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LA is using ride-hailing startup Via to shuttle people to public transit
- jandrese 8y agoIt seems very LA to need a car to get to the nearest bus stop.
- synaesthesisx 8y agoIt's due to the sheer size of the city (it's the largest metropolitan region in the US by area). The "last mile" problem now turns into last 3-4 miles (or more!) often necessitating a vehicle of some sort.
- Gys 8y agoBusstops are generally planned in a number per so many people. Not in a number per city, regardless the size of it.
- tmh79 8y agomany of these "bus stops" are BRT (bus rapid transit), which uses dedicated infrastructure like grade separated bus only lanes. Its more like a subway that doesn't have rails and uses busses instead of train cars.
- nkantar 8y agoThis is pretty much spot on. I live in LA and am an avid driver, motorcyclist, and bicyclist. I'm also a huge proponent of public transport, and use it whenever I can. That last bit is often a bummer; it's very rare that I truly can use public transport to get to where I'm going. The nearest train station is a 15-minute walk from my apartment. That gets me onto a pretty good train system that can take me to Santa Monica and Downtown Los Angeles on one train, but not many other places. Changing trains adds time, and then they also go to a limited number of places. Buses are a bit all over the place, and victimized by the very traffic I try to avoid by using public transport. My current office is about 9 miles from my apartment (Mar Vista to West Hollywood). This translates into 35 minutes by car, 20–25 minutes by motorcycle, and 1 hour and 20 minutes by public transit, involving at least two different methods. It would be a great 1-hour bicycle ride if I could shower at work. I start a new job in a few weeks, and that office will be only 4 miles from my apartment. This should translate into 12 minutes by car, 10 minutes by motorcycle, and 40 minutes by public transit. It might also be a relatively sweat-free (low-sweat?) 25-minute bicycle ride. Most people aren't as fortunate as I am.
- photojosh 8y agoIf sweating is the primary thing keeping you from riding: get an eBike.
- nkantar 8y agoSweating is the primary thing keeping me from riding to work. I solved that with a motorcycle, which does many things an eBike wouldn't. Riding a purely-manual bicycle would be awesome because of the exercise, something an eBike wouldn't provide.
- photojosh 8y agoYep sorry, thought that the ride to work was assumed. You can always turn off the assist so you get exercise on the way home, but don't sweat on the way there? I've commuted via bike for 4 years now - 6mi with a big hill each way. Started on an ebike but moved to nonmotorised pretty quickly.
- nkantar 8y agoI guess the split (on there, off home) would kinda work, but it seems like half measure when I already have a road bicycle for serious rides and a motorcycle to get around the city.
- semi-extrinsic 8y ago9 miles you could run in a little over an hour, by bicycle it should be more like 35 minutes, no? (Assuming it's not too hilly.)
- baroffoos 8y agoI'm a fairly fit person and I am not going to run for an hour twice a day. 30 minutes by bike is fine but if I am gonna get on my bike I might as well go all the way to work which is what I do. Public transport is just no use to me until I move somewhere with better access.
- chrisseaton 8y agoThat doesn't make any sense. LA is dense. The suburban areas from satellite look like wall-to-wall housing for tens of miles in all directions. How can that not be enough to support a bus-stop every half-mile? How can my little town in the UK support a bus depot but a small area of LA cannot?
- dragonwriter 8y ago> LA is dense. LA is ludicrously sparse for a big city. > The suburban areas from satellite look like wall-to-wall housing for tens of miles in all directions. Yes, the suburban areas (pretty much all of LA) are often wall to wall low density (single family or small, 2-3 story apartments) housing for miles in all directions. > How can my little town in the UK support a bus depot but a small area of LA cannot? LA has bus depots, and thousands of of stops.
- chrisseaton 8y agoSo with all of that, how does the last mile problem turn into '3-4 miles (or more!)'?
- dima55 8y agoIt can. The people complaining are generally those that chose to live far away from transit. There are plenty of us that barely drive; we just don't complain.
- Rebelgecko 8y agoLA has about 10 bus stops per square mile. It looks like Metro's Google Maps API key expired but there's a nice map here[1]. Most of the gaps are uninhabited areas or cities that have their own transit systems. But just because there's 5 bus stops within a half mile of your house doesn't mean that those 5 (or more) bus lines take you to your destination. It's like a graph, as the number of bus stops increases linearly there's n^2 ways to connect them. Traveling somewhere that isn't directly North/South/East/West usually requires 1 or more transfers, and most of the bus lines are subject to the same traffic that you'd experience if you drove yourself. [1]: https://www.metro.net/interactives/gmaps/bus_routes/bus_stops/ https://www.metro.net/interactives/gmaps/bus_routes/bus_stop...
