[HN Gopher] Uber to introduce fixed-route shuttles in major US c...
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Uber to introduce fixed-route shuttles in major US cities
Author : rpgbr
Score : 113 points
Date : 2025-05-14 15:40 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| mouse_ wrote:
| Great idea
| blinded wrote:
| Guess the sarcastic response would be: "so a bus?"
| babyshake wrote:
| If it is busses that show their live position and ETA until
| your pickup location, that would be a significant improvement
| on the status quo. Bus schedules tend to be pretty unreliable
| in areas with traffic.
| dafugg wrote:
| Busses already do that in many places around the world and
| seem to handle variable traffic as gracefully as possible.
| bko wrote:
| So I guess the question is why isn't this available in many
| other places? The technology has been available for a long
| time. In a free market you would allow competitors to enter
| with a better product and displace the one that's falling
| behind. Hopefully this will be a step in the right
| direction
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Outfitting hundreds or thousands of busses costs a lot of
| money. Maintaining the equipment costs more money.
|
| The lack of availability comes down to priorities. Most
| bus agencies don't have the spare cash lying around to do
| this.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| Buses also tend to destroy roads.
| https://www.kgw.com/article/news/verify/yes-bus-more-
| road-da...
| danans wrote:
| > So I guess the question is why isn't this available in
| many other places?
|
| Probably because voters and politicians in those places
| don't value public transportation.
| ryoshoe wrote:
| Real-time bus tracking is available in the all the cities
| Uber is testing this service in.
| jasonhong wrote:
| My colleagues who studied this issue told me that there
| were several patents on bus tracking, making it cost
| prohibitive for many cities.
|
| It also led to the Tiramisu project, which used people's
| smartphones to track buses and how crowded those buses
| were. https://tiramisutransit.com/
| fidotron wrote:
| Public transit agencies are not free to pick the best
| suppliers; there are political considerations at best and
| outright corruption at worst.
| _verandaguy wrote:
| > So I guess the question is why isn't this available in
| many other places? The technology has been available for
| a long time
|
| This is ubiquitous in even small Canadian cities, like
| Thunder Bay and Sault, though it often comes through a
| partnership with the Transit app (which I have complex
| feelings about -- the ubiquity is nice, but having a
| publicly-funded option would be better, and I question
| whether Transit is doing anything underhanded with usage
| data; the app has a paid plan, but it's plenty usable
| without it).
|
| I live in a bigger city (Toronto), and speaking from
| experience, locations tend to be accurate to within a
| minute or so on most routes, and the app does a good job
| of telling you about route changes due to maintenance or
| detours due to construction.
|
| Pre-Transit, Ottawa -- a medium-sized city in its own
| right -- had a system where you'd text a service your bus
| stop number and it'd give you the next bus's estimated
| next pass at that stop; I know that early on, that just
| did a lookup of the static bus schedule, but I believe it
| eventually started using live location data (though by
| that time I was using early versions of Transit anyway).
|
| The US has this problem where transit gets continuously
| underfunded and people then act surprised when it's sub
| par. Canadian transit needs a _lot_ of love, but US
| transit 's consistently been some of the worst I've ever
| had to use.
| bko wrote:
| Is funding really the problem? I don't know why it would
| cost so much to put a tracker on the bus and have someone
| build an app. Or even just posting the location to a
| website, or maybe text message? I understand digging
| tunnels under NYC would be expensive but this seems like
| it would be a great bang for the buck in terms of
| convenience
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Are you sure it ISN'T available?
|
| It's the norm in my "City" of 60k that nobody ever thinks
| about.
|
| Fuck, it was the situation with the contracted, private
| buses used to shuttle people back and forth in my split
| campus college.
|
| Is it available where you are and you just don't realize?
|
| It's a service that any municipality can purchase.
| kimbernator wrote:
| It's really hard to see this as an improvement to publicly
| funded systems when there's not really any reason we couldn't
| have this in said systems.
|
| This is yet another erosion to public ownership of
| infrastructure that will be lauded by hyper-capitalists as a
| good thing. This whole "enshittification" trend occurs
| because of the pressure to constantly squeeze a percent more
| out of consumers each quarter than the last. Why are we
| handing everything over to that? This service is -literally-
| guaranteed to get worse and/or more expensive over time.
| apsurd wrote:
| The reason I run into when thinking on late stage
| capitalism improvements is: "People want the chance to be
| rich". We vote and support all this private ownership
| because we want to keep that window open that that owner
| could be us.
|
| Renters bemoan their landlord and also they're reading how
| to invest in real estate, rent out an ADU, and run 5
| airbnbs. It's always real estate for your average person to
| climb the wealth ladder.
|
| I'm stuck on that reality, people don't seem to want shared
| resources?
| piva00 wrote:
| Busses already do that, I can look up right now where the
| next bus on my stop is, its ETA (also displayed on the stop's
| signaling), and it's usually right on time.
| mdeeks wrote:
| Small point: I think the ETA is based on the position of
| the bus and how long it would take to drive to your stop in
| perfect conditions. It doesn't take into account traffic or
| any other road blockages or accidents like Google Maps or
| others.
|
| At least this is how I've observed it working here on AC
| Transit in the bay area. Many times I have sat at a bus
| stop for 25 minutes waiting for a bus that was always five
| minutes away.
| piva00 wrote:
| It does consider traffic, reroutes in case of need, etc.
| but that doesn't really affect bus times here, heavy
| traffic roads have exclusive bus lanes, inner roads don't
| tend to have much traffic even during rush hour.
| cguess wrote:
| Here in NYC the MTA bus time app is pretty accurate,
| Google Maps's timing for bus arrivals I've never seen be
| accurate on the other hand.
| a2128 wrote:
| I live in a second-world country and we have had live bus
| position tracking and ETA since about 8 years ago.
|
| In some countries like Netherlands, bus stops can even have
| LCD displays that show you a live ETA or any
| disruptions/cancellations without needing an app
| arprocter wrote:
| The MTA in NYC can't seem to make this work correctly for
| trains
|
| At our (penultimate aboveground) stop you can look down the
| track and see if there are any trains waiting - even if
| there aren't, the live board still likes to claim there's
| one 'coming in a minute'
|
| My only guess is it works off of what should be happening,
| and not what actually is going on
| cguess wrote:
| It works fine for the trains and busses, you either don't
| live in NYC or don't know what you're talking about? The
| MTA app and displays are almost dead on accurate for
| arrival times for the busses and trains. Sometimes
| there's a minute or so of a difference from reality but
| that's more than small enough to be useful.
| subpixel wrote:
| ? This has been standard for a long time even in the US
| Suppafly wrote:
| The thing with these startups, and Uber in general, is that
| they are forcing these industries to do the upgrades in
| technology that should have done on their own already but
| weren't doing because they had the industry captured
| previously. The downside to Uber is that there is little
| stopping taxi and bus services from improving their end user
| experiences and pushing Uber back out of those spaces. Buses
| at least are ran by municipalities that are slow up change,
| so Uber has time to get established there. It's insane that
| taxis didn't kill Uber in it's infancy though.
| blitzar wrote:
| Like this? https://traintimes.org.uk/map/london-buses/#9
| rsynnott wrote:
| ... I'm not sure I've been anywhere where they don't do that
| in the last few years? It's inherently a little unreliable
| (in particular, it's hard to know ahead of time what dwell
| time at a stop will be, or if the bus will even need to stop
| at the stop), but it's fairly standard these days.
|
| This thing is a good interface to them:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_(app)
|
| In many countries bus stops also have electronic signs
| indicating when the next buses are coming. Here's a thing
| from 15 years ago about their introduction in Dublin, which
| is not exactly world-leading, transport-wise:
| https://www.archiseek.com/discussion/topic/rtpi-coming-
| to-a-...
| nickff wrote:
| There are many places where private busses are the norm; in
| many countries these private operates have been crowded-out by
| subsidized governmental competitors, but there may be room for
| some now.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| I miss the Peter Pan bus system in western Massachusetts.
| Last time I rode buses daily.
| https://peterpanbus.com/locations/massachusetts/
| oblio wrote:
| > There are many places where private busses are the norm
|
| And 90% of those places are developing countries, just
| sayin'.
| riehwvfbk wrote:
| Well, no. In a low density US city a bus route goes into all
| the places where nobody is waiting in the name of increasing
| coverage. Adding more routes is impossible due to lack of
| funding. This makes it take 2-3 times as long as a car to get
| anywhere, which it then makes buses transportation of last
| resort. Which further decreases ridership and funding.
|
| A municipal service cannot implement on-demand hailing because
| it has to serve the one or two people who can't use a phone
| (never mind that it would be cheaper to hire a personal
| assistant for them to book their rides). And so innovation is
| left to private enterprises.
|
| Here come the downvotes! However, on a sibling thread about on-
| demand buses in China the same folks will praise innovation...
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > Here come the downvotes!
|
| Government/municipal transit exists, in part, to service a
| "long tail" of need among the residents. Its goal is not
| innovation but reliable presence for many.
|
| There is room for private taxis, buses and trains full of
| people, private cars, bikes, etc. in the wide distribution of
| transportation modes.
| bluGill wrote:
| Transport depends on a good network of places you can get
| to. That is why transit tends to be a monopoly - if there
| are two players there are places you can't get to so you
| want whoever you selected to serve more places.
|
| Note that I count roads as one of your transport networks.
| paddy_m wrote:
| Another thing that happens is that social services
| (healthcare, DMV, probation office, welfare) move offices out
| of expensive transit dense areas to cheap far flung offices.
| Then local governments force bus routing to these places, it
| leads to a miserable experience for everyone involved.
|
| The best measure of a transit project is "How many people use
| this per day". ie is it doing something valuable.
|
| Note: I don't know of a solution for this other than more
| holistic government service planning. I do think it's
| valuable and good that those in need of government services
| can get there without a car. But it isn't always the sole
| fault of transit agencies that they have low ridership slow
| busses.
| supertrope wrote:
| Transportation and real estate are two sides of the same
| coin. They should be part of the same plan and budget. Each
| bureaucracy whether public or private has its own mission
| and budget. It's often easier to dump a problem onto
| another organization so you can declare victory on your
| organization staying on time and under budget.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Government services that move to remote offices to "save on
| rent" should be required to fund out of their budgets the
| new bus route that is now required for people to get there.
| Suddenly the "savings" isn't so much.
| harvey9 wrote:
| It can be faster by car than by bus even in high density and
| high bus ridership London. It is very variable by route and
| time of day, and I am assuming there is no rail option.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| LA Metro's bus system covers most of LA County (1,447 square
| miles), ranking it among the top in terms of geographic
| coverage. In terms of ridership, it is second only to the NYC
| bus system in the U.S., and is among the top 20 in terms of
| ridership globally.
|
| LA Metro also offers an on-demand hailed shuttle in several
| neighborhoods (Metro Micro). And has for several years,
| including several partnerships with Uber and Lyft that were
| ultimately terminated because private companies can't offer
| micromobility services as efficiently as a public agency can.
| Metro Micro costs a fraction of what LA Metro was paying Uber
| and Lyft but provides more rides in more neighborhoods.
|
| LA Metro also has more e-bike coverage than any of the
| private e-bike services, most of which are now bankrupt.
| khm wrote:
| This isn't true. Municipal routes can be optimized to serve
| the majority of people, and then a ride hailing service can
| be offered to feed off-route users into the fixed-route
| network. Most transit agencies offer this service, and many
| offer full-on ride-hailing (example: C-TRAN's "The Current"
| in Vancouver, WA).
|
| I don't know where this "can't use a phone" thing comes from.
| ADA requires that transit services above a certain size offer
| paratransit, but doesn't specify how those rides are booked.
| I haven't run into anyone who can't make phone calls _and_
| can 't book rides online.
