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Comment by burritofanatic | Hacker News Reader

I've been in NYC for a week, and I've used all three services to get around when needed. Taxi is actually by far the easiest to get a ride on. The reason is being on the correct side of the street and for the car to be traveling in the direction you're headed is crucial.

Grabbing a Lyft or Uber may commit a driver to having to turn around the block, which can take several minutes, and in that time, you could have hailed half a dozen taxis.

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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.

The Uber app has been doing that for me for a few weeks now. "Go here for faster pickup?" or something to that effect.

Or if the GPS guiding the driver to the location would take into account side-of-street so they come in on the right side in the first place. In jurisdictions where U-turns are legal (California) it's less of a problem, but often them taking a slightly later turn before they 'arrive' would get them to me faster than the fastest direct route and then finding a parking lot to turn around in.

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

Completely doable on a random weekday or weeknight on Atlantic Ave anywhere west of Barclays Center, in my experience.

That's still the urban core. Try it in Glendale and report back.

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