- ahoy 8y ago"Park and Ride" is a fairly common thing for commuter rail in the US. Using it for busses is a new one though.
- hinkley 8y agoSeattle has been doing bus park and ride for decades, although they are extending the rail to one of the biggest park and ride stops and I think other rail extensions will go past several others.
- dahfizz 8y agoIs it? Maybe for busses that stay inside a city but all the "commuter" busses that go into and out of a city have parking lots. There isn't any other way to get to them.
- neivin 8y agoWe have "Park and Ride" for GO buses in Canada.
- cbhl 8y agoThe GTA is also generally leading north america in adoption of dedicated rights-of-way for buses, such as the mississauga transitway and the bus lanes for Viva. Train-like travel times, with bus-like frequency and construction times.
- pgoggijr 8y agoFWIW, NJ Transit has operated Park & Ride bus stations for as long as I can remember. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NJ_Transit_bus_routes_(300%E2%80%93399) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NJ_Transit_bus_routes_...
- dragonwriter 8y ago> "Park and Ride" is a fairly common thing for commuter rail in the US. It's a fairly common thing for commuter transit generally in the US, not just commuter rail. > Using it for busses is a new one though. No, it's not. There's lots of Park and Ride locations in CA (and.I would assume elsewhere) that are served by bus exclusively or are at multimodal transit centers that include bus along with ferry and/or light rail.
- Kiro 8y agoFix the capital V in the title please.
- sctb 8y agoDone. Thanks!
- Strang 8y agoCompletely off-topic, but this headline is an excellent example of why we shouldn't let companies stylize their own names and brands. It's unreadable in its current state. "via" should of course be capitalized, no matter what the company's "brand guidelines" say.
- exolymph 8y agoAlways drives me crazy too. Uncapitalized company names are not a thing, get over yourselves.
- logicx24 8y agoI lived in LA for a year, and the biggest hurdle I had with using public transit in the city was exactly this: that stations, especially for the newer metro lines, often were 2-3 miles from my starting location and destination. Using public transit meant that I either was already near a stop or had a destination immediately next to stop. In every other case, Uber/Lyft'ing through traffic was faster (and cheaper when you add the price to Uber to and from the stations). So I think this idea has potential, though its eventual success will depend two things: first, whether the price of the last-mile via's can be kept low enough to make the diversion to the transit stop affordable, and second, whether the via's and the public transit can reasonably compete on timeliness with ridesharing services.
- geekrax 8y agoPerhaps this is what Chariot should have pivoted to. Right now, the public transit is not the problem in places like Bay Area and LA if your source and destination are near the public transit stop or if those stops are accessible via a car/bike/scooter.
- cbcoutinho 8y agoWhere I used to live in the Netherlands (Friesland in the north to be specific), it's very sparsely populated. Although the public transportation system here is incredible, in the more remote regions of the province they also suffer from the last mile problem. The way the local train/bus operator deals with the issue is by directly subsidizing local taxis to get you to your nearest bus stop for 2.50eu - essentially a cup of coffee. I use it whenever I need to get around up there and it works great. https://www.arriva.nl/friesland-en-waddeneilanden/reisinformatie/aanvullend-vervoer.htm https://www.arriva.nl/friesland-en-waddeneilanden/reisinform...
- pbalau 8y agoI think that public transport can radically shape an area, for example, see this video [1] about how the Edgware area developed, after getting a tube station (and how other areas lost). I recommend the entire channel btw, very informative and funny videos. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anHLOwH2HWU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anHLOwH2HWU
- fiachamp 8y agoStill seems gigantically space inefficient. Would love to see this experiment done with scooters, especially in LA where the weather is pretty good year-round. I say this as someone incredibly annoyed with people leaving Bird scooters all over the street.
- bouncing 8y agoIf the "official" answer to the last mile problem is scooters, that'll run into all kinds of resistance from people with disabilities.
- randyrand 8y agoWhy? Cars and scooters are not mutually exclusive. Moreso, scooters take up way less space than cars and a properly designed scooter city will have much more room for disabled parking. Not to mention electric wheelchairs can be surprisingly fast.
- nkantar 8y agoFrom my highly unscientific anecdata, that's been one of their primary use cases. The main problem I've heard reiterated is that they're not always readily available, suddenly turning a can-do trip into no-go.
- drtz 8y agoDallas has the same problem as LA. I live about 3 miles from a light rail park & ride but I don't even have bus service. I'd love to be able to use a ride share service, but taking Uber or Lyft adds another $10-15 to my daily commute.