| dmix wrote:
| It says maximum of 3 people in a ride (at least the current
| plan) so not really.
| jrflowers wrote:
| It is also _not_ sarcastic to point out that a bus is a bus.
| MentatOnMelange wrote:
| So its like a more expensive version of public transportation,
| that also causes more traffic congestion and pollution because
| you've got a ton of cars on the road doing the job of a single
| bus/trolley/train
| SonOfKyuss wrote:
| It seems like it is targeted at people who currently commute by
| car. It could be a net benefit if the number of car riders who
| use it outnumber the amount of people it cannibalizes from
| public transportation.
| delfinom wrote:
| This is actually just competing with exhausting "competiton" in
| this space.
|
| In NYC we got dollar vans.
|
| https://queenseagle.com/all/dollar-van-transit-system
| Suppafly wrote:
| My kid was in the hospital in Chicago and there were a ton of
| shuttles that run routes between the various hotels and the
| hospital. In a big city, shuttles have a lot more flexibility
| than buses. While I don't know if Chicago has something akin
| to dollar vans, I could see it really working if those
| shuttles all just added a few extra stops. A lot of cities
| have shuttles organized to do the routes between colleges and
| bars, usually owned and managed by the bars themselves.
| bko wrote:
| The whole argument about "inefficiency of duplicative services"
| is an idea that needs to die.
|
| Whether its the Soviet Union trying to optimize shampoo
| production to create a single "shampoo" brand or a health care
| provider requiring a "certificate of need" [0] to open up, the
| results are always the same: no competition, bad service, low
| supply and high prices
|
| [0] https://www.health.ny.gov/facilities/cons/
| bluGill wrote:
| The problem is this isn't more efficient than just owning
| your own private car. A mass transit solution would be.
| Nothing wrong with inefficient solutions, but don't try to
| pretend you have the advantages of an efficient solution when
| you are not it.
| ausbah wrote:
| but a road or mass transit isn't the same as a shampoo brand.
| roads and vehicles already take up enough space (amongst
| other things) in dense urban areas, so i think adding even
| more under the guise of "competition" would incur a bunch of
| worse side effects. i think they're akin more to a natural
| monopoly
| xnx wrote:
| > So its like a more expensive version of public
| transportation,
|
| Most US public transit systems are funded by taxes in addition
| to fares. The true cost of a bus ride can be many times the
| ticket price. If the services doesn't provide enough value for
| the service, let the customer decide.
|
| > that also causes more traffic congestion and pollution
| because you've got a ton of cars on the road doing the job of a
| single bus/trolley/train
|
| Buses are huge obstacles to the free flow of traffic (e.g.
| blocking right turns, slow left turns, blocking car and bike
| lanes with width) and are heavy polluters (diesel powered,
| oversized for most of their operating time).
|
| Public transit agencies want to outlaw services like Chariot
| (https://sf.curbed.com/2019/1/10/18177528/chariot-san-
| francis...) because they don't want the competition.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| By your logic we should get rid of trucks and have all
| freight delivered by car.
| xnx wrote:
| My logic is trying to use the most efficient method to
| safely, efficiently, and affordably transport people.
| Deliveries are already scaled to the items they carry. No
| one is delivering a pizza in a semi-truck.
| politelemon wrote:
| Which is what buses do. They are the lesser polluters,
| safe, efficient. For reasons unknown you are assuming
| buses are statistically empty when comparing them.
| LtWorf wrote:
| They're empty at night in the parking lot!
| bluGill wrote:
| Your criticism of buses is correct only if there is only the
| driver on board. Your typical large bus route has more than
| enough riders (except at the end where they are turning
| around) to more than make up for all the problems buses
| cause. You just don't see how much worse traffic / pollution
| would be if those people were driving a car instead.
| xnx wrote:
| Buses are very efficient at peak times, but run mostly
| empty the rest of the day. Better to have a system that can
| scale with demand.
| bluGill wrote:
| A mostly empty bus still generally has more than enough
| people to be more efficient than private cars (which is
| the real competition). And a mostly empty bus all day
| means people can trust it should something happen that
| makes them take an off-peak trip.
|
| Which is to say a mostly empty bus scales down very well.
| The limits to scaling a bus are up not down - a problem
| more cities should have.
| orthecreedence wrote:
| Buses can scale with demand and often do. This is a
| function of planning and has little to do with the
| mechanism of public vs private ownership.
| surfaceofthesun wrote:
| Transit agencies are also capable of demand response. For
| example, you'll see more articulated busses at peak times
| in Austin. Also, large transit stops are used as queues
| to maintain consistent headways.
|
| A great example of this in action happens each year for
| the Austin City Limits Festival [1]. A few routes have
| substantially more busses during those two weekends to
| deal with a couple hundred thousand extra passengers.
|
| ---
|
| [1] -- https://support.aclfestival.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/4405461498...
| xnx wrote:
| Yes. Buses are great at scaling up (much better than
| trains) for special events. They are bad at scaling down.
| A bus with less than a van-full of passengers is a huge
| waste of resources and roads space. In times of low
| utilization, buses shouldn't be blindly running their
| routes.
| bluGill wrote:
| A bus route needs to run reliably all the time so that
| people can depend on it. There is little difference in
| the cost of running a large vs small bus so running a
| large bus all the time is almost always the best answer.
| And cities around the world discover that running
| reliable all day service means that you end up with more
| than enough passengers all day as to be worth it.
| supertrope wrote:
| In wealthy countries 2/3 of public transit costs is
| hiring drivers. Peak demand determines how many drivers
| and buses you need. If vehicles are completely filled
| customers will have to wait for the next one. So using
| smaller vehicles don't save as much money as one would
| think.
| pixelatedindex wrote:
| Buses are a service to take you from point A to point B.
| Your taxes fund them. It is a cost center. I don't know
| why people think it must continually generate profit. A
| good transit system should be able to move people and
| generally helps stimulate local economy. The better the
| service, more people use it. Most buses and trains are
| electric now too, so they don't pollute either.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _Buses are huge obstacles to the free flow of traffic (e.g.
| blocking right turns, slow left turns, blocking car and bike
| lanes with width) and are heavy polluters (diesel powered,
| oversized for most of their operating time)._
|
| This is all wrong. At any given moment, the average bus will
| replace at least a dozen cars, so a bus "blocking a right
| turn" for a few seconds is significantly less of an obstacle
| than a dozen or more cars in that lane.
|
| Buses make slow left turns, yes. But not much slower than
| normal cars, and it's far more likely that you'll miss a left
| turn due to a normal driver staring at Instagram on their
| phone instead of watching for the green turn signal.
|
| Buses do not take up more than their lane in the U.S. Also,
| buses and bus stops were around _before_ bike lanes, which
| (being generous) serve 1 /100,000th as many people.
|
| One diesel-powered bus still pollutes less than the vehicles
| it replaces.
|
| And finally, Chariot wasn't outlawed. It just couldn't
| compete on the basis of real-world economics even though it
| was charging a multiple of what Muni charged for the same
| routes. To put it bluntly: the private company so inefficient
| that it couldn't make the numbers work even charging 5x what
| the public agency was charging. (SF did suspend Chariot for a
| weekin 2017 because Chariot was found to have been employing
| drivers without licenses.)
| Suppafly wrote:
| > the private company so inefficient that it couldn't make
| the numbers work even charging 5x what the public agency
| was charging.
|
| That's not surprising because the public agency is mostly
| tax supported. Fares never reflect the true cost of the
| ride on public transportation.
| ausbah wrote:
| personal vehicles are also massively subsidized. the
| price of gas, registration, insurance, parking,
| purchasing, etc don't reflective of their true cost
| Suppafly wrote:
| to a degree but most of those things you've mentioned,
| the owners do pay the full cost of.
| surfaceofthesun wrote:
| I posted about this above [1]. But the gist is that the
| most significant subsidies for private car ownership are
| indirect like parking minimums.
|
| ---
|
| [1] -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43988252
| sundaeofshock wrote:
| > Most US public transit systems are funded by taxes in
| addition to fares. The true cost of a bus ride can be many
| times the ticket price. If the services doesn't provide
| enough value for the service, let the customer decide.
|
| What about the true cost of cars? I don't drive, yet my taxes
| are used to subsidize car ownership, including the storage of
| vehicles in public spaces. The various externalities --
| pollution, congestion, deaths, excess asphalt -- are not
| included in the true cost of private car ownership.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >I don't drive, yet my taxes are used to subsidize car
| ownership
|
| You still rely on roads, either for cars driven by other
| people to take you places or to service you with package
| delivery and fire and medical services at a minimum.
| sundaeofshock wrote:
| I rely on mass transit or walking for most of my
| transportation, so it is very rare for me to be driven in
| a car. Maybe 2 - 4 trips/month in a Waymo, and a monthly
| trip to Costco. Everything else is done on foot or
| transit, including thrice weekly commute and weekly
| grocery shopping.
|
| I have no problem with roads in the abstract for public
| services, including for fire protection and buses. I do
| have a problem with using my taxes to subsidize private
| car ownership. Again, why should I help pay for someone
| to store their private vehicle on city streets? I also
| have a problem with all the externalities of private car
| ownership that make me less safe.
|
| Yes, transit is subsidized in the US. However, I won't
| ignore the fact that private car-ownership is just as
| heavily subsidized - if not more so -- as mass transit.
| If we are having a conversation about the efficiency of
| one form of transportation over another, we need to look
| at them both through the same lens.
| mateo411 wrote:
| It's true that there is tax money that is spent on
| infrastructure to support cars, but taxes are also
| collected from the use of cars through gas taxes and
| annual registration fees. If you include those taxes and
| fees it's not obvious how much other taxes are used to
| subsidize cars.
|
| It will be different in each state, since each state
| imposes different levels of gas taxes and has different
| registration fees.
| supertrope wrote:
| Fuel tax and registration only covers half the cost of
| roads. Then there's the cost of all the land for parking.
| In many cities half of downtown is parking.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >In many cities half of downtown is parking.
|
| Sure but it's rarely free parking, and when it is, it's
| generally because the property owners are essentially
| paying for it.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >private car-ownership is just as heavily subsidized - if
| not more so -- as mass transit.
|
| I don't believe that's true.
| surfaceofthesun wrote:
| It's likely correct that mass transit is directly
| subsidized at a greater percentage than any specific
| aspect of private car ownership. However, there are
| significant indirect subsidies due to the centrality of
| private cars that not only dwarf transit subsidies, but
| simultaneously make transit less economical.
|
| A simple example is minimum requirements for parking.
| Almost every home and business is paying more for
| additional space that cars take up. This means less
| people in catchment areas for different types of transit.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >Almost every home and business is paying more for
| additional space that cars take up.
|
| Sure but that's not a subsidy being borne by tax payers,
| that's being paid by people that want cars to be at their
| house or business. I suppose you have some argument that
| the legally required minimums might be more than
| necessary but generally they reflect the need as it
| exists, not what we want it to bed. Allowing businesses
| to not have to supply parking wouldn't force people to
| use mass transit, it'd just force them to park further
| away in a space not paid for by the business they are
| frequenting.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >Most US public transit systems are funded by taxes in
| addition to fares.
|
| As a homeowner this is abundantly clear by looking at your
| tax bill, and something that I suspect renters don't think
| about. I don't grumble much about paying my taxes, but when
| you look at the breakdown, it's insane how much goes to
| things I don't personally use or even get much benefit out
| of. I like the idea of public transit, but the design of the
| system in my area seems to be to get the poor where they need
| to go, not as an alternative transport method for people who
| can afford private vehicles.
|
| >Buses are huge obstacles to the free flow of traffic (e.g.
| blocking right turns, slow left turns, blocking car and bike
| lanes with width) and are heavy polluters (diesel powered,
| oversized for most of their operating time).
