> 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.