Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities
denverpost.com
denverpost.com
If cities build appropriate multi modal transportation networks and restrict the amount of space allowed for vehicle traffic, people will walk, bike or take the train rather than drive. All three are preferable to being stuck in traffic.
In an urban environment the car is what turns transportation into a game of the prisoner's dilemma. From this point of view ride shares are just the latest way that America has managed to extend the game.
My desire is that we develop ways to make cities hospitable to carless families. That goal seems more remote now than it did in 2010.
The reason you are seeing a per capita transit ridership decline is because Seattle is the fastest growing city in the country [1] so it's understandable why public transit rates are declining despite the huge investments.
[0]: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sou...
[1]: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-once-...
because Seattle is the fastest growing city in the country ... it's understandable why public transit rates are declining
Eh, from where I stand (in silicon valley) being carless is way more practical now than in 2010; I mean, I don't have a child, so I'm not a carless family, but I've gotten rid of my car and more than half of my 'ride sharing' trips are in the actual 'ride sharing' mode where they can pick up other people. I take fewer trips in general (I now use grocery delivery, etc..) and I'm having a hard time seeing how my use of ridesharing services instead of driving myself could increase traffic, unless ride shares spend more time driving empty than they spend driving two-up, which isn't my perception.
Ride sharing services do make public transit marginally more useful. I usually use the train to get to SF, but because they shut down so early, I usually come home on a rideshare. Before rideshare, I'd have to drive to SF both ways or get a hotel 'cause the train back would be closed by the time I wanted to come home.
I don't think it does; your use is in line with the rideshare operators' claims as to why traffic should go down given their service: that it makes it easier for people to not own a car, and that consequently while some of their trips will be ride share, they might be shared, and others will be more likely to be transit.
I think what the studies are showing, though, is that not everyone's behavior is like yours. Some people (like me, for instance), didn't ever own a car, but now at least sometimes use Uber or Lyft because it's cheap and convenient when otherwise they/we would have used transit, because it used to be our only option. Apparently we're hurting more than you're helping?
Your method: trip to pick you up, trip to drop you at work, trip to pick you up at work, trip to take you home, trip for grocery picker to store, trip for groceries to your home... there's six trips. The traffic burden you create is increased, not lessened.
Same with taking one of the pool mode rideshares to or from work; they often pick up a few other people going the same direction (which, I hope, offsets the "drive to pick me up" issue
I mean, clearly if I'm not using the pool mode, (and I often don't in the mornings, when I'm late) then yeah, I'm creating more traffic (but using less parking) because they need to drive to pick me up... but in high density areas, the pickups are pretty fast; there's usually someone fairly nearby when I want them where I am.
the grocery picker... makes a bunch of deliveries in one trip
In actual practice, that model doesn't work for anything but dry goods... which means somebody is making an additional trip yet for temperature-critical perishables.
Webvan crashed and burned partly because they failed to think out the "edge cases".
Safeway uses a refrigerated van
Amazon fresh packs produce with ice packs in a bubble wrap cooler inside a paper bag; frozen things get dry ice; I've ordered ice cream 'unattented delivery' (where they leave it outside my door) and it can go hours without harm.
(Amazon fresh uses a whole lot of packing material, which is another problem... but point being, they've solved the 'food melts on the way to your house' problem)
Anyway, transport-wise it looks and feels like any other American city, which is a shame. (I mean it's not LA-levels of bad, but that's not an achievement.)
Other people's preferences don't bend to this kind of declaration. If they were preferable, people would choose them.
I'm all for building out better transit infrastructure, but there is simply no contest in the midcentury suburban sprawl that dominates American life. Maybe park-n-ride. We're going to have to figure out how to build attractive, livable, and politically credible compact urban environments at scale to really address car dependence.
Balivernes. That’s just a tautology. I’m sure if you ask any American if they think the electoral college system is fair, 99/100 will tell you it isn’t. Yet it persists. Why? Many reasons, among them being institutional inertia. Institutions are big and slow, especially ones involving concrete and steel.
There are also power amplification issues. That is to say, certain groups of people might have more power to effect change than others. A majority can seemingly want something, but not know how or not be able to effectively get that change accomplished.