|
| They also something like 20x the damage to roads that cars
| and trucks do because of the way the weight is transferred to
| the axels. I think buses are important, but a lot of
| negatives are ignored because they are absorbed by the
| overall system.
| xnx wrote:
| > get the poor where they need to go
|
| The poor would probably be much happier with a $250 Uber
| voucher than a bus pass.
|
| > They also something like 20x the damage to roads that
| cars
|
| This is very evident in my city where they had to install
| huge concrete pads at every bus stop because of the deep
| ruts and potholes busses cause when they start and stop.
| pixelatedindex wrote:
| > but the design of the system in my area seems to be to
| get the poor where they need to go
|
| I don't understand... do you not go to places where the
| poor go? Is there no transit to take you to parks and malls
| and theaters and stadiums? I suspect it's more that taking
| your private vehicle is easier and faster, and not because
| there isn't service - it probably just sucks.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| > The routes, which are selected based on Uber's extensive data
| on popular travel patterns, might have one or two additional
| stops to pick up other passengers.
|
| This is a blindspot Uber will have on traffic that's not
| currently serviced by their taxi model but maybe could be
| serviced by a shuttle. But maybe that traffic is riskier / more
| volatile since it's not on Uber already. Interesting optimization
| problem.
| biophysboy wrote:
| Uber's next step should be to connect the shuttles together to
| increase volume and create a dedicated, isolated route to
| increase efficiency. Then they can call it "Transport AI Network"
| or TRAIN for short
| techterrier wrote:
| you are AdamSomething and I claim my PS10
| biophysboy wrote:
| I didn't know who AdamSomething is until now but I can see
| the resemblance :). Thanks for the rec
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| :slow-clap:
| orange_joe wrote:
| they rolled this out to NYC a month or two ago. They were airport
| shuttles with an initial price of $10 and will go to $25. It was
| dramatically more comfortable than taking the subway and then
| transferring to the air train and the normal price is honestly
| fairly competitive against the subway + air train (~$12).
| bsimpson wrote:
| Uber Shuttle leaves from Atlantic Terminal, which is also the
| home of the LIRR. It's a train that goes to the airport on a
| fixed schedule. More comfortable and reliable than the Subway
| for $2 more.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I have a place near Penn Station and take the LIRR to JFK
| almost religiously. But the most expensive part of the
| journey is the Uber to Penn. Having a shuttle that picks me
| up at my apartment and deposits me in Jamaica would be a
| solid pitch against the LIRR.
| bsimpson wrote:
| That sounds like the old Super Shuttle (which I know from
| CA, not NY).
|
| I thought Uber's offering was more like a bus - you meet at
| the terminal and it takes you to the airport.
| jwagenet wrote:
| This is correct. They pick up at a small number of
| transit hubs and go direct to the airports.
| gbessoni wrote:
| They offer this at JFK and LGA but I heard the buses are
| empty, and their price is really low, so not sure it's
| going to work long-term.
| wenc wrote:
| That's not bad.
|
| I had to get from JFK to midtown during peak hours. It was
| Airtrain ($8.50) + LIRR to Woodside ($11) + Subway 7 train to
| midtown ($2.90) = $22.40. (I didn't know LIRR had city ticket,
| it would have been $16.40.
|
| But it took 1.5 hours.
| whiplash451 wrote:
| That is, until they raise prices and enshitify their service
| pasc1878 wrote:
| Uber have been running fixed route shuttles in London since 2020
|
| albeit they use boats https://www.thamesclippers.com/plan-your-
| journey/route-map
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Well... it's operated by a company called Thames Clipper
|
| Uber just bought the naming rights
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Clippers
| blitzar wrote:
| Uber also invented fixed route shuttles running on "metal
| rails" in the UK.
|
| https://www.uber.com/gb/en/ride/travel/trains/
| nicoritschel wrote:
| San Clemente (south of LA) replaced local bus service with
| subsidized ($2)lyft rides for a select list of pickup/dropoff
| spots a few years ago. I receive vouchers every month just for
| having used Lyft in the town.
|
| Similar; surely more expensive big picture, but far more
| convenient.
| danans wrote:
| Casual carpool has been doing this in San Francisco for 30 years,
| no billion dollar corporation needed:
|
| https://sfcasualcarpool.com/
| mdeeks wrote:
| I know everyone thinks this is a bus, but as a regular bus
| commuter in the bay area, I think there is room to expand here
| that a bus can't always meet. A few problems: *
| Bus stops are often far from homes and offices * There's
| rarely parking near stops so you can't drive to it * Routes
| are fixed and rarely change. * The process for petitioning
| for a new stop is painfully slow and done based on rough
| approximation of demand, community input, budgeting, and other
| red tape. I can't even guess what data they use to decide.
| * Many people can't or won't walk long distances to reach it.
| * The websites, maps, and schedules for buses are often very bad
| and hard to interpret
|
| I can see someone like Uber filling a gap here with a shuttle
| service (not low density cars or SUVs). * They
| have hundreds of thousands of users in a metro area. * Get
| those users to enter where they live, where they need to go, and
| roughly at what time. * They find a group ~30 people with
| similar locations, routes, destinations, and times to create a
| route * It doesn't have to be door to door. Just an
| acceptable walking distance at both ends. * Dedicated stops
| don't have to be approved and built. Just pull over on a major
| street. * It is extremely easy to use Uber
|
| No idea if this can be made economical of course. It also sounds
| like a really hard problem to solve.
| levocardia wrote:
| Also, importantly:
|
| * There is an accountability component where if you behave
| badly you will be banned from the shuttle service
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That's entirely possible on buses.
|
| https://smdp.com/news/newsom-signs-bill-allowing-big-blue-
| bu...
|
| > Current law allows organizations like the Los Angeles
| County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) and the
| San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) to issue
| prohibition orders. BART is the only such agency that has
| actually issued prohibitions in California, giving out 1,118
| such orders from 2019-2022. About 30% of orders issued by
| BART in 2022 were for battery or threats against riders.
| mdeeks wrote:
| I can't imagine how this is enforced. Clipper cards and
| cash will get you on any bus without any sort of check to
| see if you're allowed. There is probably a lot of overlap
| of people who get banned the people who skip gates and
| fares.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| If Walmart and Target can manage facial recognition for
| shoplifting, I'd imagine it's at least possible to do
| with a bus system.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Walmart and Target probably are a lot less concerned with
| accuracy than a fare collecting entity would be; any
| benefit from facial recognition is a plus for them even
| if it often either is wrong or fails to hit when it
| should, whereas with toll collection it has to be near
| 100% to replace other payment mechanism, and nearly never
| get a false hit (though misses might be okay) to be a
| convenience method when people are still expected to have
| a reliable method for on hand for backup.
| tlogan wrote:
| Ah yes, the legendary facial recognition system--right
| next to the locked-up underwear and $1 deodorant.
| Flawless crime-fighting tech, really. /s
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _giving out 1,118 such orders from 2019-2022. About 30%
| of orders issued by BART in 2022 were for battery or
| threats against riders_
|
| Curious if these bans are actually effective.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >Curious if these bans are actually effective.
|
| They probably have all the tech to make them effective
| but don't want to turn it on for "petty" stuff like this
| because they don't want normal non-battery inclined
| customers and the general public to be aware of how
| surveilled they are on public transit.
| mdeeks wrote:
| Strongly agreed. I have unfortunately had many infuriating
| and dangerous experiences on AC Transit and Bart.
|
| I'd pay extra to not have to be afraid I won't make it home
| to my kids.
| mmooss wrote:
| Why aren't you paying extra then - Uber/Lyft or your own
| car?
| mdeeks wrote:
| Sometimes I do, but its eight times the cost and takes an
| extra 30 minutes each way. Ideally I would love to take
| public transportation. I love the idea of it, the
| economics, the traffic reduction, and the general social
| benefit. Unfortunately here it comes with some big
| negatives and they really wear you down after over a
| decade of it not really changing much.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| If you behave badly on public transit there's a real chance
| that you get the ultimate ban: jail time.
| mdeeks wrote:
| There is a very large and rampant amount of bad behavior
| well below the "jail time" threshold. Even then, the police
| can't be everywhere all of the time.
| mmooss wrote:
| > There is a very large and rampant amount of bad
| behavior well below the "jail time" threshold.
|
| Where? I don't see it in major cities I am in, and I take
| public transit regularly.
| watwut wrote:
| Then your city has much larger problem. In my city,
| public transport is as safe as anywhere else. That is how
| most people get to work. And kids to school.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If you behave badly on public transit there 's a real
| chance that you get the ultimate ban: jail time_
|
| In New York or San Francisco?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| The requirement to actually pay will keep much of the riff-
| raff out. In my local bus system, you theoretically have to
| pay but the drivers are not going to throw you off the bus if
| you don't and so the buses all have a few homeless guys who
| just ride all day.
| vkou wrote:
| Don't know what town you live in, but here in Seattle, very
| _few_ bus routes have homeless people who ride them all
| day.
|
| The vast majority don't.
|
| The reason transit in this city sucks (still head and
| shoulders above the vast majority of the US) isn't because
| there's 12,000+ homeless people living in it[1], it's
| because the buses don't run frequently enough and because
| all the fucking single-occupant car traffic turns what
| would be a 20 minute bus ride into a 40 minute slog, and
| because you'd be insane to bike for your last-mile.
|
| ---
|
| [1] Increasing every year, and under the current mayor's
| tenure, we lost a net of 200 shelter beds.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _because the buses don 't run frequently enough_
|
| Yup. The subway works because one need not bother
| checking timetables. You show up at the station and
| expect a car. I could totally see interspersing shuttles
| between buses reducing latency to the point that it leads
| to an uptick in bus use.
| mmooss wrote:
| Are you assuming people share your prejudice? Who is 'riff-
| raff'? Maybe I think you are (and vice versa). I've never
| had a problem with someone who seems to be unhoused (I
| wouldn't know). I have had problems with people on their
| phones in big SUVs, or who just feel like being a*holes.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > I've never had a problem with someone who seems to be
| unhoused (I wouldn't know).
|
| It's not unusual to never have problems with the homeless
| (especially if you rarely come into contact with them),
| but your personal experience here is worthless.
| Especially irrelevant is your experience of people in
| SUVs with phones. Not knowing if the people around you
| are homeless is not a sign of open-mindedness, it's a
| sign of a possible lack of sensitivity.
|
| People who are homeless are going through issues, and are
| largely being shunned and ignored by the public. They
| often became homeless because they were impossible to
| live with. The ones most likely to be around you, in your
| space, and that you're likely to clock as homeless are
| the most aggressive, because homeless people with all
| their marbles generally make an effort not to seem
| homeless and don't ask strangers for anything. They die
| quietly, off alone in a corner, unless someone saves them
| first.
|
| And rationally, which I discovered myself as a homeless
| teenager 30-some years ago: you'll never meet, or help,
| the homeless people who aren't pestering you and
| bothering you and invading your space.
|
| So when visible homeless people are being talked about,
| there's no reason to completely avoid drawing any
| conclusions or making any generalizations about them. I
| feel it's a clumsy attempt to avoid judging people based
| on their wealth, but there are many other homeless people
| in the same position as visibly homeless people, but who
| are not visible. Pretending that the visually homeless
| are completely indistinguishable from other groups of
| people is just a form of active neglect. Pretending not
| to see them does not make them disappear.
| cyberax wrote:
| > Are you assuming people share your prejudice? Who is
| 'riff-raff'?
|
| There are homeless people literally smoking fentanyl on
| Seattle buses (and the light rail). Does that qualify?
|
| And I'm not even talking about mere antisocial behavior
| like blasting shitty music from Bluetooth speakers or
| screaming obscenities at people.
| mmooss wrote:
| I think it's a worry of people not familiar with cities. I
| ride public transit in cities all the time. It's fine.
