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>If I understand the math correctly, BART claims about 126 million rides (2015) and cost $906M (~$7 a ride, comparable to some uber pool fares) I think a bette

by lsc 8y ago

>If I understand the math correctly, BART claims about 126 million rides (2015) and cost $906M (~$7 a ride, comparable to some uber pool fares) I think a better comparison than total cost is how much money they are losing. The difference between what I'm paying and what I feel like I'm getting with uber feels like... a lot, and that lines up with everything I've read of their financial situation. If you are willing to lose substantial money on a per-ride basis, sure, you are going to have a pretty nice transit product. (Personally, I'd be pretty okay with the government losing some of my tax money on public transit projects... though I think if the government is gonna do it, I want them to lose the money up front on expensive, durable, high-capacity infrastructure, then come closer to breaking even on a marginal ride basis)

Shivetya 8y ago
BART and other big city light rail systems are plagued with billions in deferred maintenance because while politicians love ribbon cutting and pontificating they balk when the bill comes due. Across the US there is about a hundred billion in such deferred maintenance and the vast majority of it is for light rail systems that were built more because they could and sounded good than built where they would be used. Worse, to compensate for the costs bus routes get reduced which just exacerbates problems. hence why we have taxi services, why all cities across the world have taxi and similar services. transit cannot go everywhere nor can it quickly adapt to changes in public needs. buses are the best bet for adapting but services need both rolling stock, drivers, and usage cases, to move whereas taxi and ride sharing services react on need. plus in the current meta where "soon" there will be self driving cars and buses all which are EV it will completely transform public transit. I just hope to be there will it does.
- lsc 8y ago
  > BART and other big city light rail systems are plagued with billions in deferred maintenance because while politicians love ribbon cutting and pontificating they balk when the bill comes due. Yeah, that is part of why I support systems that lean towards higher up front and lower ongoing costs. >plus in the current meta where "soon" there will be self driving cars and buses all which are EV it will completely transform public transit. I just hope to be there will it does. Self-driving won't help with congestion problems. unshared on-demand vehicles (and it doesn't really matter here if the on-demand vehicle is driven by a human gig economy worker or a computer) help with parking, but if anything, they make congestion worse, as they've gotta drive to pick me up in addition to driving to my destination. (of course, shared on-demand vehicles can help with congestion, at least when they are shared.) The only "game changer" here is that potentially a self-driving uber could be cheaper (either by directly lowering operating costs, or if we get the hang of things, by lowering the number of injuries caused by mistakes.) The problem is that if you charge less, I'm going to use the non-shared on-demand service more often; I only use the shared service to save a few bucks. My point here is that we can probably predict what self driving cars will get us by looking at what heavily subsidized ride sharing services get us. self-driving cars might even get us less; if I could get uber-like point to point without having to park service out of a personally-owned car at a price point that isn't much more than a regular personally-owned car? I'd probably share rides a whole lot less than I do now.

by lsc 8y ago

Shivetya 8y ago

BART and other big city light rail systems are plagued with billions in deferred maintenance because while politicians love ribbon cutting and pontificating they balk when the bill comes due. Across the US there is about a hundred billion in such deferred maintenance and the vast majority of it is for light rail systems that were built more because they could and sounded good than built where they would be used. Worse, to compensate for the costs bus routes get reduced which just exacerbates problems. hence why we have taxi services, why all cities across the world have taxi and similar services. transit cannot go everywhere nor can it quickly adapt to changes in public needs. buses are the best bet for adapting but services need both rolling stock, drivers, and usage cases, to move whereas taxi and ride sharing services react on need. plus in the current meta where "soon" there will be self driving cars and buses all which are EV it will completely transform public transit. I just hope to be there will it does.

lsc 8y ago
> BART and other big city light rail systems are plagued with billions in deferred maintenance because while politicians love ribbon cutting and pontificating they balk when the bill comes due. Yeah, that is part of why I support systems that lean towards higher up front and lower ongoing costs. >plus in the current meta where "soon" there will be self driving cars and buses all which are EV it will completely transform public transit. I just hope to be there will it does. Self-driving won't help with congestion problems. unshared on-demand vehicles (and it doesn't really matter here if the on-demand vehicle is driven by a human gig economy worker or a computer) help with parking, but if anything, they make congestion worse, as they've gotta drive to pick me up in addition to driving to my destination. (of course, shared on-demand vehicles can help with congestion, at least when they are shared.) The only "game changer" here is that potentially a self-driving uber could be cheaper (either by directly lowering operating costs, or if we get the hang of things, by lowering the number of injuries caused by mistakes.) The problem is that if you charge less, I'm going to use the non-shared on-demand service more often; I only use the shared service to save a few bucks. My point here is that we can probably predict what self driving cars will get us by looking at what heavily subsidized ride sharing services get us. self-driving cars might even get us less; if I could get uber-like point to point without having to park service out of a personally-owned car at a price point that isn't much more than a regular personally-owned car? I'd probably share rides a whole lot less than I do now.