus what are you really going to do? With Uber the driver already knows exactly where I'm going.

That's only true in the lower half of Manhattan. Good luck hailing a random cab in the middle of the night elsewhere.

I do wish Lyft and Uber would just tell me to cross the street for a faster pickup. In many cases, I could even walk a couple of blocks, and from the route on the map I even know exactly where to walk. But I cannot, because the driver would still go to the original location.

"Taxi is actually by far the easiest to get a ride on." Unless it's raining, 5PM (taxi shift swap time), a peak time (eg. bar closing time), or most places in the five boroughs that are not Manhattan below 96th street (but the green cabs help with that.)

Being a Queens resident who does not live on a main artery to Manhattan, Uber/Lyft every time.

That's a crazy good cash back percentage - what card is giving you that?

I'm curious about how you write "%20", instead of the more common "20%". It's the first time I see it, really. Is there any place in the world where writing the percentage sign before the number is common practice?

There are so many cabs that I don't really see the need for this, and most cabs take Apple Pay now, so I've never really seen the point of this and the other one (is there another one? I think there is?).

If I was somewhere where there aren't a lot of cabs I'd probably just use Uber, it's cheaper and cleaner anyways.

Exactly: I use way2ride all the time to pay, and use it to hail when Uber has surge pricing on. It's especially useful for hailing while still inside your apartment.

Same story in Boston, except that most of my friends still take Uber. I've had far better experiences riding with Lyft drivers and the drivers seem to enjoy working with Lyft a lot more.

Uber is my backup option now if there are no Lyfts available.

Here in Minneapolis, Lyft seems more popular among my crowd, but people still use "Uber" for the verb a lot. Like at least once a week I hear some variation on:

Person 1: "Are we ubering to the game tonight?" Person 2: "Yeah, I'll call a lyft in like 10 minutes"

Which to me is really interesting from a linguistic standpoint. (Both that Uber became a verb so quick, and that it is becoming a generic term already). Incidentally, I've heard people say "lyfting" as well, but that always has referred to getting an actual Lyft, whereas "ubering" seems to refer to both just fine.

Lyft/Uber seem to split on the Friendly/Professional preference, so it makes sense to me that Uber would do better in cities like New York and Boston while Lyft does better in cities like Austin and Minneapolis.

I've heard many people say they like Uber because the drivers shut up and have nice cars. I've heard other people say they like Lyft because the drivers are friendly people in normal cars and it feels more like a friend giving you a ride.

Did you read the article? This is not 'niche':

http://toddwschneider.com/data/taxi/taxi_uber_lyft_trips_per...