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Comment by ardit33 | Hacker News Reader

Most of BUS lanes in NYC are not fully occupied. 2/3rd of the time they are just sit empty.

But, I agree on the part that they will slow down a bit existing public transportation, but, if Uber served routes that are currently difficult to reach, it has public service as well.

Why would someone pay $10 for the Uber service, meanwhile the local one is just $3? There is a good chance that the local bus doesn't cover certain areas properly, or stops too frequently, making it a slow trip for regular commuters.

Ps. In Europe there is both public and private trains, both running the same tracks. I don't see a problem with this.

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> Why would someone pay $10 for the Uber service, meanwhile the local one is just $3?

In this scenario Uber would give endless promos pricing the trip at $2.90 until they’ve degraded the public bus service to a level where no one wants to use it. Then they jack up the prices.

> In this scenario

So based entirely on a hypothetical that didn’t pan out with Uber’s original services.

Are you implying Uber isn't more expensive than when it first started? Because it is.

> Are you implying Uber isn't more expensive than when it first started? Because it is

Of course not. I'm saying (not implying) that Uber never jacked up its rates beyond what the competition, including taxis, charge.

Aren't you all agreeing then - when there's competition, such as public transit, Uber will keep its prices competitive. When there's no competition ...

> when there's competition, such as public transit, Uber will keep its prices competitive. When there's no competition

The when is a bogeyman. It's never happened. We're trading present benefits against a hypothetical downside with easy remedies if it appears.

As I mentioned in another comment, Project 2025 calls for cuts to public transit and instead giving funding and subsidies to private companies like Uber or Lyft to provide transit. Republicans already hate funding transit so how do these easy remedies appear to you? If transit was properly funded, Uber wouldn't have done this to begin with.

> If transit was properly funded, Uber wouldn't have done this to begin with

It’s not. That’s not Republicans’ fault, there isn’t a great reason for West Virginians to subsidise San Francisco rail.

West Virginia is a welfare state and the 3rd most dependent on federal funding. California actually gives more money than it gets from the fed. Most red states aren't subsidizing anything, they are the ones living off subsidies. Transit funding at the federal level supports ALL states. Projects in red states are being built due to the transit infrastructure bill passed under Biden.

> there isn’t a great reason for West Virginians to subsidise San Francisco rail

There's not a great reason for Washingtonians to subsidize Florida's hurricane insurance, but here we are...

Sure there is, such as cooperation, care for others, responsibility for others. Why should those things stop at the West Virginia border? Why fund public goods in West Virginia? Maybe we should fund none at all, have no responsibility for anyone but ourselves.

Wow. That is basic economics and I see it all the time in the marketplace. Wait until the competition cancels your favorite air route and see what happens to the prices.

What are the easy remedies? Restart public transit?

> That is basic economics and I see it all the time in the marketplace

Yes, it’s a market failure. The solution is not to never attempt anything that might result in market failure.

> Wait until the competition cancels your favorite air route and see what happens to the prices

Bad comparison. The locality controls the airport. Not the route. Not the destination. With Uber, the locality controls the pick-up and at least significant parts of the route. (There also isn’t any federal preëmption of ride share regulation the way there is in the air.)

> What are the easy remedies? Restart public transit?

In the event Uber bankrupts the bus system and also Lyft and Waymo? Tax them. Increase use fees. Revoke bus lane privileges.

Again, this is a bogeyman. It’s never actually happened in urban transportation in the modern era, particularly, never with Uber.

Your promise that the obvious economic outcome won't happen, and your insistance that it hasn't happened with Uber, isn't convincing. This is how markets and how aggressive business - particularly modern business - works.

(Also, regarding Uber, how many times have they been in a market with no competition?)

> In the event Uber bankrupts the bus system and also Lyft and Waymo? Tax them. Increase use fees. Revoke bus lane privileges.

What if Uber doesn't provide equitable service? How about hospitals getting shut down by for-profit owners, leaving communities without healthcare? Businesses chase profit and cut losses - not a good choice when you need equitable servcies.

Are you sure? Here in NYC Uber has pretty much entirely replaced yellow cabs and their prices are a hell of a lot higher than they used to be.

> Here in NYC Uber has pretty much entirely replaced yellow cabs

Yes for ride hailing [1]. If I recall correctly, Uber gets about 60% of that.

