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Comment by ibejoeb | Hacker News Reader

That all seems like a net positive to me, especially in major urban areas that a very car dependent like Los Angles, Atlanta, Houston...

In LA, driving drunk was just the way of life, and it was a real problem. Now, I don't know anyone who prefers driving over ridesharing given the option. Uber Pool makes getting from the east side to the west side faster that public transit for about $10-15, which is less than 1 drink and 1000x less than a DUI.

It is disingenuous to fault ridesharing for public transit's problems. Of course people are going to opt for the most value. We could raise taxes and invest in improvements that may materialize in 10 years, but that's a hard sell when you have a really good option right now.

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I don't think the study is "faulting" anyone. Clearly ridesharing is a very popular and convenient alternative to driving and public transit which are both rife with problems. It is however contributing to traffic and emissions. Those are important facts to establish because previously it was thought that maybe ridesharing is helping with those too, like a dream come true.

It concludes, "substantial policy action may be required to ensure that ride-hailing can effectively be woven into the transportation network while reducing congestion and the emissions of transportation services. Absent of these efforts, congestion and emissions appear likely to grow."[1]

[1] https://itspubs.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/themes/ucdavis/pubs/d...

If we want ridesharing to decrease emissions and traffic, someone should subsidize it as first and last mile transit. That way cars are always at capacity (always picking up or dropping off users) and traffic gets reduced on highways (people will be on transit).

In addition public transit will fill to capacity, allowing them to run more often.

At best that would only help with relatively long distance trips, and the study notes it has already led to and increase in commuter rail use. (Which is offset by greater VMT in other cases.) Also it probably still involves deadhead trips within those last miles.

I'm wondering if there's lots of deadhead trips with existing commuter rail use in existing data. I was guessing that because people typically live close together who go to the same bus stop there would be less deadhead, if people carpooled, as the people who got on the ride would get dropped off at the same time people get picked up.

This looks sort of backwards. If we want to limit car use, we should increase the price of it. Many city centers do so.

They should've done this study in a European city with great public transport which also has Uber, like Munich or Berlin.

"Great public transport" means what exactly? Even in Japan which is widely recognized as one of the countries with excellent public transport, trains and buses stop at night (and not too late either), so if you are going out, and coming back after midnight it's either your car or a very expensive taxi. Is Munich/Berlin any different?

Probably. It is common for european subway to be open on weekends. In my city (Warsaw) subway during fri/sat and sat/sun nights goes every 15 minutes. Night buses start every 30 minutes from central station in every direction, with exception of more remote destinations which have bus every hour. However if you live out of the city and commute by train you are probably out of luck between 1am and 5am.

Man I was annoyed with that when I was in Japan. It's horrible, you either stay out until 5 in the morning when they start again or take an insanely expensive taxi.

In contrast, in Copenhagen there are always night busses that leave at least once an hour, and the trains also go to fairly late and start early again. There's always some way to get home, which is immensely helpful when you're out drinking. Now that's what I call great public transport.

Glad to know it exists somewhere!

Munich subways run until about 2 or 3 AM on weekends, with the later ones coming with 20 or 30 minute intervals rather than 10 minutes. After that there are night buses and trams going different directions of the city, that come every half hour. To use myself as an example, before Uber I would wait the 20+ minutes until the night tram came along, or a taxi to my place was 20 Euroes. In the early days of Uber, a ride home was 8 Euroes, so that was bearable, later on it was close to as expensive as taxis, so being frugal, I would just wait for the night tram. But if you go to a friend's place for pre-drinks, and then you go to a club around 11 or midnight, public transport would still work superbly.

$10-15 for a drink? Of liquid gold?

Pretty typical price range for a cocktail in a major (or even not so major) city. Even a beer is, outside of happy hour prices, getting near $10 with tip.

I'm in New Haven which is pretty minor as far as cities go. $10 with tip is par for the course for cocktails here. Beers are a couple bucks cheaper.

For a pitcher?

For a bottle.

Or in a German restaurant, 500ml. 1 liter of beer goes for $16-18

In most 'city' markets, beers tend to be $6, drinks tend to be $10. Add tip and you are at $12. Go to a higher end bar, you are at $15.

$8 for a beer in a lot of places these days, $15+ for a cocktail. Another reason the bar scene in expensive cities is pointless. In small towns, a beer can be as cheap as $2 or free if the beverage vendor rep is passing out samples (ie whole bottles of beer).

Big-box stores for beer by the case and make your own beer.

Access to alcohol is not really the driving motivation to go to a bar

I was thinking the same thing, especially when a bus across town is €1.50 or so. But I also hear stories about high rent and high salaries... I suppose it makes sense if everything there is just very expensive.

$10 for a drink in Los Angeles is absolutely not out of the ordinary. A $10 cocktail is happy-hour price. A $10 glass of wine is going to be basic stuff. $15 for a good cocktail or wine is the going rate.

I also mentioned Atlanta and Houston. Both of those are within 10%. I'm picking these because they are large, urban, car-dependent areas that, at least in my opinion, are more livable with ridesharing than without it.

A quick addition: the numbers will be higher in NYC and SF, but I don't get a lot of value from Uber in either. Uber in SF proper is slow and expensive, and the transit is pretty good. Cabs are better than rideshare in New York, and the transit is also good. Rideshare is nice for for the outskirts of either city, but, anecdotally, it certainly hasn't changed my behaviors in either. Rideshare totally changed the game in LA.

Ride sharing is of tremendous value in the Bay Area since BART irresponsibly stops service at 12:30am. People living in the East Bay often go into SF to drink, so getting home after bars close is a lot easier now.

Of course the somewhat ironic thing for people living in the East Bay is that Oakland's social scene has emerged at roughly the same time as ride sharing, so people don't need to go into SF to drink as much as they used to. But ride sharing is still useful for getting to/from Oakland.

I never understood that about BART. Why were its hours never extended? It seems like that'd be a sure thing to pass if it makes even a small impact on driving fatalities. I doubt that the taxi union had sway over this?

BART does not have duplicate tracks, unlike the transit systems in most other major metropolitan areas. The few hours that it stops overnight are required for maintenance. It's basically not an option for BART to run 24/7.

24/7 isn't required. Since last call is at 2am, running until 3am on Sat and Sun would make a huge difference and cost them 5 hrs of maintenance time. That's probably still a problem, but it seems like a solvable one.

BART published a study a few years ago saying the tracks need to be closed 4 hours every night. They said since people riding early in the morning are more likely to be people of color than those riding late at night, that shifting service times later would be "racist" because it would have a disproportionate effect on people of color. Typical 21st-century bureaucratic tactic to stifle discussion.

Yeah, you're right. I definitely take uber at night in the city.

Don’t come to New York. It’s at least that for a cocktail or glass of wine.

More like a hastily made, watered down well drink.

Ever been to a large city?

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