| mdeeks wrote:
| I ride the bus and Bart in the San Francisco bay area and
| I've lived here my entire adult life. It is not fine. About
| once a week some kind of event happens. Off the top of my
| head these are things I have experienced both on Bart and
| AC Transit (though mainly Bart):
|
| * I've been punched twice. Not hard, but an angry person
| hitting me in the shoulder and the back because they were
| drunk or high and I guess I looked at them wrong
|
| * I've been shoved out of the way hard probably five
| separate times?
|
| * People openly smoking crack, smoking weed.
|
| * People high out of their mind. Just on monday some guy
| had his pants around his ankles high out of his mind
| swirling around and rubbing up against riders.
|
| * A man shouting and punching the top of the train saying
| he's going to kill himself
|
| * A man screaming profanities, calling women the c-word,
| sluts, saying he's going to rape people
|
| * Multiple fights
|
| * Someone getting their phone swiped out of their hand and
| punched in the head when he tried to chase them.
|
| * I watched someone eat most of a burrito, stand up, turn
| it upside down and squish it onto the seat.
|
| * I saw a man with a concealed gun tucked behind him into
| his belt walking around the station looking for someone.
|
| These are definitely some of the worst events, but
| something on the spectrum of "bad" happens weekly.
| jasonjmcghee wrote:
| > Get users to enter where they live, where they end to go, and
| roughly at what time
|
| Friends / people I've seen using uber have "home" and "work"
| saved. And they have trip history. They likely already have a
| very good sense of this stuff.
| belinder wrote:
| Problem is you don't want necessarily to sell this to people
| you have frequent/consistent trips for, as you're getting a
| lot of money from that. Here you want to capture the market
| of people that aren't using the service, so it's not
| information from the app
| bsimpson wrote:
| This sounds a lot like Chariot, which tried to augment SF's bus
| routes in 2014.
| Animats wrote:
| > I know everyone thinks this is a bus
|
| It's not a bus. It's an ordinary Uber driver with their own
| car, with multiple customers and a different, confusing pricing
| scheme. It's not Uber buying and operating their own fleet of
| branded vans, like SuperShuttle.[1]
|
| How does the driver get paid? If it's a regular route, with
| regular times, it ought to be a regular job paid by the hour,
| regardless of whether the vehicle is empty or full. But that
| wouldn't be Uber's gig slavery system.
|
| [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetwburns/2020/12/30/rip-
| supe...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _How does the driver get paid?_
|
| Ideally these routes wouldn't need a driver for long. Waymo
| could offer this, for example. They don't because they need
| not compete on price.
|
| More practically: in many states where this has been
| announced, Uber drivers get a minimum wage.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| I just want to point out that your criticism is not
| disagreeing with the parent post. You can both be right --
| this can be better than a bus, and uber can be illegally
| claiming workers as contractors.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| > * The websites, maps, and schedules for buses are often very
| bad and hard to interpret
|
| There's an app for that, it's called Google Maps.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I haven't thought about this for quite some time, but I
| remember the local mass transit, DART, offered shuttle vans if
| people got together and showed enough interest in people
| meeting in one spot and being dropped off in one spot. DART
| provided the driver and van, and the users just paid whatever
| the fare. This allowed DART to offer service and acted as a
| trial run on if a full bus route was needed.
|
| Seems like something that whatever transit authority can use as
| well. Uber just has a better PR department with much larger
| budgets than metro agencies, so to younger people this probably
| seems like an original idea.???
| mdeeks wrote:
| It's not about PR budget or whatever. It's about the fact
| that they have an incredibly easy to use app, with millions
| of people actively using it, and a ton of software engineers
| who are really great at logistics problems like this.
|
| Our transit authority hasn't managed to spring this up for us
| and I'm not confident they have the capability.
|
| FWIW I'm not "younger people". I'm just someone who's been
| using mass transit to commute for the past 15 years and
| desperately wants something better. I don't care if it is an
| original idea. I just want it to exist.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| I lived about a mile outside of the DART zone where they were
| trialing this, if it's the program I'm thinking of. I
| attempted to use it one time, but had issues with the app. I
| love the concept though, and hope there's an economically
| viable way to implement something similar.
| mihaaly wrote:
| Probably improving buses is a too radical idea here?
| yibg wrote:
| What happens if there aren't ~30 people that are going where
| I'm going from where I am? I don't want to wake up to go to
| work and find out there is no route for me.
| colechristensen wrote:
| My main problem with the local bus system is people keep
| getting stabbed or otherwise assaulted on busses and at stops,
| and the last time I took a significant public transit ride it
| seemed like somebody was going to get stabbed, somebody was
| smoking, and I'm pretty sure I witnessed two or three drug
| deals.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > Dedicated stops don't have to be approved and built. Just
| pull over on a major street.
|
| Is this legal in the areas where Uber operates? It certainly
| would not be legal in the areas I'm familiar with. Unless they
| have taxi medallion.
| caseyy wrote:
| Many cities in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia have
| (or used to have) Marshrutki[0]. These mini-buses and passenger
| vans don't stop at bus stops but where they are flagged down.
| You press a button where you want to be let off.
|
| I say some cities used to have them, not because they went out
| of fashion (though sometimes they did), but because a
| Marshrutka is a specific type of passenger van, usually an old
| one not subject to modern safety requirements for economic
| reasons. Many of the companies operating them have modernized,
| and they have low-floor accessible shuttle-style buses with air
| bags and seat belts, including for disabled people, but they
| still go their route, can be waved down to pick you up, and
| drop you off when you ask.
|
| There has never been a similar mode of transport in any Western
| country I've lived in, though I have heard rumors, and
| apparently, some US states have/had _jitneys_. Norway may also
| have something similar in the western tourist towns, because I
| found buses drop you off where you ask. But perhaps it 's a
| courtesy. UK companies have made some similar efforts[1].
| Generally, such mini-buses are not needed in urban areas. But
| there are areas where either super quick travel from point A to
| point B is essential and walking to and from a bus stop is
| unacceptable (airport-rail links and similar), or where there
| isn't enough demand to run a proper bus service. These could
| benefit from a taxi bus approach.
|
| Anyway, Marshrutki and their contemporary counterparts address
| all the issues you've listed.
|
| P.S. The solution for scheduling is the free market. Operators
| compete for customers, flooding the streets[2] during relevant
| hours. There may be 20 uncoordinated mini-bus operators, but
| for the user, the overall experience is that they usually have
| to wait only a few minutes along the route before waving one
| down.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-44614616
|
| [2] https://www.alamy.com/fixed-route-taxi-minibuses-move-
| along-...
| zhivota wrote:
| These are common in all developing countries. In the
| Philippines it's called a Jeepney. They even did pop up
| around NYC, catering to Hispanic neighborhoods IIRC, and have
| been in various states of legality over the years. I think
| now they may be somewhat regulated.
| jamwil wrote:
| They are called Colectivos in Mexico.
| deepsun wrote:
| I believe they are considered to be filling a niche when
| public transport sucks. I doubt Norway needs them, they have
| one of the best public transport system (although I've been
| to Oslo a loong time ago).
|
| But if a city really invest into public transportation,
| there's no need in the small routed hailing vans, because
| they have lower throughput. E.g. in Bogota a good bus system
| (they couldn't build a subway because soils) performed better
| than Busetas (aka Marshrutki). They did dedicated bus lanes
| for high-speed large buses. Although compared to Bogota,
| typical US/EU city has way lower ridership I think.
| caseyy wrote:
| That's true for large urban areas like Oslo. However, the
| small tourist towns in Vestlandet, Norway, have some
| shuttle-sized hop-on-hop-off buses. Or at least had them
| when I last lived there circa 2016. And in Klaipeda,
| Lithuania, the mini-buses are regulated and integrated into
| the public transit system. Where there isn't a large urban
| transit demand, these mini-buses serve a meaningful
| function.
|
| I think the circumstance that they pop up "when public
| transport sucks" is seen more in the US. Jitneys are
| considered "paratransit" there -- fundamentally a
| _substitute_. In many Eastern European countries, a common
| issue was that marshrutki cannibalized existing public
| transport options by duplicating routes (more on that in
| the Wiki article I linked in my parent comment). They
| compete more as equals, not fill an under-served market
| niche.
|
| By the way, a marshrutka serves one of the very last NATO-
| Russia routes[0]; a very meaningful route in both public
| transit and diplomatic, cultural contexts. I will concede
| to you that this is a case of "public transport sucks" to
| the highest degree, on a global scale.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GIxov7xVxo
| nerdsniper wrote:
| > Get those users to enter where they live, where they need to
| go, and roughly at what time.
|
| Uber/Lyft can already make pretty accurate educated guesses on
| all of this (in aggregate) with their existing data.
| adolph wrote:
| > They find a group ~30 people with similar
|
| The point to point for number of dollars information that Uber
| may have is the critical part. Municipal transit organizations
| are information poor since even if they could use municipal
| datasets of bluetooth sniffers etc to determine point to point
| commonalities, they still don't have pricing data to construct
| a meaningful offering.
| Yizahi wrote:
| Uber Shuttle works in my home city since 2019. It's Kyiv, 3mil
| population, ancient public transportation network but probably a
| bit better than USA (by hearsay).
|
| While it was working in normal conditions (before Covid and war)
| it wasn't that good. Routes were limited and timing iffy. Inside
| it was a regular small bus, so nothing fancy. And more expensive
| that public transport. So it is a serviceable transportation if
| there are no normal bus available at your route and at the same
| time uber shuttle route is matching yours. But any proper city
| transport beats them on all counts.
|
| PS: from the article it seems this is not about Uber Shuttle
| feature, but a different new ride share feature. Anyway, I'll
| leave my comment, but consider that it is not quite relevant.
| timerol wrote:
| > but probably a bit better than USA (by hearsay).
|
| The only thing I know about Kyiv's transit is one tweet (https:
| //twitter.com/threestationsq/status/157216317306670694...), and
| that makes me confident that it has better transit than any US
| city other than possibly NYC.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Chariot?
| robotburrito wrote:
| So will this end up destroying public transit for them to
| eventually 6x the price?
| bdamm wrote:
| Public transit is a joke in marginally services areas anyway.
| Wherever public transit is already working well it will likely
| continue to do well. Competition is good, and if your life
| depends on subsidized transit, well, yeah you might end up
| bearing more of the cost. I don't personally see a problem with
| that.
| kurtis_reed wrote:
| Business doesn't actually work like that
| doener wrote:
| Uber invents ... the bus.
| tokai wrote:
| For everyone saying this isn't a bus service because they pick
| you up and modify routing; that concept is called a Telebus and
| is over 50 years old.
| dogman144 wrote:
| - Uber builds a bus
|
| - Uber asks to use bus lanes because because once again, and ITT,
| private sector frames public sector as "a peer product" that
| should have competition because this is America and so on
|
| - Uber gets access to bus lanes
|
| - pub transit degrades bc now it shares service with competition
| that operates under an entirely different model. A lion is
| introduced into a zoo with house cats, but hey they're both cats
| and think of the zoo observers, they deserve options!
|
| - Taxpayers fund Uber and buses, only one has the revenue model
| to provide unbiased social good
|
| - Buses, like Amtrak and pub transit, degrade and degrade and
| degrade - look how government can't do anything!
|
| Turning a profit" for public services is the most harebrained
| meme that is simultaneously deeply damaging and continually
| propagated by certain folks, to include ITT.
|
| Or we could just all get mercenaries for our burbclaves. Not like
| police turn a profit either!
| ardit33 wrote:
| 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.
| dcrazy wrote:
| A transit lane with excess capacity is a feature, not a bug.
| It provides slack to recover from issues.
| vkou wrote:
| Slack is good, too much slack is wasteful.