> their prices are a hell of a lot higher than they used to be

Inflation adjusted? And relative to TLC fares? I remember when taking a cab was a deal compared to Uber, but that hasn’t been the case for years.

[1] https://toddwschneider.com/dashboards/nyc-taxi-ridehailing-u...

Yea. Do you not remember when uber was subsidizing the fuck out of rides? Inflation is a bitch but there’s no way I was getting rides across all of Boston for 2 dollars back in the mid 2010s due entirely to inflation

> Do you not remember when uber was subsidizing the fuck out of rides?

Sure. I'm not saying Uber's costs didn't go up. I'm arguing they haven't gone up faster than the competition. They never cornered the market to jack up rates because they never had that much pricing power. They loss lead to get a seat at the table, not to buy the whole table.

> Here in NYC Uber has pretty much entirely replaced yellow cabs

Not the NYC I see. Plenty of cabs, can still hail one when I need one. Uber/Lyft require a longer wait, most of the time.

That's... exactly how uber's services work.

For what, 14 years straight they made a few hundred million dollars in the red every year?

It's the venture capitalists playbook. Don't bother designing a competitive product, just cheat and flood the market. When you're billions in debt you'll figure it out, hopefully.

They won't jack up the prices now the main price-jacking-up event has occurred: having to change the agreement with their contractors to give them employment-like benefits.

>They won't jack up the prices now the main price-jacking-up event has occurred

“I’ve made nough money already” said no one ever. Probably they won’t on the car service but there will be jacking-up room for the bus service.

A transit lane with excess capacity is a feature, not a bug. It provides slack to recover from issues.

Slack is good, too much slack is wasteful.

Charge them their full amortized share of the road, raise rates if congestion becomes a problem.

Sure - if you do it by passengers and not by vehicle count. Busses are hilariously more efficient at moving people.

People don't occupy space on roads, vehicles do. They should absolutely be paying by vehicle count. It's their problem if they can't fill the vehicles.

That works in cities like Zurich where there are lots of buses going absolutely everywhere and are almost always perfectly on time. I worked there for 3 months and my 8:23am city bus was there on the dot pretty much every day. It would often get to the stop at 8:21 and wait till 8:23, like clockwork. There was no payment system on the actual bus, people had to take care of payments outside the bus so as not to delay boarding.

In the US, buses largely don't need to get you where you need to go, are never on time, delayed at every stop by a line of people fumbling for how to shove crumpled dollar bills into the machine. The governments have no plans to fix any of this, so I welcome the private sector to step in and provide a bus solution in the meantime that is fast, clean, and efficient.

The Zurich story is interesting.

The US story is just fantasy. Buses work well, few people use cash or coins, and government has been and is improving things - including payment. For example, I've seen plenty of public transit where people pay before the vehicle arrives.

I have extensive experience with the bus systems in three major US cities and none of them are like that.

> delayed at every stop by a line of people fumbling for how to shove crumpled dollar bills into the machine

In my US city, not a megalopolis, but a state capital, there's no machine to shove money into, because the bus system doesn't charge anyone to ride.

Most of the spaces in front of fire hydrants sit empty, too.

In Buenos Aires the bus system is run by private companies. The buses are full, and they run way more often than the typical and pitiful once-every 20 or 30 minutes during rush hour rate that we see in the U.S.'s city run bus systems. You never have to wait long. You can buy small books with all the info you need to get from any one part of the city to any other using only buses.

Taxis are able to use bus lanes in EU too. And it's completely ok to do that.

- Uber serves routes that are difficult to reach

- Those routes hit underserved communities (read: low income)

- The $2 service becomes $10 after some loss leading, which is what Uber literally did.

- The lanes aren’t fully occupied. The public sector doesn’t turn a profit. The… (see my OP).

- Comparing Europe, the land of GDPR, tech company regs and fines, and its general suspicion of private sector, to the US, which is basically none of that, is a unique take.

>Comparing Europe, the land of GDPR, tech company regs and fines, and its general suspicion of private sector, to the US, which is basically none of that, is a unique take.

Here in America we fight nail and teeth for our right to be screwed over.

> Comparing Europe, the land of GDPR, tech company regs and fines, and its general suspicion of private sector, to the US, which is basically none of that, is a unique take.

It's a commonplace take. They don't have to be exactly the same - those are the peer countries of the US. People find a way to dismiss the comparisons because they have no argument: Clearly there's a better, proven way to do it.

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