In other words, I think it’s a bit more complicated than “if people wanted public transit we would have public transit”.
The real challenge is in building out the transit infrastructure and dense transit-oriented development that would make these options genuinely preferable to most people. Not in declaring that they're preferable or forcing people into them today.
Assuming you live in a bikeable or walkable area, sure. Bus service exists, but it can be patchy and/or underfunded. Some people simply have none of these options.
I live in Detroit (yes, Motor City), and this area is crying out for good mass transit. In fact, two out of four necessary counties voted down a regional transit mileage (which amounted to peanuts every year on property tax bills), which would have provided billions to develop rapid transit for southeast Michigan, because of pretty much racial hangups and “screw you, got mine”-ism from the suburbs.
These are complex issues. I agree that building out transit infrastructure is complicated, but I think making them politically attractive are equally difficult.
And I say this having tried both. It just doesn't compare.
This is not a battle you are going to win. I'm happy for other people to take mass transit and leave more road space for me.
Or I can be more fair and want more road space for everyone.
Mass transit is not a good solution, it's a poor solution, that sometimes is the best thing available, but never mistake that for actually being a good solution.
Properly designed cities would not need it.
When cities are gridlocked by expensive, polluting cars, nobody wins.
> I'm happy for other people to take mass transit and leave more road space for me.
That kind of thinking is why we don’t have reliable public transit.
> Mass transit is not a good solution, it's a poor solution...
Nobody tell Europe, or Japan.
I don’t know how to communicate the idea that perhaps every single person having their own 2,000-pound personal transportation machine doesn’t scale well. I mean, never mind that we could reduce climate change, road deaths, congestion, and the requirement to own a car. How is having one bus take 20 people somewhere worse than making those people buy a car, making them drive separately, then making them find parking? Public transit is one of those things that, like public healthcare or public education, involves giving up a bit of perceived individuality to benefit the greater good. But if you’ve already got yours and are convinced that’s the way to go, I can’t help you. See you at the voting booth.
Because those 20 people are extremely unlikely to share an origin, destination, or schedule.
No one is forcing you to build so many homes so close together. Make some space, give people room to live.
> That kind of thinking is why we don’t have reliable public transit.
No, we don't have reliable public transit because public transit just isn't very good. People know that, and have little interest is wasting their time, unless they have no other choice.
> Nobody tell Europe, or Japan.
OK, I won't. Except I've actually been there, and compared to cars Mass Transit is terrible. And this wasn't some bad mass transit - no it was world class, where you could get literally anywhere in the entire county, with very frequent buses.
Still would never prefer it to a car.
> How is having one bus take 20 people somewhere worse than making those people buy a car, making them drive separately, then making them find parking?
Because I can store things in my car, I don't have to hand carry them.
Because I can buy one thing, put it in my car, then go, with empty hands, and buy another.
Because I can put a car seat, fitted exactly to my infant, in the car.
Because I know I'll have room for a stroller, and won't have to fight to get on or off the bus.
Because I can put kids in the car, and then not have to worry about them finding somewhere to sit that is reasonably close to me.
Because I don't have to wait in the heat.
Because I can set the temperature to exactly what I want, and not have to hope the driver set it right.
Because I don't have to suffer aggressive drivers who slam on the bakes and gas throwing me around the bus.
Because I don't have to worry about missing my stop.
Because I don't have to worry about me getting on (or off) the bus, and one of the kids having the door slammed on his face, leaving him alone without me.
Because I can change my plan and go somewhere else, without figuring out which bus to take.
Because I can go somewhere in the middle of the night, and not have to worry that the buses have stopped running.
Because I don't need to worry about having my stuff stolen while traveling.
Because I can sit down for a long trip.
Because I don't have to wait for the next bus.
Because I don't have to carefully plan connections between stops to get where I need to go, and leave at exactly the right time. I can just go when I want.
Because I don't have to be so close to so many people.
Because I can transport a lot of stuff, if I want.
Because I can transport a single heavy item, and drag it only twice.
Because I don't have to worry about strangers complaining I'm taking up too much room with my item(s).
Because I can travel right to my door, minimizing how far I have to carry things.
Because I can make one trip and get everything, and not be limited by how much I can carry.
Because travel takes less time in total, including waiting.
