SF blasts Uber, Lyft for downtown traffic congestion | Hacker News Reader

SF blasts Uber, Lyft for downtown traffic congestion

sfexaminer.com

24 pointslxm62 comments

Do we have supporting data? Or is the taxi lobby just smarting up?

In New York, the taxis made the same case--that Uber et al increased traffic. This claim was found wanting [1].

In God we trust; all else bring data.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/16/nyregion/uber-not-to-blame...

As a downtown sf commute cyclist, my anecdotal experience is that traffic now is much worse than the same time last year. And almost all the bad actors in traffic who are causing slowdowns and jams have uber and lyft stickers in their windows.

I don't believe in God, but I do believe that if I get hit on my bike uber/lyft will be responsible.

The population of SF has been growing, it makes sense that traffic is worse. Until there is evidence of a causal link between ride sharing and traffic I'd be hesitant to believe any of it.

So your initial assumption (population growth increases traffic) without evidence is true, but my experience is unbelievable? Seems like a weird way to reply if you want to have a meaningful conversation.

https://www.google.com/search?q=population+density+and+traff...

2 seconds to search for this.

We should at least start by taking this with a grain of salt, because according to the article:

> Notably, no study has been completed to study Uber or Lyft’s effects on San Francisco traffic

However, similar to what others have said, anecdotally I definitely agree. In the last four years, particularly Gough and Franklin have gone from a viable alternative to Van Ness to completely unusable -- particularly because Google Maps and Waze (what 99% of drivers use) route them down there instead of other streets. I have a habit of asking where drivers are from, and the vast majority of them are from out of town and commute to SF to drive for Uber / Lyft. Again, it's still anecdotal, but ask drivers next time you get in a ride and I think it'll become pretty clear where all the traffic is coming from.

But you know what? I blame the SFMTA. This isn't User's fault, this is SF's fault for not building a functional transit system (and the voters for not funding it) 30 years ago. Uber began because Travis couldn't catch a cab. If Travis lived in Madrid, he would have taken the subway, he would have got there on time, and Uber never would have existed. SF's transit mismanagement created an environment that could only be solved by something like Uber (or Scoot, which I now almost use exclusively).

If San Francisco wants to fix its traffic problems, it needs to stop prioritizing private cars driving faster, and needs to focus on more subways, more bus only lanes, more cycling lanes, and more pedestrian-only streets. Private automobiles are not the way most of the developed world (outside of America) gets around, and if Tokyo, a city of 31 million people can get around efficiency without traffic, so can paltry San Francisco.

We should be building 10 subway lines at a time, and if that means tripling our taxes to pay for it, count me in. But so far all the willpower I've seen is to run busses faster down Van Ness and one new subway that goes a bit over a mile. I'm pretty sure the folks in the Richmond have been saying this ever since BART pulled out in the 70s.

Maybe self-driving cars will fix it all, but I'm still skeptical. So far I haven't seen a permanent solution to traffic past a proper heavy-rail, grade-separated train.

>and more pedestrian-only streets.

Where in SF is this an actual problem? The only inadequate sidewalks I've ever encountered were due to construction encroachments, not actual design.

Powell Street. Sweet lord. Private automobiles should /never/ be allowed to drive on Powell south of at minimum Post. All vehicles other than cable cars should be banned from driving down Powell, and the sidewalk should be doubled in size to take over the current automobile lanes. Nearly every major city in Europe has pedestrianized its central shopping backbone, and the fact that SF hasn't yet (with the amount of pedestrian traffic down there) is encroaching on dangerous.

EDIT: And to add, to see what a pedestrian downtown San Fransisco could look like, check out the Winter Walk on Stockton over the Central Subway construction. It's amazing, and I'm so terrified that when the construction is finished they're going to let automobiles drive down there again. It's ridiculous that people are second-class citizens to cars in the downtown of a major world city.

This seems very silly. You're trying to minimize the amount of cars on the road. The amount of people-miles of passengers is roughly constant. The only thing that reduces car-miles is ride sharing. Uber (and Lyft and possibly Waze) is much more efficient at this than Taxis. And Uber drivers have every incentive to not be idle.

The issue isn't too many cars. It's too many solo drivers or single passengers.

Why is Uber more efficient than taxis? Friendlier, faster to dispatch, no discrimination, no tipping, sure Uber/Lyft wins those hands down. But at the end of the day what stops a cab from having the same load as a TNC vehicle?

There's no cab equivalent to Uber Pool/Lyft Line.

Because I usually drive 2 passengers at the same time.

