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Lyft’s adjusted EBITA was $55 million in Q1, given their active rider number stands at ~19 million, at best they are likely offering rides at cost.

That still leaves out the costs incurred by the drivers. Opex for transit agencies includes maintenance, insurance and driver salaries and benefits which are much more costly than it is for Lyft.

You are right that sprawling metro areas are very well suited for mass transit, though. There does need to be a sufficient amount of demand in order for it to work.

The fact of the matter is that the main problem is a land use pattern that requires over $9 to travel to and from a child’s daycare.

You aren’t making an apples to apples comparison though, your assertion is that it costs the system $18 for you to take a trip, but you’re only looking at the fare charges by Uber/Lyft. Uber and Lyft continue to operate at a loss, and are therefore subsidizing their rides as well. Additionally, they are able to maintain a contingent workforce that a public transit agency would likely never be able to get away with. Uber and Lyft are directly subsidized by investor money, in addition to the lower wages earned by drivers who also cover the capital expenditure for vehicles and cover the maintenance costs.

And final point, mass transit demand still hasn’t returned to pre pandemic levels. Obviously, it may be the case that we have seen a long term shift in demand, but the fact remains that the current system was built out/provisioned for a higher level of demand, so it’s not surprising that the cost structure is higher right now than it should be. Pre pandemic it looks like bus/rail cost Marta around $4.50 per trip.

Flexibility and efficiency are often at odds.

Fixed route service is FAR more efficient than any sort of micro transit service can ever be, unless we are looking at areas with very low demand.

The most efficient algorithm is always going to be having people gather in one spot to be picked up and dropped off rather than driving all over to different points.

That’s fair enough, I seem to have misread your original comment as “bans on things individuals like == dictatorship”, which is a common enough sentiment, unfortunately, that the connection is all to easy to make.

> We don't live in a dictatorship and so absolutes like "never make an SUV" bans this don't really happen.

I can’t tell if you’re being hyperbolic, but banning SUVs isn’t a sign of a dictatorship, and it’s frankly a bit ridiculous to even make the comparison.

The US government has and does ban products all the time for all sorts of reasons. See: alcohol, marijuana/other drugs, incandescent bulbs, etc.

I fail to see how any change can be outrageous when you’re literally getting a product for free and there are endless alternatives.

> To the contrary: democracy makes it more likely that they are tolerated and included.

There is a correlation here, but it isn’t causal. Democracy has been around in countries that support gay rights for much longer than they supported gay rights.

What’s made the difference has been cultural shifts wherein the majority supports gay rights rather than opposing them.

A big thing that people don’t take into account is that people have been migrating back and forth from Mexico/Central America for generations for work, this isn’t a new phenomenon. To an extent, the US has always relied on this labor force.

Having stricter and stricter immigration policies encourages people to permanently resettle rather than having the option to return home after, for example, a harvest season is complete.

I mean I don’t blame you, that interpretation sounds a lot more fun.

I’m assuming English isn’t your first language?

Gun/gunning for is a term of phrase that means that one is trying to win/unseat another in a competitive sense.

“Guns” is a verb in the title, not a noun.

It’s a quite commonly used meaning of “guns” though, at least in American English.

Well your statements just don’t line up in that case

> Here's the number to pay attention to. CPI increases are accelerating.

That’s what it means to go from a 2% inflation rate to a 9% inflation rate.

The inflation rate is literally the slope of that chart. It’s a price chart, not an inflation chart.

> Also notice how that chart only goes in one direction - up and to the right. There are very brief periods in which it reverses, only to return to trend with a vengeance.

Yes, because deflation is generally considered a bad thing.

In your example, demand doesn’t decrease, it stays stable while supply increases.

If anything you don’t want demand destruction if we are anticipating such a drastic increase in supply.

The monied class isn’t everyone, the fact that you would suggest such implies you aren’t aware of the distribution of wealth in the US.

10% of households own 90% of the stocks held by households. Close to half hold none at all.

I get that, its just confusing why you’d connect that with urbanization. Urban environments tend not to have corporate megastores.

Your comment read to me like this “not everyone likes urban environments, people don’t want [insert thing indicative of the suburbs] right on top of them”

Urban places aren’t just more compact versions of the suburbs.

> Yes, there are literally grid issues right now, with electric cars being a tiny portion of car sales.

Where is this being caused by EVs?

> They also have to realize that not everyone wants corporate box box stores in their backyards

Corporate box stores are literally a direct result of suburbanization, if you don’t like them then that’s a argument against the suburbs, not for them.

Are you African or a black man from the US/Europe who now lives and works in africa?

Diversity isn’t about the color of one’s skin, it’s about what that means when embedded in Western society.

Prices are set by supply and demand.

Inflation refers to the price of goods increasing.

If supply reduces and/or demand increases, all else equal, prices increase. If supply increases and/or demand decreases, all else equal, prices decrease.

It’s almost certainly the case that the parent commenter was referring to a gay bar.

I’m not a huge fan of that large of a vehicle being out on the road either, but realistically, it costs well over 100k, there aren’t going to be that many out on the road any time soon.

Most of this is a red herring.

Ah I didn’t realize you were talking about India, my mistake.

That in and of itself is not a signifier of mismanaged funds.

Without knowing what much they should cost, there’s no way to know what the roads should look like.

Americas sprawling land use is extremely expensive to maintain.

Why the quotes? Roads are expensive to maintain, what makes you think the money must inherently be misspent?

Don’t forget about Hyundai/kia.

The Chinese automakers are going to be a significant factor in the industry in the late 20s/30s as well.

1. You’re replying to the wrong comment.

2. As my comment outlines, the electoral college actually does very little to protect minority interests.

3. Further, it has almost never actually worked as the founders intended. They didn’t predict the existence of political parties and expected the electoral college to actually involved real debates and voting within the body itself, not as it works today where they are essentially decided before they attend. The founders intended for the EC to be a filtering step among a multitude of candidates before the final election was decided by the house, voting as state level blocs.

What you’re arguing is post hoc rationalization that doesn’t even fit the facts on the ground.

For the record, I passionately voted against trump because of things that I watched him do, not because of media spin.

I and a lot of other people strongly disagreed with both his policies and his character, which were on plain display constantly and unfiltered on Twitter.

I don’t deny the existence of a mainstream media bias against trump, but all of the things you listed weren’t really all that secret. I and everyone I know knew about those things and they weren’t exactly following things super close.

This is oft repeated, but it does hold up to even minor scrutiny.

1. More Americans live in suburbs than in urban areas, so they actually represent a larger share of the popular vote.

2. The electoral does not actually bias small states that significantly. California’s share of the popular vote was 11.0% in 2020, while it cast 10.2% of EVs.

3. The electoral college primarily biases large, tipping point states. Biden won California by a 63-34 landslide, while trump won Florida 51-48. In both cases, each candidate gets 100% of the electoral votes rather than a proportional amount.

4. Finally, the electoral college biases low turnout states vs high turnout ones, as EC votes are based on population and senators not actual votes themselves. In 2016 for example, Texas cast fewer votes than Florida, even though it is the second biggest state by population, and it got to cast 7 move EC votes.

As an aside, it’s always telling that when this debate comes up, people will always say that “California and New York will decide the election”, referencing the largest and fourth largest states, while leaving out Texas and Florida, the second and third largest…