|
| Charge them their full amortized share of the road, raise
| rates if congestion becomes a problem.
| lancewiggs wrote:
| Sure - if you do it by passengers and not by vehicle
| count. Busses are hilariously more efficient at moving
| people.
| vkou wrote:
| 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.
| dheera wrote:
| 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.
| mmooss wrote:
| 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.
| dcrazy wrote:
| I have extensive experience with the bus systems in three
| major US cities and none of them are like that.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Most of the spaces in front of fire hydrants sit empty, too.
| spookie wrote:
| Taxis are able to use bus lanes in EU too. And it's
| completely ok to do that.
| dogman144 wrote:
| - 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.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| >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.
| mmooss wrote:
| > 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.
| afavour wrote:
| > 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _In this scenario_
|
| So based entirely on a hypothetical that didn't pan out
| with Uber's original services.
| ujkhsjkdhf234 wrote:
| Are you implying Uber isn't more expensive than when it
| first started? Because it is.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| mmooss wrote:
| 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 ...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| ujkhsjkdhf234 wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| mmooss wrote:
| 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?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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 preemption 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.
| afavour wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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...
| lovich wrote:
| 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
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| mmooss wrote:
| > 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.
| philipallstar wrote:
| 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.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| >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.
| cryptonector wrote:
| 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.
| thallium205 wrote:
| There's already an Uber for mercenaries.
| https://www.techspot.com/news/106838-protector-uber-guns-app...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _pub transit degrades bc now it shares service with
| competition_
|
| Privately-operated buses on city bus lanes seems fine? Like,
| American cities have largely failed at making bus rapid transit
| economically sustainable and comfortable for the broader
| population. Trying a different model seems prudent versus going
| for puritinism.
|
| (The alternative for these riders isn't the bus. It's private
| Ubers and cars. If cities won't permit something like this, it
| warrants asking if public resources are better used turning
| those bus lanes into standard ones.)
|
| > _Taxpayers fund Uber and buses_
|
| Why? Charge a use fee.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _The alternative for these riders isn't the bus. It's
| private Ubers and cars._
|
| Why? If they're taking a fixed-route shuttle, why is their
| only alternative a different sub-service of Uber?
| nickff wrote:
| In the vast majority of US cities, most people do not use
| transit. Most of the people who choose not to use Uber
| shuttles or busses will be opting for passenger vehicles.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_high
| _...
| neltnerb wrote:
| You're likely right, but I suspect only because of social
| stigma and classism.
|
| Literally what is the difference between a fixed route
| shuttle operated by Uber versus a bus operated by the
| city, except that one siphons the profit into a private
| company? I imagine flexibility of imagination more than
| practicality.
|
| If Uber can do it, especially if they can do it
| profitably, I'm at a loss as to why a city government
| could not accomplish the same. This seems like a vastly
| better approach, cities have to start somewhere. --
| https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1017072 |
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43980845
| nickff wrote:
| The government has massive advantages when competing
| against Uber, namely that it gets to design the
| infrastructure and subsidize the system, so I would be
| unsurprised if Uber's efforts failed. That said, the
| government has historically failed to innovate in mass
| transit, so I hope Uber is allowed to proceed, and I look
| forward to seeing what happens.
| hgomersall wrote:
| One entity has a public purpose to provide effective
| public transport across a wide area with different routes
| of variable profitability. The other has a goal of
| claiming the profitable routes and ignoring the non
| profitable ones.
| underlipton wrote:
| I just don't follow. There is no "claim"; the
| municipality can run on the "profitable" routes, too.
| They don't have to turn a profit, though, so they can
| always undercut Uber (unless Uber intends to use their
| previous strategy of taking losses on each ride until the
| competitor goes out of business, and I don't know that
| any city would stand for it). So, then, the only reason
| to use Uber's routes is because they're more comfortable
| or direct. However, in that case, they're obliged to
| charge more per passenger, at a rate approaching the cost
| of a private Uber ride.
|
| Maybe their goal IS to run city busses out of business.
| Maybe they're about to FAFO.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the municipality can run on the "profitable" routes,
| too_
|
| Hell, the municipality can wait to see if it works, and
| if it does, launch a public competitor.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _what is the difference between a fixed route shuttle
| operated by Uber versus a bus operated by the city,
| except that one siphons the profit into a private
| company?_
|
| One, the technology already works. If I visit Dallas or
| Philadelphia, I already have the app. Getting set up (and
| familiarised) with each city's app as a visitor is a
| friction.
|
| Two, smell. This is absolutely classist. But Uber will
| probably do a better job keeping someone who hasn't
| bathed in two weeks out of their system than the public
| bus system. We _could_ wish upon a star and poof away
| class structure in America. Or we could admit that
| running Uber shuttles between busses increases the system
| 's throughput with minimal downside.
|
| Three, flexibility. These shuttles will automate before
| any union-controlled public bus system in America has a
| chance to.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| > If Uber can do it, especially if they can do it
| profitably, I'm at a loss as to why a city government
| could not accomplish the same
|
| City governments generally have stricter requirements for
| whom they have to service. Private companies can fire
| their pathological customers more easily.
| dogman144 wrote:
| NYC's newer bus lane approaches and congestion pricing
| findings counter this.
|
| Also, you're measuring pub transit by its economic
| sustainability. Pub sector services are not judged by this,
| nor should they be. See my OP.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _NYC's newer bus lane approaches and congestion pricing
| findings counter this_
|
| Could you clarify which this? (And point to the source? I'm
| a big fan of congestion pricing.)
|
| Would also note that my "largely" is "largely" mostly to
| exclude New York. Public transit works in Manhattan, and is
| uniquely successful in the New York metro area [1].
|
| [1] https://www.moneygeek.com/resources/car-ownership-
| statistics...
| dogman144 wrote:
| There is very little that's unique about NYC's ability to
| build a great public transit system, other than it is a
| uniquely very hard place to do it, and run by a uniquely
| crooked city govt.
|
| So, if somehow NYC could do it, what's everyone else's
| reasoning for not? To tip some cards - an obscene amount
| of lobbying from your local car dealer baron, if you're
| in Nashville (for example)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _very little that's unique about NYC's ability to build
| a great public transit system_
|
| Have you been to New York?
|
| We're uniquely dense, rich and collectivist. We have a
| long and proud history of public transit and a culture
| that doesn't put social cachet on vehicle ownership.
| That's entirely different from the rest of America.
|
| > _if somehow NYC could do it, what's everyone else's
| reasoning for not?_
|
| New York's government is larger, and has a larger remit,
| than many countries. More practically: they haven't.
|
| > _obscene amount of lobbying from your local car dealer
| baron, if you're in Nashville (for example)_
|
| This isn't being launched in Nashville.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Ya and it's also granite on swamp, with significant cost
| multipliers to get anything built. Latter is a literal
| statement, engineering bids have geoloc multipliers for
| costs.
|
| To your later point, I'd love to see some data on why
| modern city states are the only ones able to build public
| transit.
|
| As a Ny'er, I stand by my point that it's crooked as
| heck. Not sure how you could spend any time under an
| Adams or Giuliani admin and think otherwise, to barely
| scratch the surface. Tammany hall anyone?
|
| Lastly - you're a NYer and saying pub transit is
| untenably uncomfortable Metronorth isn't too bad and has
| new cars within the last decade. Amtrak is similar.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it's also granite on swamp, with significant cost
| multipliers to get anything built_
|
| We're still talking about busses, right?
|
| If we're pivoting to subways, the granite isn't why
| building subways in New York is expensive. It's one part
| the existing density of the city and nine parts the usual
| American permitting hell [1].
|
| > _I'd love to see some data on why modern city states
| are the only ones able to build public transit_
|
| Fixed costs scale with distance (not area--routes are 1D)
| serviced. Revenue potential scales with area around
| stops. (And drops non-linearly as travel time for
| potential customers increases from each stop.) Latency
| and travel time scale inversely with number of stops.
|
| Put it together and you need revenue per stop to cover
| the cost of, ideally, the distance halfway to the next
| stops. Herego, density reigns supreme [2].
|
| > _you're a NYer and saying pub transit is untenably
| uncomfortable_
|
| I said busses are uncomfortable. Trains are fine. But
| you're not going to get an LIRR and subway system working
| sustainably in Dallas, Baltimore or even Chicago--
| everyone already owns a car, which makes the marginal
| cost of driving oneself uncompetitive with public
| transit.
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-
| subway-...
|
| [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S25
| 9019822...
| xethos wrote:
| > uniquely dense, rich and collectivist
|
| And yet on the list of North America transit systems by
| ridership[0], while New York City takes the top spot,
| _every other city in America_ loses first to Mexico, then
| to Canada.
|
| I can't speak on Mexico with any authority, but telling
| me multiple cities in Canada are more dense and
| financially well-off than every other city in America is
| more than a little shocking.
|
| Telling me the (allegedly, but very publicly and loudly)
| Christian country is more collectivist than both Canada
| and Mexico is odd, unless we take a very cynical view of
| what it means to be Christian in America
|
| > doesn't put social cachet on vehicle ownership
|
| > This isn't being launched in Nashville
|
| Yes, the point is that the social cachet around vehicle
| ownership is marketing, pushed by car dealerships (among
| other institutions)
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_
| rapid_t...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Telling me the (allegedly, but very publicly and
| loudly) Christian country is more collectivist than both
| Canada and Mexico is odd_
|
| OP mentioned Nashville. I wasn't considering places
| outside America. Within America, New York is unique in
| those aspects. As a global city, it's strikingly
| inefficient.
|
| > _point is that the social cachet around vehicle
| ownership is marketing, pushed by car dealerships (among
| other institutions)_
|
| Sure. Whatever. I disagree, but that's irrelevant. It's
| the field we're given to play. We can complain about the
| field or we can play to win.
|
| Lots of problems could be solved if wishing upon a star
| that people were different did anything. It doesn't. So
| we're left with real solutions and pipe dreams. If one
| side offers only the latter, particularly if
| conspiratorially tinted, you go with the other option.
| freejazz wrote:
| >Have you been to New York?
|
| Rude. I'm a lifelong New Yorker and nothing about your
| posts seem reasonable or made apparent by anything that's
| just "obvious" about being in new york. There's also
| great bus transit in Queens... but you don't mention
| that. You just continuously suggest all your points are
| self evident.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _There 's also great bus transit in Queens_
|
| Sure. If you don't see why Queens is uniquely well
| situation to be served by such a system, particularly in
| comparison to _e.g._ Nashville, I'm going to be similarly
| surprised.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| As a former New Yorker, I'd like to hear what you think
| makes NY government _uniquely corrupt_. It doesn't seem
| any more or less corrupt than anywhere else I've lived in
| the US.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Well, with a bit of sarcasm/exaggeration added, it's been
| a while since FBI seized a mayor's phone and indicted
| half his staff.
| zuminator wrote:
| Fair but also hardly fair since Adams had nothing to do
| with building NYC transit infrastructure.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Putting aside your attempt at humor through exaggeration,
| I don't see any evidence at all in this discussion that
| the city is _uniquely corrupt_. Generically corrupt? Sure
| I can live with that.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Hizzoner aside, I don't think NYC's government is
| markedly more crooked than any other American
| municipality.
|
| (NYC news is often national news, so there's a double
| effect: transparency is a deterrent, _and_ transparency
| makes the city look uniquely corrupt. If, say, Dallas had
| the same kind of persistent national coverage as NYC
| does, I'd expect to see roughly the same stuff.)
| underlipton wrote:
| NYC has a markedly more pronounced history with organized
| crime - including that extant sort which is associated
| with the financial industry - and the municipal culture
| that develops to deal with it. Of course, this implies
| that now that Dallas is getting a stock exchange, your
| claim might become salient in a decade or two.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Emphasis on history: NYC very famously broke its
| organized crime groups in the 1980s and 1990s. It's what
| made Giuliani famous before he became a politician[1].
|
| (I would hazard a demographic claim around organized
| crime: just about any mid-sized city with large suburbs
| almost certainly has more per-capita organized crime than
| NYC does. You just don't hear about it because most of it
| is of the "extortion for trash pickup" variety, not the
| "Murder, Inc." variety.)