I start by picking someone up. Then Uber app finds someone half way to the first person's destination. After I drop off the first person it finds someone else to pick up on the way, etc. So I end up with an average of 2 people in my car. Sometimes I pick up a group of two people while I already have a passenger. That's four people in the same car, I'm not sure if it goes up to five.

I've never seen taxis do this.

Cab doesn't pick up more passengers during a ride (a la Uber Pool/Lyft line).

Also, dropping off a passenger in a uber/lyft is much less disruptive to traffic flow than a traditional cab which has to process a payment.

Now, if we could only institute/implement a tuck and roll deployment system.

Tuck and roll, grandma!

I think this assumes actual ride "sharing" happens substantially.

Even if it doesn't, the technology and processes behind Uber and Lyft encourage less downtime of drivers. (I have not stake in the game, though I hate lines and have had more bad experiences with taxis than Ubers and Lyfts)

Alternatively, people who would have used to take the bus now take uber. People who would have used to stay at home now drive uber.

As soon as you are a group of two people or more, taking Uber is often cheaper than taking the bus.

The issue is too many people. The issue is almost always too many people. Stop making babies.

It's inefficient design, with the same space we could be doing so much more.

Two reasons why the current Uber/Lyft situation causes more traffic than the old taxi situation:

1) The bar for driving a car in the city for pay has been lowered significantly from the old taxi medallion system. This makes for a much larger fleet of cars in the road. A great thing if you have memories of walking down the street at 1AM, looking over your shoulder for the taxi that never came, but a bad thing for 5 PM traffic downtown.

2) The city has a decent amount of taxi-specific traffic infrastructure, such as taxi parking / cab stands, which may not be used by Uber or Lyft drivers. Instead of parking in designated spots, we see them doing things like stopping in bike lanes or circling the block.

I'm not sure 1 is true in aggregate. If people are ride sharing, won't the fleet size shrink? (Less taxis or less personal cars) It isn't like there are massive fleets of idle Ubers. If there isn't anyone to pick up, the drivers do something else.

I was just in SF for the first time and couldn't believe that the public transit was painfully loud.

We switched to Uber because of how uncomfortable the transit ride was. For all the hand-wringing over too many cars, they might consider quieting the metro.

Where are you comparing it to? In my experience the quietest subways are from the past 20 years or so. BART first started running in ~1970.

WellBart is about the same noise level as th Boston green line which is the oldest subway in the country.

Well bart is famous for having super loud screeching wheels[0], but they will be replaced by around 2021..

The screeching is absolutely loud for a subway, though I think the noise all together isn't so bad relative to other subways.

[0]: https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/08/02/why-are-bart-trains-so-...

[1]: https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2016/news20160831

Yes, it is awful. I've spent significant time in Japan and can't believe how quiet the trains are - including the high-speed bullet trains - compared to the awful screeching of the train I grew up riding: BART.

I think you're talking about the BART that's much more than SF. The Muni underground tram is rather quiet.

What precisely is SF's theory here re: congestion? Previously taxis would circle streets much less efficiently than a smartphone-hailed pickup. Also they wouldn't pool rides anywhere nearly as effectively. So if they're seeing more traffic on the road, what's the cause?

Has there been population growth of riders? That wouldn't be Uber/Lyft's fault. In fact they may have handled the growth more efficiently than just putting more traditional taxis on the road.

Are riders shifting from public transit to rideshares? That would be Uber/Lyft's fault. But also public transit's.

Is it that more availability has lowered the wait times vs taxis? That would definitely be Uber/Lyft's fault. But it also makes riding a much nicer experience, saves riders a lot of time, etc.

Their theory is spelled out pretty clearly in the article. There are 1800 taxicabs permitted to operate in the city and many more Ubers/Lyfts.

The fact that people who use Uber and Lyft have to wait less is nice for them, but not so nice if the extra cars for hire circling for fares results in slower commutes for public transit users.

Does it result in significantly slower muni? Many major downtown routes have dedicated bus lanes, and obviously there is no impact on the subway.

Have you actually been in sf traffic in the uber/lyft world? My observations from my life:

-Double parking everywhere waiting for pickup / dropoff /routing. Blocking car and bike lanes.

-riders getting out into traffic

-erratic drivers (new to SF, easily lost)

Its pretty terrible.

If they painted their cars yellow, and made them pickup and drop off at corners / out if the flow of traffic things would be way better (imho).

You have to do this, otherwise the passenger will never find you. Passengers DO NOT walk to you when you pick them up. Even if you're waiting around the corner like 30 steps away.