> But if you’ve already got yours and are convinced that’s the way to go, I can’t help you. See you at the voting booth.
And I'll vote with my wallet. And we both know my vote is more powerful.
Solve all the above issues for me and we can talk about Mass Transit.
In contrast a car has just two issues:
I have to pay for gas (and other expenses).
Sometimes I have to search for parking.
And both those issues can be dealt with - the cost of a car in exchange for my time. And I just don't go places (or live in cities) that make parking an issue. If they wanted my business they would make it worth it for me.
Downtown London is a tremendous counterexample. The Tube is generally faster, sometimes dramatically so.
Fix the roads (probably impossible in London), and no one would think the Tube is that great.
But newer cities have that chance, they can build good road networks, with the houses far enough apart to avoid congestion.
I hate close, dense, cities. I like space. I like to have a my own yard, and my own private space.
Not everyone shares this Politically Correct dream, of dense cities with lots of buses and subways. It's hard to argue against, just like every in-vogue politically correct thing is hard to argue against.
So you won't hear a lot of public disagreement.
But privately? Things are quite different, people are just not interested. Well some people. I would never imagine everyone is. Different people like different things.
Dense cities need Mass Transit. It's terrible, but it's the only practical option. So if you chose to live in a dense city, you have to accept that.
But less dense cities? No only do they not need Mass Transit, they can't do it anyway (there's not enough demand to make it work). And there are people who prefer it.
And then you have cities in between...... With either the best of both worlds, or the worst, depending on the city.
I appreciate your honesty. Made me think of this:
https://www.theonion.com/report-98-percent-of-u-s-commuters-...
That seems an overly strong absolute. I would easily take a quick, clean, close, and reliable bus over car storage, maintenance, insurance, driving in traffic, ensuring I'm mentally alert enough to drive, finding parking, and paying for parking at my destination. That doesn't even mention the purchase experience, which is probably the worst buying experience there is. I've had such transit to some areas of different cities so I know it is possible.
Generally, the more urban the area, the greater the benefits to transit and the higher the costs of car ownership, which makes your comment about properly designed cities questionable - what do you see as "properly designed" that still supports density?
Even if you would never personally see the transit half as worth more than the car ownership half, can you see where others, who have different needs/uses for transportation, would?
I don't support density. I understand some like it, and that's good for them.
But I personally hate it, and I know a lot of other people that hate it as well.
I would hate to see the US switch to that being the primary form of life. But I'm not really worried - enough people hate it, that it's unlikely.
The highest density I'm willing to consider is a 2 family row house (i.e. side to side, not up and down) on each plot of land. Anything denser than that and I'm not going to live there. Each house should have a front and back yard, at least some space on the sides between houses.
We are not animals, there's no reason to pack people in like battery farming.
Unless that's what you like. If you like that, more power to you.
I'm a bit lost on one aspect though - in relation to the original purpose, I thought you were saying that advocating for mass transit in a city is a battle that cannot be won, and that cities could be designed to avoid the need for mass transit. Now I'm reading you as saying that not everyone will like mass transit and that a significant group will avoid cities - which are different statements than my original reading (and points I agree with). Am I missing something, or do I now get your core points?
you're right, Inertia isn't the right word. More like "institutional aggression against not using cars".
Go to town hall meetings in developing cities about installing bike lanes. Many people, even when presenting with well done studies that state the contrary, believe biking and bike lanes will take from their profits. Taking away a parking spot for a bike lane or funding public transportation just doesn't happen as much as it could in urban areas today.
Obviously people CAN overcome these tendencies, but it requires a stronger push (which is why we have unhappy bike riders everywhere, or Americans that disapprove of the electoral college, or terrible public transit) "Inertia" seems a very apt metaphor.
Meanwhile, American culture also says transit is distasteful and for the poor. (Taxi exceptions granted for very dense urban areas, but only if they are VERY dense).
You are correct that there is a lot of inertia for these issues. Even if we magically changed culture overnight (and replaced past/recent media to avoid immediate backslide) the infrastructural issues don't go away.