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_Commission_Trial
| kyboren wrote:
| > I'm a big fan of congestion pricing.
|
| Of course you are. You're rich.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| The model works in Europe. Why double down on the thing that
| makes everything in the US suck (unless you're rich) and
| privatize more?
|
| Where privatization has been done in Europe service has
| largely worsened. Shouldn't be surprising since these
| services are fundamentally a natural monopoly.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _The model works in Europe. Why double down on the thing
| that makes everything in the US suck_
|
| New York's subways were built by private companies. So were
| America's railroads.
|
| > _Where privatization has been done in Europe service has
| largely worsened_
|
| Counterpoint: Japan.
| sigmaisaletter wrote:
| I would like you to read up on the railroads, and WHY
| private companies built them.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_land_grants_in_the
| _Un...
|
| The government gave them over 700 000km2 of land as an
| incentive. In case that number means nothing to you: That
| is France. Or Texas.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| A reminder to all that thanks to this enormous
| subsidization of the railroads, we had one of the best
| railroad networks in the world, and Americans considered
| it normal to travel huge distances long before the car.
|
| These rights of way were also essential to building the
| first information superhighway: The telegraph network.
|
| America has always built great infrastructure, when
| people in office are willing to spend dollars for the
| public good.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _government gave them over 700 000km2 of land as an
| incentive_
|
| Absolutely. I'm not arguing for the superiority of
| private enterprise. Just that we shouldn't be biased to
| one model versus another, particularly when it comes to
| building versus operating infrastructure. It's eminently
| true that this infrastructure was built by private
| companies. Same is true for what Uber is proposing. The
| lesson is that there needs to be public guidance, not
| that we should say no to protect bus drivers or whatnot.
| aylmao wrote:
| > New York's subways were built by private companies. So
| were America's railroads.
|
| Didn't this cause a lot of problems, which is why they
| were eventually consolidated under a public authority?
|
| I do find interesting and cool that private urban
| transport seems to work well in Japan and do wonder
| what's the system around this private ownership to have
| it work as well as it does.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Didn 't this cause a lot of problems, which is why
| they were eventually consolidated under a public
| authority?_
|
| They went bankrupt. So the city bailed them out. Then New
| York City went bankrupt. So the state bailed us out.
| freejazz wrote:
| >New York's subways were built by private companies
|
| That's not even remotely true. Which I only found out two
| paragraphs into this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histo
| ry_of_the_New_York_City_S... because it was apparent to
| me that you leaving out the rest of the story (i.e. why
| the city took over the subway) was misleading.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _That 's not even remotely true_
|
| It absolutely is. The lines were mostly built with
| private resources. Before 1913, the city didn't own the
| lines. (IND didn't open until '32.)
|
| The lines' burial happened at the behest of the state.
| But none of it was cleanly public or private. My point is
| private or public involvement shouldn't be an automatic
| DQ. Public institutions can be efficient. Private ones
| socially useful.
| mmooss wrote:
| > American cities have largely failed at making bus rapid
| transit economically sustainable and comfortable for the
| broader population
|
| I don't know that's true at all. Buses generally work well
| wherever I take them, and they are widely used in cities
| around the country. In many cities I can just walk to the
| nearest corner, or maybe another block, and catch a bus
| whichever way I'm going. I often don't even need to know the
| routes.
|
| IME a certain socioeconomic class is unfamiliar with using
| them, with how to use them (a barrier to adoption), and with
| sharing public transit with others (I don't know about you).
| Didn't some SV billionaire (Zuckerberg? Musk?) once say
| something about people should be afraid of psychopaths on
| public transit? Many disparage any public service,
| automatically assuming they are incompetent or substandard.
|
| > Privately-operated buses on city bus lanes seems fine?
|
| Public transit needs a network effect: When more people use
| it, there are more buses and trains and they come more often.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _IME a certain socioeconomic class is unfamiliar with
| using them_
|
| This is absolutely part of the problem.
|
| > _Public transit needs a network effect: When more people
| use it, there are more buses and trains and they come more
| often_
|
| My point is the public resource is the bus lane. Not the
| metal running on it. Giving the public busses a monopoly on
| that resource may be worth playing with.
| mmooss wrote:
| Public transit could use a lower barrier to adoption. I
| think people familiar with it - myself included - forget
| how uncertain it is for the first time - is the bus late
| or not coming? was it early? - and all the unstated
| conventions, etc.
|
| Interesting about the lanes. But that metal has a large
| capital cost, training, etc.; we can't add and decrease
| capacity on demand like cloud computing resources. Maybe
| contract bus operation - including the metal - to
| multiple contractors and when customer satisfaction is
| low, give the route to another contractor.
| 7bit wrote:
| > If cities won't permit something like this, it warrants
| asking if public resources are better used turning those bus
| lanes into standard ones.)
|
| Undoing the only solution to a healthier city and it's
| citizens because it was not an immediate success is not the
| answer. If you don't fix the problems, cities will get more
| and more congested. An additional lane will not solve that
| problem, just postpone the inevitable. There only one way out
| of that problem and that is getting people to use public
| transport and their feet.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| Ha! _Everyone_ fails to make bus rapid transit comfortable
| and sustainable. That is the point - it's publicly subsidized
| discomfort that gets you there. Along with everyone else more
| or less on time. In an urban environment.
|
| Along. With. Everyone. Else.
|
| It's a public good. I've lived in both the EU and the U.S.
| extensively using buses and the argument that "American
| cities have failed" is just such a load of crap. I found
| buses just as tolerable in both including places like
| suburban Cupertino. They're not supposed to be "sustainable"
| because they're a vital service same as the water in pipes.
| And they're not supposed to be "comfortable" if the frame of
| reference used are AC/sleek private vehicles.
|
| The problem and the solutions have not changed. The only
| thing that has are the GPS enabled pocket computers we
| started carrying around. The GPS bit allowed for a real
| optimization. But the pocket computers also started feeding
| us with doubts about shit that works just fine.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _they're not supposed to be "comfortable" if the frame of
| reference used are AC /sleek private vehicles_
|
| Sure. But that means you have no buy in from the latter. If
| you add a shuttle service, with a forward-looking eye to
| self-piloted vehicles, you increase use and potentially
| also revenues to reinvest in uncomfortable busses.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > Why? Charge a use fee.
|
| Who is paying for the maintenance of the extra bus lanes (or
| creating them in the first place), or the extra maintenance
| on the other lanes which get heavier use since some have been
| set aside as dedicated lanes.
|
| Taxpayers.
|
| So yeah, taxpayers funding Uber.
|
| I'd rather fund public transport.
| fblp wrote:
| In Australia it's not unusual for taxis to be allowed to use
| bus lanes, and a portion of taxi fees go to the state. They can
| also charge Uber a fee to use the bus lane so the state gets
| more revenue than before for the same asset.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| Taxis can use bus lanes in Sweden too, but here people don't
| commute by taxi.("ever") Cities where Uber and Bolt have
| precense also has good enough public transport for people who
| don't own a car for some other reason than going to work.
|
| I think it's fair taxis use bus lanes, you pay VAT on the
| taxi ride which goes back to the government to keep building.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| > Or we could just all get mercenaries for our burbclaves. Not
| like police turn a profit either!
|
| There was literally a documentary on Citizen in 2023:
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/watch-new-documentary-tells-...
| groby_b wrote:
| > Buses, like Amtrak and pub transit, degrade and degrade and
| degrade - look how government can't do anything!
|
| As an LA resident: Public buses degrade just fine without any
| uber buses. And we seem to lack the political will to fix that.
|
| As for Amtrak: Outside the NE corridor, it's one of the more
| useless train systems I've seen. Only eclipsed by CA HSR.
|
| Yes, we shouldn't corporatize the commons. But... that requires
| us to develop the will to actually care about the commons as a
| polity.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >pub transit degrades bc now it shares service with competition
| that operates under an entirely different model.
|
| Public transit degrades because bus lanes are now congested
| with people taking mass transit instead of single cars ... and
| we don't want this why?
|
| The goal is to get people into taxis/uber, buses, subways,
| bicycles ... basically anything except a car.
| delusional wrote:
| > The public transit degrades because bus lanes are now
| congested with people taking mass transit instead of single
| cars ... and we don't want this why?
|
| That would be nice. In the real world they would be congested
| with Uber buses that purposefully block the public option to
| ruthlessly "out-compete" it.
|
| Maybe uber will start transporting their food delivery in the
| bus. Now you have a congested bus lane full of burgers.
|
| > taxis > anything besides a car
|
| kek.
| underlipton wrote:
| Taxis typically don't need long-term parking at every
| location they visit. That makes them hugely different from
| personal vehicles.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Are taxis/ubers really better for the environment than a
| personal car? I'm not sure I consider them "mass transit"
| since they still typically only carry 1-3 people. While they
| may require less parking infrastructure, they likely spend
| more time idling, and they don't reduce congestion on the
| road.
|
| Some problems with buses are that they can be slow, require
| more planning, and may not drop you off exactly at your
| destination. There are three primary reasons people choose
| them anyway: Ethics (i.e. environmental concerns),
| convenience (in some cities, public transit is actually
| faster on average) and cost.
|
| Bus lanes are meant to make buses more appealing by
| increasing their speed and reliability (i.e. convenience.)
| Filling a bus lane with Ubers will slow down buses, making
| them less attractive which also hurts the price conscious
| (i.e. lower class) the most.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Are taxis /ubers really better for the environment than
| a personal car?_
|
| Yes. They're more-closely monitored for emissions. Because
| they run through quicker, they're usually newer metal,
| which tends to be more efficient. And if you can get
| saturation as it is in New York, where car ownership
| decreases, you lose the _massive_ footprint of
| manufacturing and distributing a private fleet of cars.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| More-closely monitored for emissions by who? I would
| believe that some municipalities monitor taxi emissions,
| but I haven't heard of anything like this for Uber. Many
| states have emissions tests for private vehicles too.
|
| I was just in DC and noted that the taxis were all at
| least 10-year old models. I specifically noticed many
| Ford Fusions, because I own one myself. Mine gets about
| 23.5mpg on average, and that's including lots of highway
| driving.
|
| I think the reason NYC has so little car ownership is due
| more to the subway than taxis...
|
| edit: Just found this report which suggests "A non-pooled
| ride-hailing trip is 47 percent more polluting than a
| private car ride":
| https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/Ride-
| Hailing...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the reason NYC has so little car ownership is due more
| to the subway than taxis_
|
| It's a combination. Car ownership is lowest in Manhattan
| [1]. We're rich. And we're well served by subways and
| taxis. Not owning a car makes sense because you never
| have to compromise. If you planned, take the subway. If
| it's raining or you're in a rush, you have the option of
| a cab. (We also tax the living shit out of private
| parking. That helps.)
|
| As a side note, the number of people I know who take the
| LIRR to the airport went up _significantly_ after Uber
| came on the scene. Because suddenly getting to Penn or
| Grand Central wasn 't the pain it used to be.
|
| [1] https://www.hunterurban.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2024/06/Car-L...
| johnmaguire wrote:
| I've only been a tourist in NYC, but I've found that it's
| generally faster to take the subway (which tends to run
| frequently) than to wait for an Uber. Maybe taxis are
| faster - I've never hailed one!
