3 ms·

>"I am driving from Soma to Palo Alto so just notify me about the customers trying to do the same thing" This exactly BlaBlaCar's* thing...unfortunately they h

by macNchz 11y ago

>"I am driving from Soma to Palo Alto so just notify me about the customers trying to do the same thing" This exactly BlaBlaCar's* thing...unfortunately they have no plans to come to the U.S. I live in NYC and unlike most people here I have my own car. I often drive to nearby cities to visit friends. I would LOVE to have a widely used service like this, I'm so jealous to see, for example, BlaBlaCar's listings for people looking to share a ride from Paris to Lyon this Friday evening. [1] https://www.blablacar.com/ https://www.blablacar.com/

chimeracoder 11y ago
> This exactly BlaBlaCar's* thing...unfortunately they have no plans to come to the U.S. I live in NYC and unlike most people here I have my own car. I often drive to nearby cities to visit friends. Lyft Line already does this, and it's available in NYC. I'm not sure if it works between cities, but within the NYC metro area you should be fine.
lcc 11y ago
I absolutely loved using BlaBlaCar when I was backpacking in France. It was recommended to me by several other travellers who all raved about it. It is a fraction of the price of the train, and far more convenient (in terms of pick-up/drop off locations and timing) than the bus. Plus I met some pretty cool people along the way. Unfortunately I'm not optimistic about a similar service doing well in North America. The main advantage BlaBlaCar has in Europe is geography. Cities in North America are more scattered. Also, French culture is much more open to hitchhiking, which BlaBlaCar feels like a natural extension to. And European road tolls are far more expensive than in North America, giving drivers a much larger incentive to take some ridesharers with them. For example, on a long weekend roadtrip along the Cote d'Azur my French friend and I racked up close to 200 Euros in tolls, but happily made almost half of that back by picking up BlaBlaCar passengers at various convenient points along the way.
zepn 11y ago
Do many people use BlaBlaCar in the UK? Given the very high train prices, they should. Yet the search doesn't seem to accommodate pickups along a route. If you search Oxford to London, you get several results. But if you search High Wycombe to London, you get none. The former route will undoubtedly overlap the latter - why not offer pickups? It would presumably expand the pool of available trips considerably.

by macNchz 11y ago

chimeracoder 11y ago

> This exactly BlaBlaCar's* thing...unfortunately they have no plans to come to the U.S. I live in NYC and unlike most people here I have my own car. I often drive to nearby cities to visit friends. Lyft Line already does this, and it's available in NYC. I'm not sure if it works between cities, but within the NYC metro area you should be fine.

lcc 11y ago

I absolutely loved using BlaBlaCar when I was backpacking in France. It was recommended to me by several other travellers who all raved about it. It is a fraction of the price of the train, and far more convenient (in terms of pick-up/drop off locations and timing) than the bus. Plus I met some pretty cool people along the way. Unfortunately I'm not optimistic about a similar service doing well in North America. The main advantage BlaBlaCar has in Europe is geography. Cities in North America are more scattered. Also, French culture is much more open to hitchhiking, which BlaBlaCar feels like a natural extension to. And European road tolls are far more expensive than in North America, giving drivers a much larger incentive to take some ridesharers with them. For example, on a long weekend roadtrip along the Cote d'Azur my French friend and I racked up close to 200 Euros in tolls, but happily made almost half of that back by picking up BlaBlaCar passengers at various convenient points along the way.

zepn 11y ago

Do many people use BlaBlaCar in the UK? Given the very high train prices, they should. Yet the search doesn't seem to accommodate pickups along a route. If you search Oxford to London, you get several results. But if you search High Wycombe to London, you get none. The former route will undoubtedly overlap the latter - why not offer pickups? It would presumably expand the pool of available trips considerably.