Late to the party I know, but the simple solution is to decouple the pedestrian network from the car network. Cars get cul-de-sacs, pedestrians and cyclists get a fully-connected network. This was proposed as far back as 1977 in A Pattern Language. An exerpt[1]:
"Cars are dangerous to pedestrians; yet activities occur just where cars and pedestrians meet.
"It is common planning practice to separate pedestrians and cars. This makes pedestrian areas more human and safer. However) this practice fails to take account of the fact that cars and pedestrians also need each other: and that, in fact, a great deal of urban life occurs at just the point where these two systems meet. Many of the greatest places in cities, Piccadilly Circus, Times Square, the Champs Elyse'es, are alive because they are at places where pedestrians and vehicles meet. New towns like Cumbernauld, in Scotland, where there is total separation between the two, seldom have the same sort of liveliness.
"The same thing is true at the local residential scale. A great deal of everyday social life occurs where cars and pedestrians meet. In Lima, for example, the car is used as an extension of the house: men, especially, often sit in parked cars, near their houses, drinking beer and talking. And in one way or another, something like this happens everywhere. Conversation and discussion grow naturally around the lots where people wash their cars. Vendors set themselves up where cars and pedestrians meet; they need all the traffic they can get. Children play in parking lots-perhaps because they sense that this is the main point of arrival and departure; and of course because they like the cars. Yet, at the same time, it is essential to keep pedestrians separate from vehicles: to protect children and old people; to preserve the tranquility of pedestrian life.
"To resolve the conflict, it is necessary to find an arrangement of pedestrian paths and roads, so that the two are separate, but meet frequently, with the points where they meet recognized as focal points. In general, this requires two orthogonal networks, one for roads, one for paths, each connected and continuous, crossing at frequent intervals (our observations suggest that most points on the path network should be within 150 feet of the nearest road), meeting, when they meet, at right angles.
"In practice, there are several possible ways of forming this relationship between the roads and paths..."
Maybe for you but my girlfriend could write a book about all of the harassment she has received from random strangers in Seattle. She has even been assaulted which is why we are now car shopping after trying to go without one for 2 years and that is just so she can feel safe traveling. She would easily drive multi hour commutes to avoid having our future kids risk/deal with what she experiences while walking around downtown.
AKA: #metoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_Too_movement
- My girlfriend's response after showing her this thread
I suspect some routes are dramatically worse than others. When I moved here I loved my bus at the time (the 41 - ran seemingly every 15 mins, had very few stops to slow it down) but my coworkers warned to avoid (whichever route) that ran to the methadone clinic, both for the constant stopping and for the odds of bad/awkward passengers. My wife has not told me of any particularly bad experiences, but she busses less often than I do and I have no idea what normal life is like for her when I'm not around, so I have no idea if her bus experience would count as "fine" by my expectations.
* She has seen issues, but "only" had a few herself. "I'm not pretty enough to be harassed" is a crushing one sentence summary of the existence of harassment, the objectification of women, and what we've done to womens' self-confidence.
* She reminded me of an issue I was present for - a guy was loudly declaring how horrible women (he used a number of other terms too) were. For me it was just extremely awkward, and I never registered how a woman would feel about her safety in the future after seeing that. My wife said that she wasn't afraid at the time, because I was present and several other men on the bus were telling him to sit down and shut up, but that she would definitely be influenced by this if she were boarding a bus that was only lightly occupied. This tells me how much men miss about the atmosphere for women even when present.
* She mentioned that she usually doesn't take the bus downtown when traveling alone anymore because of regularly feeling too tense when she did. I hadn't really registered that. (in my partial defense, doing this when alone meant I wasn't around to see it, but it still seems a huge thing for me to miss).
* She validates that some routes are more problematic than others. Heading to Harborview is worse than heading to Convention Place, as an example.
Public transport does not work, and this is just one more reason why. Every few years the police feels the need to spend a month or two catching pickpockets (or worse) on public transport. Train stations in all the big cities are hotbeds of criminal activity. That is a major problem that is not, and probably won't ever be, solved.
For me personally public transport fails in 3 massive ways:
1) public transport means I cannot do groceries, shopping for furniture, tvs or other big goods, move houses, ... so I still need a car, public transport or not.
2) governments just don't build out public transport. Even in places with "excellent" public transport, when I pass there (the Netherlands, for example), there are severe capacity problems that COULD have been solved, but aren't.