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it 's generally faster to take the subway (which tends
| to run frequently) than to wait for an Uber_
|
| It depends on where you are, where you're going and when
| it is. For the most part, yes, the subway tends to be
| faster the further you're going, unless you're in the
| netherlands between Brooklyn and Queens.
|
| > _This is mass transit - taxis and Uber are not_
|
| My point is the Ubers were complimentary with the mass
| transit. Absent Uber, those folks--myself included--would
| have taken a taxi to the airport.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| I apologize, I misunderstood your point and thought I
| edited it quick enough, but you were faster!
|
| That said, why did you need an Uber instead of a taxi to
| get to the station? To be clear, I'm not opposed to ride
| sharing full stop - I think they do solve some problems
| and help to reduce car ownership, which is a noble goal.
| But I am not convinced that they are better for the
| environment (i.e. emissions) than private vehicle
| ownership.
|
| And I still believe that prioritizing ride hailing
| vehicles over mass transit (i.e. buses) on public roads
| will disincentivize mass transit on said roads. Rail is
| obviously not negatively affected as the infrastructure
| is not shared.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _in Manhattan, they are likely to be closer, but I 'd
| guess that impact is more per time (stuck in traffic)
| than per mile_
|
| I don't want to gamble on whether I'll hail a taxi in
| time to make the train. And if I've spent a few minutes
| hailing such that it's questionable if I'll make the
| train, I'll just gun for the airport.
|
| > _I am not convinced that they are better for the
| environment (i.e. emissions) than private vehicle
| ownership_
|
| If you can get people to not own a car, ridesharing wins
| hands over feet. In most of America, ridesharing just
| decreases private miles driven. There, the environmental
| impact is more mixed.
|
| > _prioritizing ride hailing vehicles over mass transit
| (i.e. buses) on public roads will disincentivize mass
| transit on said roads_
|
| I think anything that makes mass transit more accessible,
| or which pays its bills, is good. Because the default in
| most of the country isn't busses. It's private cars. If
| we get self-driving cars while busses are still on a
| legacy model, those systems will be shut down.
| mmooss wrote:
| > Are taxis/ubers really better for the environment than a
| personal car?
|
| They are worse. When they have no passengers, they still
| are driving around.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _When they have no passengers, they still are driving
| around_
|
| You're ignoring the environmental impact of parking.
| Also, Ubers by and large aren't aimlessly driving around.
| That's taxis. (Where TNCs fail is in their deadheading
| costs [1].)
|
| [1] https://www.cmu.edu/ambassadors/december-2021/pdf/blo
| omberg_...
| mmooss wrote:
| > You're ignoring the environmental impact of parking.
|
| Interesting - what impact? Driving around looking for a
| space? Parallel parking wouldn't seem to be a problem,
| unless you're not very good at it. :)
|
| > Ubers by and large aren't aimlessly driving around
|
| They drive to me, which by itself increases their driving
| for my trip by ~~~~~50% (I have no idea). I suppose in
| Manhattan, they are likely to be closer, but I'd guess
| that impact is more per time (stuck in traffic) than per
| mile.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _what impact? Driving around looking for a space?_
|
| That. Plus desensitisation, requiring more driving in
| general.
|
| > _in Manhattan, they are likely to be closer, but I 'd
| guess that impact is more per time (stuck in traffic)
| than per mile_
|
| Congestion charge. (And a lot of the traffic is caused by
| private cars. Hired cars move.)
| cyberax wrote:
| > Are taxis/ubers really better for the environment than a
| personal car?
|
| They are, although not by much.
|
| And that's not counting the main source of pollution in an
| Uber car: the driver.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _The goal is to get people into taxis /uber, buses,
| subways, bicycles ... basically anything except a car_
|
| This attitude is part of why public transit in America is
| failing.
|
| Americans love their cars. We're not going to recondition
| that. Designing systems that are anti-car doesn't lead
| Americans to ditch their cars. It leads them to ditch public
| transit.
|
| This shuttle is a good example. Shuttles running between
| busses increases throughput while decreasing latency. It
| _increases_ the chances that I go to the bus station versus
| reflexively calling a car. If I have to look up a timetable,
| though, I 'm not going to do that: I'll call a Waymo.
|
| Another missed opportunity is RORO rail stock, where folks
| can take their cars on a family vacation on a train. We don't
| have it because the rail folks are all anti-car. As a result,
| their projects get cancelled.
| convolvatron wrote:
| i dont think its because the train people are anti-car. if
| anything more the converse. Amtrak in the US used to
| heavily advertise the auto-train. they still run it along
| the southeast coast.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _dont think its because the train people are anti-car.
| if anything more the converse_
|
| Train people aren't. Transit advocates, particularly in
| cities, have a tendency to be.
| underlipton wrote:
| *including
|
| And burbclave police already exist.
|
| Otherwise I agree. This is dumb. It also feels like a safety
| issue, but I can't quite articulate why. Also, private commuter
| busses already exist that can use bus lanes... But technically
| it's a service provided by the local transit authority. @uber:
| get in line with all the other contractors, bub.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >Turning a profit" for public services is the most harebrained
| meme that is simultaneously deeply damaging and continually
| propagated by certain folks, to include ITT.
|
| It's not a meme. It's common sense and is how you avoid wasting
| resources.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I'm not sure I know of any city whose bus lanes work well
| enough that any substantial degradation would be noticed if
| Uber used them also. That isn't saying that you don't have a
| point, buses just don't work that great in the first place (at
| least bus lanes don't seem to help in the cities I use them
| in).
| mmooss wrote:
| You forgot the step where, after public transit competition is
| crushed, they raise prices.
| yewW0tm8 wrote:
| Best part is this urban areas, commuting just a few miles a
| day.
|
| We should be doing the opposite; reducing traffic except for
| those with mobility issues and for utilitarian situations
| like deliveries and moving large objects.
|
| Everyone that can walk/bike should.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| I wouldn't call transit systems "unbiased social good" in every
| case.
|
| In many cities, bus systems have to strike a balance between
| frequency and coverage. My transit system had big plans to
| switch many routes to have straighter routing and fewer stops,
| while providing much better frequency and hours of service.
| This would have attracted more riders and increased funding for
| the system. But, local councilors were swayed by the idea that
| impoverished senior citizens relying on their milk run that
| comes every 45 minutes until 6 PM would no longer be near
| enough to a stop, and so not equitably served (never mind that
| we have a paratransit service for people who truly can't walk
| to a stop 500 metres away). So, nothing changed.
|
| I'm not surprised that private services are going to fill the
| gaps here.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > I'm not surprised that private services are going to fill
| the gaps here.
|
| They'll only serve profitable routes.
| 65 wrote:
| Much of Japan's train network is privately operated. Japan has
| some of the best transportation in the world.
|
| Take a look at Brightline. Brightline from Orlando to Miami had
| 2.7 million riders last year. They're already working on
| Brightline West from LA to Las Vegas.
|
| I think public transportation infrastructure is great for rural
| areas. It's similar to USPS serving everyone. But if USPS was
| the only mail carrier everywhere, package delivery service
| would be demonstrably worse.
|
| What is wrong with both private and public transportation
| infrastructure?
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| i think the US lacks the regulatory structure and social
| character that's more present in Japan that make private-
| public services more successful there.
|
| as a regular metro commuter, i don't think i'd be totally
| opposed to private transit in LA if it were _heavily_
| regulated. but without that, i 'd rather deal with all the
| problems on the metro (stinky riders, drivers switching mid-
| route, track traffic) at 1.75 per ride, than any of my money
| go to making Uber shareholders (or anyone who profits by
| exploiting the "gig economy") more money.
| cryptonector wrote:
| The U.S. used to have a vibrant private transportation
| industry. The cities killed it. NYC is a great example. The
| vast majority of the NYC subway system was constructed by
| _two_ private companies (!) in the 19-teens(!) in
| competition with each other(!!). The city regulated them
| and kept them from raising fares in the 20s and 30s. By the
| 40s the city had to rescue and acquire them because they
| could not survive on artificially-low fares. And until the
| 50s there was a vibrant trolley car and bus network between
| Brooklyn and Queens. Today only the city runs buses, and
| there is much less capacity per-capita between Brooklyn and
| Queens.
|
| It's the same nationwide, roughly. There is nothing like
| Buenos Aires' private bus system in the U.S. because the
| cities don't allow it.
|
| It didn't have to be that way. But in the U.S. the federal
| government has no power to nationalize, the States do but
| are in competition with each other so they don't do it. But
| the cities?
|
| The cities can totally "nationalize" the transport
| industry, and they do and did all the way up until ride
| sharing came along to destroy the hyper-regulated taxi
| industry. Ride sharing grew fast enough that the cities did
| not have time to quash it and now they can't without
| incurring the ire of their citizens.
|
| Now finally comes the ride sharing industry to -let us
| hope- finally destroy the cities' stranglehold on public
| transportation.
| mhh__ wrote:
| What's a public service? Supermarkets are more important to me
| than buses, they're not run by the state.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| i'd love to shop at a state-owned not-for-profit supermarket.
| maybe not 100% of the time but the option would be nice and
| would keep 100% of the profit within the local economy.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Who says there'd be a profit? Don't supermarkets rely on
| enormous scale and then eek out a few percent?
|
| I'd love a state that could do that (well, ignoring the
| orwellian aspect of that) but this is a game for the
| paperclip maximizers.
| legitster wrote:
| That's quite the slippery slope you've made there.
|
| Co-mingling public and private transit seems to work pretty
| well in places like Europe. Remembering that the only real
| market for this service is to take drivers off the streets
| during rush hour - it's hard to see this as compete with city
| busses or even be a bad thing.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > pub transit degrades bc now it shares service with
| competition that operates under an entirely different model.
|
| Public transit is already extremely degraded, which is why
| there was an opening for private fixed-route transport. Whether
| you were born in 1920 or 2000, you can wistfully recall how
| much better public transportation was when you were a child.
|
| Complaining about private buses doesn't get public
| transportation funded. Funding public transportation gets
| public transportation funded.
| kurtis_reed wrote:
| > only one has the revenue model to provide unbiased social
| good
|
| Yes! All government programs are perfectly efficient and immune
| against corruption. Why don't people understand this??
| margalabargala wrote:
| I think you misread their post.
|
| They aren't claiming that government programs _do_ provide
| unbiased public could, just that they _could_ , and are being
| compared to private corporations which _cannot_.
|
| That's something that's easy to understand if for someone who
| tries and not actually particularly related to things like
| "perfect" efficiency or "immunity" from corruption.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Correct
| cryptonector wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that is just your biases talking. Where's the
| experience elsewhere in the world?
|
| In Buenos Aires there are only privately-operated buses and bus
| routes. The city did and does build bus lanes. Idk if the bus
| companies pay a fee to access the bus lanes but I imagine that
| they must.
|
| You have no idea how amazing the bus network is in Buenos
| Aires.
| ardit33 wrote:
| Good idea for certain routes: But
|
| "like between Williamsburg and Midtown in NYC" -- That's route is
| baffling and probably not needed. There is already a subway, (L
| then Transfer to 1-6 lines, or R/W). During peak hours, the
| subway is faster.
| teqsun wrote:
| No one here wants to admit that personal safety is a major factor
| in avoiding some forms of public transit in many cities in
| America.
|
| This model has the chance to succeed based on that alone.
| mcphage wrote:
| > No one here wants to admit that personal safety is a major
| factor in avoiding some forms of public transit in many cities
| in America.
|
| Is there any data backing this up? Is it from the same people
| who think nobody rides the NYC subway for safety reasons,
| despite there being over 3 million riders per day?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _personal safety is a major factor in avoiding some forms of
| public transit in many cities in America_
|
| Perceived safety and comfort. Buses are safer than cars [1].
| The problem is you might have someone who hasn't managed their
| BO in a week sitting next to you, and that's frankly happened
| enough time to me that I don't take it in New York or the Bay
| Area anymore.