- joshandrews 8y agoDART just launched a new service that does exactly this. 4 zones launched today, but many more are coming throughout the year. Try out planning a trip in the updated GoPass app and, depending on where you're going, you should see options for GoLink.
- drtz 8y agoI'm in Allen which is outside of the DART service area, though, so I'm probably not covered. Although I'm just across the Plano-Allen border. Maybe I could just walk a couple blocks south and summon a ride. :D Thanks for the info! I'll definitely check it out.
- walshemj 8y agoIsn't the hint in the name "park and ride" your meant to drive to the park part then take the light rail
- joshandrews 8y agoWe (sparelabs.com) just launched a very similar on-demand transit system in Dallas today! The service is primarily used to link up the suburbs and working hubs to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) light rail network. Happy to answer any questions about this here!
- duxup 8y agoI worry about tethering public transport to unprofitable / not yet self sustainable companies who could eventually become so critical to public to transportation that they become their own version of "too big to fail"... and then just milk government for all they can, or if they go out of business the whole system is dorked up.
- snissn 8y agoWhat are your thoughts on Amtrak?
- blang 8y agoNot as good as SNCF which is state run.
- clairity 8y agoit's a pilot program for just 3 stations (one subway, one busway and one light rail), so no need to worry about a messy tethering yet.
- duxup 8y agoYeah I'm cool with pilot programs. Just not sure what it tells us if the parent company ... isn't solvent longer term and not sure if that is or isn't the case.
- clairity 8y agovia has been around a while searching for a business model in this space. they'd probably get bought out by uber or lyft once they prove the model.
- bouncing 8y agoLike most cities, LA's public transit system used to be a privately-owned, for profit network, mostly from Pacific Electric and Los Angeles Railway. By the 50s, those companies had shuttered most of their routes because of competition from private cars and buses, so eventually they were bought by local government and became the public transit system. Same thing happened in Chicago. Before there was the CTA, there were private, for-profit rail roads connecting the city, owned mostly by the Chicago Rapid Transit Company. So, if Via is unsustainable and unprofitable, and was acquired by local government, that wouldn't really be any different from how the LA Metro got started.
- trixie_ 8y agoWait for my Via, wait for my bus, wait in the bus in traffic, wait for the bus to make all the stops. I live in LA. I would rather sit in my car than take public transit here. The few times I have taken it, it has been such a bad experience I will never take it again. Party due to the amount of time spent waiting for trains/buses (they are infrequent). Partly due to how unsafe it feels. I've lived in NYC, it's a total 180 experience. Ideally if you can live close to your job in LA the commute is negligible. The roads are ok as well as long as you don't travel during rush hour.
- reaperducer 8y agoI used to feel that way until smartphones and laptops became common. Now I'd rather poke at my phone on a bus than sit in traffic in a car.
- sokoloff 8y agoI'm not saying it's right, but poking at one's phone and sitting in traffic are not mutually exclusive.
- trixie_ 8y agoI'd agree if the time spent was the same. In LA it will take you easily twice as long to get where you're going with public transit.
- reaperducer 8y agoNot just L.A. when I lived in Chicago, I could have driven to work in 30 minutes. Instead I took a train and a bus 75 minutes each way and kept my sanity.
- trixie_ 8y agoI guess to each their own. Though I suspect the majority of people would rather spend 1 hour driving than 2.5 hours in a bus everyday.
- reaperducer 8y agoThere was an article in the New York Times last year about how New Jersey suburbs are paying ride-sharing people to ferry commuters to train stations so that the towns don't have to build larger parking lots.
- Arbalest 8y agoYou're making it sound like this is only of benefit to the city. This makes things more space efficient and for those who might struggle with the expenses of a private car, is gold.
- Arbalest 8y agoSo essentially, we've downsized the busses running through suburbia with much smaller, more flexible vehicles. Seeing this as a failure of public transport is a bit short sighted, if anything I think this is a good evolution. Busses are only more efficient when ridership is medium-high. Busses are not commodity in the way cars are, some places have pretty damn old busses, which spews large amounts of diesel particles.
- brendanmc6 8y agoI just started working with Ioki, we are a Deutsche Bahn company doing this exact thing-- we use mobility analytics to find 'sweet spots' for our service, and are preparing heavily for fully automated services too. Feel free to ask questions! We are also hiring like crazy in Frankfurt :)
- justin_evans 8y agoAs many as seven top ride hailing companies have a market value of at least $1 billion. Analysts forecast that hundreds of companies will drift into the billion-dollar club in the upcoming decade. Here I read a post about E-Hailing Applications Improved the Taxi Industry: https://cabstartup.com/how-e-hailing-applications-improved-the-taxi-industry/ https://cabstartup.com/how-e-hailing-applications-improved-t...