In many places like London or New York, there aren't capacity problems, you're actually unlikely to NOT be delayed at some point.
3) it's not actually cheaper once you take into account that you have to bring 2 kids to school, then go to work. Taking the cost/inconvenience/risk of public transport doesn't even provide a monetary or time reward.
This also means that using public transport for family trips is out : driving across Europe (e.g. Netherlands -> South of France) for a weekend or holiday ... train is a LOT more expensive than using a car.
(That said, it can provide a big time advantage and I will use it in that case, but I still much prefer a car)
Some reading on the subject:
http://www.uwgb.edu/DutchS/PSEUDOSC/MassTransit.HTM
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2013/03/06/top-eigh...
I've never had a car and moved place many times, yes it means hiring a man with a van, but my things wouldn't fit in a car anyway.
I haven't seen much crime in stations apart from fare dodging, yes there might be pickpockets, but probably not more than other places outside in London. You're pretty safe, there is good lighting and staffing and cameras everywhere.
Those things can be delivered. Often for free, almost always for less than it would cost to park a car in a city for a single month.
> move houses
You can't do that in a normal sized car. Are you suggesting that every person should own their own truck? Unless you are moving every month it makes more sense just to rent one.
For whom? Works surprisingly well for my family aside from the 23 going from Manhattan into Brooklyn on the weekends.
There are tons of similar best practice inefficient solutions to society's problems in order to deal with the malicious actors because nobody has solved this problem and I doubt anyone ever will.
Do you have an idea for how to stop people from acting maliciously? Considering how subjective that question is, I cannot think of one (for a democracy at least).
Yes,cultural homogeneity results in lower overall levels of malicious actors and free riders.
However, in the USA the only way to get such homogeneity is to (a) wait a long time for communications and migration to turn soften differences or (b) create a culture out of whole cloth, and use propaganda to spread it to the young.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=16410740&goto=threads%...
If everyone took your approach we would end up as a sharply segregated society where the public domain becomes the preserve of 'malicious actors' and those without the ability to avoid it. That would be a classic dystopia. These places exist. Seattle should not be one of them. Better to stand your ground in the public domain despite the risks. Your presence will make it a better and safer place for everyone.
When you frame it like that, isn't that kind of what it has already become? Cities are full of crime so people with money move to the suburbs where it is safer.
There is probably a name for this phenomenon. It's a sort of reverse tragedy of the commons.
> Cities are full of crime so people with money move to the suburbs where it is safer.
I think this was happening most in the middle of last century. Now, inner-city areas around the world are being gentrified by wealthy people that (I believe) recognise the lack of communal life afforded by suburbs - things such as the day to day passing of friends and strangers in the street, at the local cafe or shops, and a generally higher level of engagement that's possible when you spend less of your 'public' time in a vehicle.
For example, I was in an Uber Pool yesterday in SF. My driver picks up the next passengers (two women), and they refuse to get in after asking what my name is. (Who even asks that?!)
They cancel, and we pick up another passenger who’s also female. Keep in mind that my driver and I are both of Indian descent. She instantaneously showed signs of fear and pretended to be asleep while throwing herself on me. I felt a mixture of pity and anger. Mostly anger though, why would you assume that two brown guys are going to rape you? Not to trivialize what happens to women, but it’s certainly an odd reaction to have.
In short, I’m glad I don’t live in SF anymore. I thought things were bad in 2015-2016, but what happens there now is much, much worse.
Because of the extreme cost of a false negative, ...
Add in unconscious bias (by race or culture) and the risk seems larger before even without explicitly racist thoughts.
Experience what women do for as long as women do, and the odds rank much higher than they do to a man making that evaluation. I'm sure women sharing stories within their cohort for mutual awareness (odds that a woman has heard more horror stories about women in uber/lyft the a man has heard are higher) further alter the different cost/benefit results by gender, though that doesn't say their calculations are unrealistic, just different.
I'm guessing many men make subconscious choices about what is "safer" (locking your door, deciding where to park, not flashing any wad of money you might have, etc.) but are baffled that women would do so for decisions where a man doesn't (I know I have been) which just highlights how our culture hasn't discussed the threats to/experiences of the various genders.
while throwing herself on me
Generally, drunk people are not fearful.