|
| [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5906382/
| vel0city wrote:
| You're way more likely to die riding in your car than riding
| public transit. It's not even close. Riding in your car is
| likely the most dangerous thing you'll do and yet people just
| act like it's a totally safe thing to do.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Nobody(TM) is worried about the tiny risk of dying. They're
| worried about the risk of being victim of a crime or other
| unpleasantry at the hand of someone else, a risk which is
| small and fairly up to change on transit but damn near zero
| for most people in their own car and if not nearly zero
| almost completely up to them and how they conduct themselves.
| vel0city wrote:
| People get shot and battered from road rage incidents, I've
| had friends get put in the hospital because of someone
| else's road rage. People die from drunk driving and people
| running red lights. Driving a car isn't a guarantee you
| won't be a victim of a crime. It actually means you're more
| likely to die from one.
|
| And it's not a tiny risk of being injured by a car. About
| 2.5 million injuries a year in the US are caused by
| automobiles.
|
| Just look at this chart and tell me how massively unsafe
| riding the train is.
|
| https://www.bts.gov/content/injured-persons-
| transportation-m...
| charcircuit wrote:
| You ignored or misread his comment.
| vel0city wrote:
| Not in the slightest.
|
| Drunk driving is a crime. It hurts other people more than
| it hurts the drunks. It has absolutely no bearing on how
| the victim carried themself. You can just be driving
| normally and completely following the law and a drunk
| t-bones you at 70mph through a red light.
|
| You can be driving normally and just happen to draw the
| ire of a road rager and have them shoot you or commit
| other forms of violence against you. Happens more often
| than you think.
|
| A person on the train is unlikely to have a weapon on
| them. Every other person on the road is piloting a giant
| death machine capable of hurting a lot of people in a
| moment's notice even if by accident.
|
| People act like they're all safe in a car but once again
| it's the thing most likely to cause you serious injury in
| your life outside of your diet.
|
| You're more likely to be the victim of a crime that will
| seriously hurt, maim, or kill you driving a car than
| riding the train.
|
| Hey, maybe I reduce the odds of getting pickpocketed
| today by massively increasing the odds of getting killed
| by a drunk driver. Seems like a excellent trade!
| charcircuit wrote:
| >People act like they're all safe in a car
|
| This was his point. He was talking about the perception
| people have.
| barbarr wrote:
| You're ignoring that the average ride on Muni, Bart, or
| AC Transit involves someone who's visibly or audibly
| tweaking out, loudly muttering curse words or threats to
| themselves / others, blasting music in the back from a
| tinny phone speaker, carrying a bag of cans and/or trash,
| or smelling offensively bad. It's no wonder that people
| won't want to take transit.
|
| Source: someone who takes transit almost daily and has
| seen a LOT, and has received death threats on the bus
| twice in one year.
| vel0city wrote:
| Yeah, far better to just further isolate ourselves and
| act like there's nothing wrong than actually deal with
| these problems.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >people get shot and battered from road rage incidents,
|
| Yes, they do. I was specifically thinking of replies like
| this when I said the risk is "almost completely up to
| them and how they conduct themselves."
|
| >I've had friends get put in the hospital because of
| someone else's road rage.
|
| And what role did they play in developing that situation?
| I'm serious. The frequency of road range in which the
| victim did not take action or willful inaction through
| ignorance or malice is vanishingly, vanishingly, tiny.
| While I am sympathetic to people who do truly mean well
| but are simply ignorant the degree to which road rage is
| a meeting between those disposed to violence and those
| disposed to entitlement and "bad but within the rules"
| behavior I consider it a generally self solving problem.
|
| It's kind of like my elderly and senile mother who's been
| in a couple accidents that aren't technically "her fault"
| but she most certainly precipitated by failing to drive
| responsibly even though she doesn't see why it might not
| be ideal of her to panic stop rather than miss her exist
| on a major highway in a major city.
| vel0city wrote:
| > And what role did they play in developing that
| situation?
|
| Driving the speed limit and stopping at a stop sign was
| one of these instances. I watched the dash cam of that.
|
| Another instance I saw was someone flying up a shoulder
| trying to get around a big traffic jam. After three or
| four cars denied him merging in, he took out a gun and
| started shooting at cars.
|
| And you're still just going to ignore all the victims of
| people not paying attention, of people tailgating, of
| drunk drivers, of people driving recklessly.
| timewizard wrote:
| > Riding in your car is likely the most dangerous thing
| you'll do
|
| Not even remotely close. Anytime you elevate your feet more
| than 6' of the ground you can fall and kill yourself. This is
| 2x more common than vehicle fatalities and is in the category
| of "accidental self inflicted injury." The third most common
| cause of death. Vehicles are like #11. You're more likely to
| commit suicide than die in a car accident.
| vel0city wrote:
| Sorry, I meant to add "in any given day" in that.
|
| I'm in my car multiple times a day. I'm probably only 6'+
| off the ground once a month or so. And I do agree in any
| given situation I'm more likely to be seriously injured
| using a power tool than I am driving, but once again I
| rarely use those while I'm in a car several times a day.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Public transit will never succeed unless this is addressed.
| Europe is becoming more car centric for this reason too.
|
| https://xcancel.com/friatider/status/1922617300445766040
| mmooss wrote:
| > No one here wants to admit that personal safety is a major
| factor in avoiding some forms of public transit
|
| Several people on this thread have said that; and I've heard it
| for years. Why do you say nobody wants to talk about it?
|
| IME, it's the people least familiar with cities (and public
| transit) that talk most about how dangerous it is. I understand
| they are afraid - imaginations about the unknown run wild,
| including about unknown people (different ethnicities and
| socio-economic groups); it can be a bit disconcerting at first
| because most people outside of cities only mix with their own
| socio-economic group. And there's Fox and the GOP pushing the
| narrative that cities are dangerous (laughable these days).
|
| The reality is, all those people are people like you, and it's
| a great, positive experience everyday to mix with them. Jane
| Jacobs said something about it - the sidewalk ballet, I think -
| where you find and reinforce, every day, that people are
| generally good and helpful and caring, and that they are people
| like you, no matter how they dress or what they do.
|
| I have had no personal safety problems on public transit. I've
| heard some loud radios; a couple times someone was smoking on a
| train, which was annoying. Driving in traffic is definitely
| annoying, and there's much more personal safety risk too when
| someone cuts me off or sends a text. Sometimes the people at
| home are annoying. :)
| MaxMonteil wrote:
| Interesting to see the contrast with this other post here [0].
|
| US offers a more "bus-like" service and Shanghai offers a more
| "Uber-like" bus service.
|
| Like some kind of carcinization in public transport.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43980845
| epmatsw wrote:
| Reminds me of Chariot from back in the day. That was nice:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot_(company)
| wenc wrote:
| This sounds like something Via is doing
|
| https://ridewithvia.com/
|
| I signed up for Via in Chicago but it didn't quite work out for
| me. I guess Uber's network is bigger so high probability of
| coincidence routes.
| ujkhsjkdhf234 wrote:
| Project 2025 calls for massive cuts to public transit and instead
| give money and tax breaks to companies like Uber and Lyft to
| provide transit instead. This is just Uber getting ready for that
| phase of the plan.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I wonder if this could put a real dent in rush hour?
|
| (Letting my imagination wander a bit)
|
| If everyone on the highway did this...
|
| Could Uber be more convenient than public tranit?
|
| Would they be able to regularly group passengers so that people
| are picked up and dropped off nearby?
|
| Could Uber be cheaper than parking garages in large cities?
|
| _Could this put such a large dent in the number of cars on the
| road that traffic moves faster?_
| exiguus wrote:
| > In Europe this is called public transportation
|
| Just kidding! This comment reminds me of how Uber's leadership
| underwent a complete overhaul due to their questionable business
| practices. It seems like not much has changed, and they're still
| trying to exploit the public for their own profit.
|
| To learn from them, i can highly recommand:
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321080908_A_REVIEW_...
| 1659447091 wrote:
| >> _...fixed-route rides along busy corridors during weekday
| commute hours in major U.S. cities_
|
| >> _The commuter shuttles will drive between pre-set stops every
| 20 minutes ... there will be dozens of routes in each launch city
| ... To start, riders will only ever have to share the route with
| up to two other co-riders_
|
| This sounds like there are going to be people driving empty cars
| (and later empty large SUVs) on a loop in already busy and
| congested areas. Do the drivers at least get paid whether or not
| they have riders?
|
| Major US Cities already have services like SuperShuttle and other
| car pooling for shared rides with people going the same way, as
| an added bonus, you can get picked up in front of your house --
| no _" turn-by-turn directions to get them from their house to the
| corner where they'll be picked up"_. This Uber service seems
| wasteful when they already have shared rides.
| m2fkxy wrote:
| This sounds like marshrutki. These are very common in post-Soviet
| countries to fill the demand left unmet by public transportation
| service.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Seems fine to me, just charge them a fee to use bus lanes, which
| can then go into funding public transit. Win-win.
| jimjimjim wrote:
| I can't believe the techcrunch article didn't mentioned the word
| bus at all.
| tlogan wrote:
| Isn't this what public transit is supposed to provide?
|
| In San Francisco, I just hope Mayor Lurie will work to make
| riding Muni a less intimidating experience. I understand some
| people still find it convenient, and that's great--but
| unfortunately, safety has seriously declined in recent years.
| Personally, I just can't bring myself to ride it anymore.
|
| Maybe it's because I live near a Walgreens, and I often see the
| same groups of "shoppers" (aka shoplifters) frequently hopping on
| and off at the same stop I use. It's hard to feel secure in that
| environment.
| jdross wrote:
| Many people who would otherwise love public transit - like me,
| hi, I grew up in NY and rode Muni & BART my entire 10 years in
| SF - avoid it in places like SF or the bus in NYC because
| increasingly over the last 15 years "the public" part has
| included very antisocial people, zero enforcement of social
| norms allowed, and declining enforcement of law.
| billllll wrote:
| I ride Muni, BART and Caltrain all the time (I'm car-free in
| SF), and I have no idea what you're talking about. Here are the
| actual statistics of crime per vehicle mile on Muni:
| https://www.sf.gov/data--crimes-muni
|
| Crime in SF and other big cities have been going way down. If
| anything, you're probably safer than ever in SF (and other
| common political targets like NY and Chicago).
|
| Also, how can you know that Muni is more dangerous, if you're
| too scared to even get on in the first place? Can you really
| say your fear is based on facts and experience?
| tlogan wrote:
| May I ask if you can compare your experience now comparing to
| 2006? Is it better? Safer?
| archagon wrote:
| Ditto. I ride Muni (bus and rail) in the Mission close to
| every day, and although I sometimes encounter people behaving
| erratically or anti-socially, I don't recall the last time I
| felt "unsafe." (Not that it's always a _pleasant_ experience,
| but it's fine, and cheap.)
| the_clarence wrote:
| I commuted in public transport my whole life until I moved to SF,
| saw a bunch of violence and mugging my first times riding the bus
| and decided to never ride the bus ever again here.
| tlogan wrote:
| I wasn't always this way.
|
| San Francisco has always had an edge to it, but it wasn't
| nearly as bad as it's become. I used to play chess at United
| Nations Plaza--yes, right there at the heart of the Tenderloin
| --with all kinds of interesting people. It had character, but
| it wasn't unsafe like it is now. Things have truly changed, and
| not for the better.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > Ride-hail and delivery giant Uber is introducing cheap, fixed-
| route rides along busy corridors during weekday commute hours in
| major U.S. cities
|
| Note that Uber is not introducing this in Europe or other cities
| where they have good public transport.
|
| Instead of bus or trams that carry X people at once, reducing
| congestion, emissions, etc., you still have individual cars
| carrying one person at a time.
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