The research (and ride-hailing firms themselves) suggest that ride-hailing can be complementary to public transit. I'm a former PT taxi driver (suburban city n

The research (and ride-hailing firms themselves) suggest that ride-hailing can be complementary to public transit. I'm a former PT taxi driver (suburban city next to large urban area) and a lot of our business was from or to mass transit stations and the airport. These services (car and mass transit) complemented each other, but I don't recall anyone criticizing them for taking riders away from buses or the subway. The main complaint was cab rides were too expensive and the medallion system was unfair. One thing that was different then compared to the use of ride-sharing services now: Rarely did we have a pickup from a private home or random street address to another home, random street address, restaurant, or movie theater. However, this was before the smart phone era, so random street pickups were either flag-downs or via public phones. I also used to live in London where private car services used to be very common before the rise of the smart phone or ride-sharing services. They were necessary, particularly in neighborhoods where it was hard to get black cabs or there were no tube stations nearby. The main complaints against the private car services came from the black cab industry.