They double parking everywhere needs to be dealt with by Uber / Lyft immediately. It's everywhere, all the time, and it's going to end up getting their services regulated more heavily than they should be.

What do you think they could actually do? I doubt either could exist if restricted to pick up and drop off in actual loading zones + available parking spaces. Bus stops are drastically more abundant than either of those.

There are a ton of things they could do with their app and it's messaging (eg,Encourage people to drag their pin drop to a corner).

Stopping at a corner is just as illegal as stopping anywhere else, isn't it?

the concern here is the blocking of traffic, not legality. Corners often have space to pull over without blocking traffic.

They actually do steer riders to designated pick up zones. But it's optional and most people probably just stick with their exact address. They could make it mandatory, but it wouldn't be competitive. I'd hope regulators look at this before more drastic restrictions, as there are many environmental benefits to ride sharing vs how things used to be.

The nearest white/yellow curb is usually 10+ blocks away, AFAIK. In SF they are only outside major buildings.

Doesn't have to be a white/yellow curb. Put your location to a spot that has a place where the cab can easily pull over eg, driveway, fire hydrant, etc.

I agree completely Uber and Lyft feel that a competitive app is more important than the overall traffic health and safety of a city. It's heartbreaking for me to watch them slowly destroy what was once a bike friendly city.

Yes and in my observations from life erratic driving and riders exiting inappropriately apply to taxis as well. Double parking for pickup is the new problem (not so much drop off). But that's a result of app based hailing and would apply to traditional taxis as well when responding to such hails (e.g. Flywheel). I see it more as a significant bike lane issue than a significant contributor to car congestion. Remember that easy and good taxi service reduces the motive to drive independently downtown, which reduces traffic.

The taxis did not circle the streets. That was part of the problem. Unless you were walking out of the lobby of a downtown hotel, there was basically no chance of catching a cab in SF. The wait time for calling for a ride has been lowered from "never" to "3 minutes".

Uber/Lyft definitely have increased the growth of riders. I use both regularly and way more than I ever used cabs because it's cheaper, easier, and more reliable to use them.

There's been shift from public transit to rideshare - when an Uberpool is $3.50 and the bus is $2.25, a lot people are going to switch to Uberpool.

All that said, it seems like there are basically two sources of congestion in SF these days, and neither of them are rideshares: - the Bay Bridge, which backs up all the way up 1st, on to Bush and Battery, also down Bryant, also a couple of blocks of Harrison, and the central connector/Octavia/Oak street, every damn day. There are just a lot of people trying to get to the East Bay every day between 4 and 7. Also, BART is full. There is no cheap, quick solution to this. A second BART tube would help.

- everything for a couple of blocks around Union Square and Moscone is a mess. Everyone with an ounce of sense takes Muni here already, it's very heavily served by public transit. Once again, this is a centrally located area with a ton of hotels and a major convention center. If they got rid of all the rideshares tomorrow, more people would just drive to get here instead of taking Muni to get here, and traffic would be the same.

While the double-parking is annoying, it's not actually what's increasing congestion in SF. The biggest traffic problem in SF is that they didn't start building a second Transbay Tube 15 years ago.

> Uber/Lyft definitely have increased the growth of riders. I use both regularly and way more than I ever used cabs

When I say population growth I mean literally due to more people moving to SF or working downtown, which would not be their fault. Sounds like yours is a case of shifting from public transit to ridesharing, which is definitely due to Uber/Lyft being a better experience at an attractive price.

Perhaps we need to reach a point of inflection like in NYC where taking public transit is faster than navigating congested streets. But as it stands MUNI is often (significantly) slower than a rideshare.

SFMTA should remove parking and replace it with passenger loading zones. That way, they wouldn't be blocking traffic, including public transportation. It's well known that free and subsidized parking encourages driving. Currently, passenger loading zones must be requested and paid for by businesses that want it, to the tune of thousands of dollars a year. [1] They don't, so rideshare and taxi drivers just block traffic lanes. There is no mechanism for passenger loading zones to be requested by citizens or designated by the city for public benefit.

[1] https://www.sfmta.com/getting-around/parking/curb-colors

I've not cycled in SF for commute reasons since the pre uber days.

That said, other cyclists -- bike messengers -- were the largest danger to other cyclist, second was other cyclists, third was Muni.

From a damage perspective, Muni would be number one in the injury case.

Drivers, cyclists, and Muni, to this day, are selfish assholes.

Blaming it purely on Uber, no. SF transit policies have lead to this.

Drive mission, you used to go straight most of the route... now only muni, taxis and assholes ignoring the law.

