5 ms·

What's wrong with a vast majority of the vehicles on the road not being owned by the people who use them for transportation? It seems that a large amount of peo

What's wrong with a vast majority of the vehicles on the road not being owned by the people who use them for transportation? It seems that a large amount of people don't want to purchase and maintain a vehicle they might not always be using and instead pay on-demand like they do for many other services where someone specializes to reduce the cost for others?

pavel_lishin 8y ago
Nothing's wrong with that; in fact, that seems like the ideal scenario. I think there should be a financial disincentive to owning a car in the city, especially if most of the congestion is due to private car ownership. If Uber+Taxi make up a small percentage of traffic, then limiting them to fix congestion seems like a stupid idea.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >I think there should be a financial disincentive to owning a car in the city, Expensive parking on top of all the other costs is enough for most people who aren't pretty well off.
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    Given the fact that congestion is an admitted issue, it's possible that it's not enough; plus, many people use street parking, which costs time instead of money.
    - tomjakubowski 8y ago
      Street parking often costs money too.
Retric 8y ago
Driving a car from A to B is less miles driven than someone driving from X to A to pick you up before driving to B to drop you off them Y to wait for next ride. Thus Uber increases congestion.
- tomjakubowski 8y ago
  Another factor is that the mere existence of options like Uber and Lyft likely means people take trips they otherwise would not. The thing Uber/Lyft do remove is the need for so much parking. On the flip side, do they need more places to idle and await new rides, if we don't want them to congest roadways while doing that.
- cryptonector 8y ago
  On the other hand utilization in the ownership case is very low, which therefore consumes lots of parking space which... consumes lots of street space which... reduces total bandwidth.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  You're underestimating how severely restricted the parking supply here is via simple physics. It's not just driving from A to B, it's driving from A to B and then circling around for 15 or more minutes trying to find a parking spot. In many places, parking at your destination is more restricted than road space along the way to your destination.
- bcheung 8y ago
  You'd need to allocate more parking spaces then. You can have more roads if you have less parking. Also, having a car sit idle 95% of the time is not an efficient use of money. It's the same model as virtualization with servers (sharing unused capacity brings down the costs for everyone). Also, there's the tremendous amount of time wasted and hassle to park, especially in big cities that have multi-story parking garages. Especially with their "compact" parking spots that even compact cars have trouble fitting into.
  - Retric 8y ago
    Parking spaces can go 3D via underground parking a lot more easily than roads can go 3D. Street level parking is a fraction of total parking in the hart of NYC where congestion is a huge issue.
- manigandham 8y ago

pavel_lishin 8y ago

Nothing's wrong with that; in fact, that seems like the ideal scenario. I think there should be a financial disincentive to owning a car in the city, especially if most of the congestion is due to private car ownership. If Uber+Taxi make up a small percentage of traffic, then limiting them to fix congestion seems like a stupid idea.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>I think there should be a financial disincentive to owning a car in the city, Expensive parking on top of all the other costs is enough for most people who aren't pretty well off.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  Given the fact that congestion is an admitted issue, it's possible that it's not enough; plus, many people use street parking, which costs time instead of money.
  - tomjakubowski 8y ago
    Street parking often costs money too.

Retric 8y ago

Driving a car from A to B is less miles driven than someone driving from X to A to pick you up before driving to B to drop you off them Y to wait for next ride. Thus Uber increases congestion.

tomjakubowski 8y ago
Another factor is that the mere existence of options like Uber and Lyft likely means people take trips they otherwise would not. The thing Uber/Lyft do remove is the need for so much parking. On the flip side, do they need more places to idle and await new rides, if we don't want them to congest roadways while doing that.
cryptonector 8y ago
On the other hand utilization in the ownership case is very low, which therefore consumes lots of parking space which... consumes lots of street space which... reduces total bandwidth.
CydeWeys 8y ago
You're underestimating how severely restricted the parking supply here is via simple physics. It's not just driving from A to B, it's driving from A to B and then circling around for 15 or more minutes trying to find a parking spot. In many places, parking at your destination is more restricted than road space along the way to your destination.
bcheung 8y ago
You'd need to allocate more parking spaces then. You can have more roads if you have less parking. Also, having a car sit idle 95% of the time is not an efficient use of money. It's the same model as virtualization with servers (sharing unused capacity brings down the costs for everyone). Also, there's the tremendous amount of time wasted and hassle to park, especially in big cities that have multi-story parking garages. Especially with their "compact" parking spots that even compact cars have trouble fitting into.
- Retric 8y ago
  Parking spaces can go 3D via underground parking a lot more easily than roads can go 3D. Street level parking is a fraction of total parking in the hart of NYC where congestion is a huge issue.
manigandham 8y ago