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This reveals that people who were previously reliant on public transit are making use of newer, better options. If cities don't like that, they should improve

This reveals that people who were previously reliant on public transit are making use of newer, better options. If cities don't like that, they should improve public transit.

mikepurvis 9y ago
Cities should always improve mass/public transit. The challenges with finding the political will and thus budget to make those improvements are well documented. And ride sharing gets most of the same hidden subsidies as private vehicles: roads are maintained for "free", congestion and pollution are externalized costs, and cars get implicit priority when there is not dedicated (or adequate) infrastructure for pedestrians, bikes, and mass transit vehicles (as well as more subtle stuff such as refusing to ban RTOR, despite how dangerous it is to people on foot). Because there's no good way of accounting for those costs or compensating for them, transit authorities are under constant scrutiny for their spending, and starved for money to put into system maintenance and capital improvements. But billion dollar highway expansions sail through approvals because it's "needed", as if the mass transit options which might have made the expansion unnecessary are somehow an extravagant amenity.
mikepurvis 9y ago
Note as well— transit authorities are often balancing conflicting requirements from their political overlords. In particular, maximizing profit vs. access. Politicians (especially non users of transit) often want to see as many of their constituents as possible "covered" by the transit system, which leads to meandering, infrequently serviced routes of limited usefulness. But then when this is done, there are complaints that the transit authority hasn't done enough to "build ridership" and justify its own existence. In a world where ride sharing is out-competing buses, perhaps there can be more attention given to straightening out bus routes and increasing service frequency accordingly. More on coverage vs. ridership: http://humantransit.org/2015/07/mega-explainer-the-ridership-recipe.html http://humantransit.org/2015/07/mega-explainer-the-ridership...
- twblalock 9y ago
  Pretty much every other rich country manages to deliver good public transit, and I'm sure they face the same combination of incentives.
ebragg09 9y ago
Well, also, you've got the factor that if you can use uber to get to the places transit doesn't go, then you're more likely to go car-free. I live in ATL, and take transit to work, but if I had a car, I'd likely end up driving everywhere just because of the "well, I'm paying for a car, may as well save 5 minutes instead of paying for transit". Sure, some of the trips probably are instead of transit, but having uber as an option certainly dramatically increased how often I took transit.

This reveals that people who were previously reliant on public transit are making use of newer, better options. If cities don't like that, they should improve public transit.

mikepurvis 9y ago

Cities should always improve mass/public transit. The challenges with finding the political will and thus budget to make those improvements are well documented. And ride sharing gets most of the same hidden subsidies as private vehicles: roads are maintained for "free", congestion and pollution are externalized costs, and cars get implicit priority when there is not dedicated (or adequate) infrastructure for pedestrians, bikes, and mass transit vehicles (as well as more subtle stuff such as refusing to ban RTOR, despite how dangerous it is to people on foot). Because there's no good way of accounting for those costs or compensating for them, transit authorities are under constant scrutiny for their spending, and starved for money to put into system maintenance and capital improvements. But billion dollar highway expansions sail through approvals because it's "needed", as if the mass transit options which might have made the expansion unnecessary are somehow an extravagant amenity.

mikepurvis 9y ago

Note as well— transit authorities are often balancing conflicting requirements from their political overlords. In particular, maximizing profit vs. access. Politicians (especially non users of transit) often want to see as many of their constituents as possible "covered" by the transit system, which leads to meandering, infrequently serviced routes of limited usefulness. But then when this is done, there are complaints that the transit authority hasn't done enough to "build ridership" and justify its own existence. In a world where ride sharing is out-competing buses, perhaps there can be more attention given to straightening out bus routes and increasing service frequency accordingly. More on coverage vs. ridership: http://humantransit.org/2015/07/mega-explainer-the-ridership-recipe.html http://humantransit.org/2015/07/mega-explainer-the-ridership...

twblalock 9y ago
Pretty much every other rich country manages to deliver good public transit, and I'm sure they face the same combination of incentives.

ebragg09 9y ago

Well, also, you've got the factor that if you can use uber to get to the places transit doesn't go, then you're more likely to go car-free. I live in ATL, and take transit to work, but if I had a car, I'd likely end up driving everywhere just because of the "well, I'm paying for a car, may as well save 5 minutes instead of paying for transit". Sure, some of the trips probably are instead of transit, but having uber as an option certainly dramatically increased how often I took transit.