Taxis, at least in my municipality, are the only vehicles legally permitted to pick passengers up off the street, aka only taxis can be hailed in person. Uber and Lyft cannot do this (where I live), and that is the differentiator.
This is far from being an established fact. Ignoring the fact that cities can't simple be redesigned from the ground up to maximise the benefits of public transport, there's very conflicting evidence about whether increasing public transport decreases congestion.
Ok, well I guess if you increase PT and no one catches is then sure. But if you make drivers pay the proper prices for using roads then that will encourage them to take the cheaper option.
Not the majority. At least not in sensibly operating cities.
used to ride next to a twitter guy who referred to it as the "premium" option...
I always take Caltrain when I go directly to/from the ballpark, even though I have parking passes for all games (which almost always can be sold at a profit).
Where land is cheap, simply drive the cars along a space-filling curve in a parking lot. One possible path is a double-spiral. Picture these lines[2] as the curb (except there's no curb, or even painted lines).
The spiral path is simple enough to calculate. One can rotate the whole spiral as viewed from above, growing and shrinking it and "wear leveling" across the entire paved surface. And the technique should generalize to any shape parking lot.
I expect writhing double-headed masses of autonomous cars near urban centers soon.
This design eliminates entirely any 3D architecture, at the small expense of some wasted space in the center determined by the turning radius[3].
Anyone know the most efficient shape would be in 3D (geometrically and structurally)? A helix is the obvious extrapolation, but I'm not convinced it's optimal.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_parking_system
[2] https://openclipart.org/detail/216988/double-linear-spiral
[3] edit: now that I think about it, you can park cars there too
This seems... iffy. For one thing, my computers run on electricity, and they need ventilation. For another, I think it makes sense to have it be possible for humans to enter the car storage.
On a similar note, it's a much worse idea to have your car constantly drive through the parking lot than to park it in the parking lot.
At first I wrote "no oversized ventilation," but I shortened it during revision after thinking, "no, no-one would think I meant something so dumb." Thanks for the correction. :P
Yes, there will be ventilation, emergency lighting, and access paths. Those contingency systems are still much cheaper and take up less volume than the corresponding full-time systems.
>it's a much worse idea to have your car constantly drive through the parking lot than to park it in the parking lot
You say that as though it's obvious, but why? Parking lots are $$$, and this ~quadruples the density. It's not like you're paying drivers, so the only cost is a tiny amount of electricity (a parking robot would certainly use more, since A) it's heavier and B) it moves faster). I also presume the vehicles will be stationary most of the time, allowing them to de-energize power electronics in the common case.
Wear-and-tear at those speeds is negligible, and multiple "lanes" means that if a car breaks down the other cars simply drive around it. Heck, at those speeds the following vehicle could push a disabled car out of a bottleneck (mature shared-use vehicle designs will likely feature non-scratch bumpers).
“Why get on a bus with 50 people when you can get into a car and maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll be the only person in it?” Demand for "personalized" transport is here to stay.
For those that can afford it.
Even with a self driving carpool option the bus still takes off 9 other vehicles (assuming 5 passengers in a vehicle).
"The old system, like many bus routes in the United States, expended a lot of resources on very low-ridership routes for the sake of saying there's 'a bus that goes there.' The new plan says the focus should be to provide reasonably frequent service on routes where reasonably frequent service will attract riders. That does mean that some people are further than ever from a transit stop. But it means that many more Houstonians will find themselves near a useful transit stop."
[1] https://www.vox.com/2015/2/18/8056039/houston-transit-reimag...
A poorly designed bus route. But, that's not surprising giving the state of urban sprawl; it's quite a hard problem to design a route that maintains ridership, simply because everything that people need access to is so spread out and randomized that people will prefer cars/lyft and 15 minutes of travel time to taking three buses over 50 minutes and then walking the last mile to get to where they want to go.
Bus agencies could do better if they were a bit more adaptable/flexible too - other countries have experimented with bus-on-demand, and having smaller buses ("shuttles") would help on lower demand routes. But it's already hard enough for these transit agencies to maintain budgets when ridership is so poor that it's difficult for them to spend money to try something new - it's a self-defeating cycle.