The problems aren't just due to muni/Lyft

Try cycling in SF again. Things have changed a lot in the last year or so.

I've been bike commuting in SF for 10 years, and the last year has been by far the worst. And most bad actors are uber and lyft cars.

I was recently in SF and I was surprised to find that Uber Pool cost was very similar to Bart cost going to and from SFO. Uber is certainly preferable to having everyone drive their own car. Talk about congestion. Why doesn't SF do what Paris just did: Make public transit free. If they did that I would definitely use Bart more.

I don't think BART could handle the extra load.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-can-t-keep-pace-w...

SF needs to worry about its own transit issues. MUNI stops at rush hour are poorly serviced. I can't get on most of the trains that pass through Civic Center, so I usually end up going inbound to Montgomery or Embarcadero so I can actually board.

I'm pretty sure that a lot more people are using ride sharing services in the SF Bay Area because all of the public transit systems are overcrowded during peak hours and most have additional major issues. BART is too expensive. Muni is prone to unexpectedly large time gaps between buses/trains and doesn't have sufficient subway coverage. Caltrain runs too infrequently. The ferries also seem to run pretty infrequently (though I have less experience with them than the other modes of transit).

I don't have any direct evidence for this but it feels pretty obvious: when your public transit systems are already running at full capacity during peak hours and you have people moving into your area, the roads are going to end up completely congested. It certainly isn't the fault of whatever entity is putting cars on the road that the roads are full. After all, people are going to try to live their lives and there really isn't another reasonable way to make more-than-a-few-blocks trips during these hours.

I only see a few ways to improve things: a) Increase public transit capacity and then make it more desirable to take public transit (and continually repeat because now your public transit is overcrowded again) and b) Spread out the "peak hours" time over more of the day.

Unfortunately, improving public transit can take years or even decades. So we won't get much mileage out of this for a while, but we should still be investing a lot more heavily than we are because this is the only "scalable" fix.

It can only be done a limited number of times, but I think we could do a lot better at improving the situation on a shorter timescale with the other option: spreading "peak hours" over more of the day. This can be accomplished by incentivizing companies to shift their workdays so that they start before or after 9 (with a corresponding change at the end of the day).

PS: I haven't lived in the peninsula for a couple years at this point, but when I left, Caltrain had just started running a "ridership campaign" while all of its commute-hour trains were standing-room-only. This is ridiculous. The problem is not that not enough people want to take public transit, the problem is that there's not enough capacity!

Public transport is a joke, the city is unable to adequately engineer traffic well or plan for it, and when something comes in to meet actual demand -- that's the problem?

Travel around other cities and it's apparently which city cares about advancing its transport: Berlin, Paris, Shanghai, Tokyo, Kyoto, Barcelona, Nyc, even Boston, DC and Beijing are better. If subways aren't possible, use light rail or BRT. But don't blend them with equal priority on the traffic lights -- it defeats the point.

I hate MUNI so much!!!

The subway in DC is a diaster, with antiquated cabling causing a constant risk of fires. The agency is prevented from running all-eight-car trains because the power system wouldn't be able to handle it.

http://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/PR20150608.asp...

That was the "or even" part ;)

Honestly I'd rather have the option than no option at all. It got me around D.C. last time I was there...

I'd love to see some real data from San Francisco as well, but I'm almost certain San Francisco is well above capacity. The following article points out some interesting facts about vehicles in motion in relation to gridlock. Unregulated ride sharing is definitely having an impact, how much is the question.

http://thepenngazette.com/uber-gridlock/

San Francisco really needs to get rid of a bunch of curbside car storage to make room for loading zones.

That's great SF - get some functioning, not-shitty, well funded public transport and people won't feel the need to use Uber..

... what's that? Not a chance in hell? Well then.

(But seriously - BART is chronically underfunded, Muni trains are unreliably scheduled, Muni busses are the most dangerous and shady public busses I've used in the western world... and very little of it actually serves anywhere other than the busses which have to fight the same traffic...)

Extending BART is very expensive ($billions), esp. in a city that is already "built out", like SF is. On the other hand, we managed to fund High Speed Rail at over $60 billion.

This makes no sense what do they think would happen if Uber and Lyft went away????

Perhaps they think people would switch to public transit like buses or Caltrain.

Precisely. Although, they're a little naïve if they think that's a realistic alternative. The transit system is horrific, having used it for 3.5 years. We're largely in this mess because the transit system is such a mess.

I'm surprised the article didn't also mention the congestion issues at SFO. The departures deck is a mess now that all Lyft/Uber riders are directed there for pick-up.

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