Has that worked (financially) anywhere? This model was a catastrophic failure when tried in Santa Clara County ("Dial-a-ride").
The reduce congestion, we need much better train system like those in east Asia so that people would love to take trains. Trains can also go much faster and they are much more predictable during busy hours
"private" transportation, with a driver who knows your information from his phone and can see your rating. Even when it is autonomous uber will know where you were and where you went.
I know that's a socialist longshot in capitalist America, but I really think that going forward the government is going to have to take a larger stake in tech in order to avoid the types of conflicts we've been seeing between private companies and public interests.
Here in SPB the marshrutki usually run parallel to major routes for a bit then deviate to hit residential areas or give fast-access to shopping centers, and combined with public transport you have just about everything you need to get around fast and conveniently. I suppose that such a system would suffer from the same issue of "everyone already has a car" that public transit in the US does, but it's a nice trade off.
(An aside, it's also a thrill ride each time, but when you need to get 10 km in a few minutes and have no care for your well-being, it's the best way to travel)
That was a real fun session of The Lege.
2011 Austin was amazing. Traffic wasn't the best but it didn't ruin my day. I'd go out and listen to bands at least a few times a week. Now everything's an hour minimum. Need a hose from Home Depot 3 miles away? 2 hours. I don't want to leave my house. I can't figure out if it's because I'm getting older and saltier or if the town has actually changed that much.
Where are you going? Also seeing Austin pop up as some amazing place to live in every HN thread is just weird. I stay out of those because maybe it is just my experience but this place is nothing like it was when I first came here. The city council being vehemently anti-density means there are NO townhouses or duplexes in the city (they were illegal until 2016 because of SFH minimum lot laws, every SFH had to be on a 5700sqft lot). It's synthesized real estate scarcity. Houston and Dallas are the polar opposite. I can buy an incredible townhouse in Deep Ellum with a roof top patio, 3/3, year old for less than my old crappy house here 12 miles from downtown.
I'm in the middle of transitioning back to my hometown of Indianapolis. Worse roads, less of a music scene, but the cost of living is much more tolerable...and it's my home. It's where I want to be right now.
Funnily enough, I agree 200% with what you said about Houston and Dallas. Austinites LOVE to hate on those two cities, but...at least it seems like they've figured out how to actually be cities.
If anything I see this as a remarkable step forward for equality.
Lastly, I don't think that it's fair to call this a step forward for equality, as free parking throughout town is a tax on everyone who doesn't own a vehicle, or takes public transit, paid out to those wealthy enough to afford cars and their own parking spots at home.
Poor people already don't drive in NYC because it is already too expensive for them, so it is disingenuous to suggest that they are being shafted by making it more expensive.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/nyregion/subways-new-york...
I think congestion pricing in NYC is inevitable, I just hope we also get more funding and competent management and contracting reform for public transport.
congestion taxes need to be regional, not per-road.
However, people don't have perfect information so how would you coordinate millions of drivers about their different driving paths and their various costs? Not everyone has smartphones running GPS all the time.
Congestion pricing is like trying to put out an oil fire by pouring water on it. And then charging the poor 15% of their paycheck for the water.
The primary reason there is congestion is that where people live and where people work are too far apart, i.e. there isn't enough housing near the jobs. Solve that and there is no congestion. Don't solve it and every other solution will be a new problem.
You can't get people to take a bus to a place the bus doesn't go, and you can't build mass transit from everywhere to everywhere across a thousand square miles of sprawl.
You can build multi-story housing near multi-story offices, and build both next to subway stations.
These services have advantages, but reducing the number of cars on the road isn't one of them.
Related note: what would happen if Ubers/Lyfts/taxies couldn't use HOV lanes unless they had multiple passengers? It's always struck me as odd that a taxi can go HOV with one passenger, since the whole point of HOV is to encourage carpooling.
C'mon Elon, get on it!
You mean... helicopters? Because they already exist and have limited use cases.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4444874/Uber-...
https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16961688/airbus-vahana-evt...
http://www.ibtimes.com/google-founder-larry-page-funding-fly...
Etc
I don't know how seriously to take all these projects, but they are clearly quite different to helicopters.