3 ms·

When I was living in Oakland Uber Pool rides would often be cheaper than taking BART...

metildaa 8y ago
Uber & Lyft are trying their hardest to sap riders from mass transit, SoCal has seen ridership fall year after year. Short of fining employers for each employee that doesn't get a transit pass through the employer, there isn't much cities can do to curb this. Seattle does this, to the tune of a $800 to $500 per employee fine if they aren't provided a transit pass depending on where the employer is located in the city. Employees can self-certify as biking or walking to work once a quarter, but a year long transit pass is less than the fine.
- viscanti 8y ago
  > Short of fining employers for each employee that doesn't get a transit pass through the employer, there isn't much cities can do to curb this. Maybe they could make mass transit better so more people would want to use it?
  - metildaa 8y ago
    You have to create a virtuous cycle of transit ridership improving somehow, adding more busses when the riders aren't there generally doesn't cause a surge in ridership. Dedicated lanes, singal priority, off-bus payment and fining employers that don't provide transit passes is a proven way to start the cycle toward high transit ridership.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Short of fining employers for each employee that doesn't get a transit pass through the employer, there isn't much cities can do to curb this. Rather than fining employers for failure to get a transit pass for each employee, they could tax them per employee and just issue the transit passes.
  - metildaa 8y ago
    Doing so forgets the human side of the equation. There is technically a couple ways to avoid the fee (eg: self-certifying as a bicyclist, walk to work or carpooler) which give the city fairly accurate data as to how people get to work. Meanwhile, employees feel better about their emploer giving them a "free" transit pass rather than a tax funded passes for all plan. It creates a surprisingly strong incentice for people to switch companies to one that will give them a transit pass (particularly among the $100+k a year workers). Employees literally feel jipped when their employer doesn't give them a pass, I don't think you could create this kind of positive incentive to be a transit rider any other way.

Uber & Lyft are trying their hardest to sap riders from mass transit, SoCal has seen ridership fall year after year. Short of fining employers for each employee that doesn't get a transit pass through the employer, there isn't much cities can do to curb this. Seattle does this, to the tune of a $800 to $500 per employee fine if they aren't provided a transit pass depending on where the employer is located in the city. Employees can self-certify as biking or walking to work once a quarter, but a year long transit pass is less than the fine.

viscanti 8y ago
> Short of fining employers for each employee that doesn't get a transit pass through the employer, there isn't much cities can do to curb this. Maybe they could make mass transit better so more people would want to use it?
- metildaa 8y ago
  You have to create a virtuous cycle of transit ridership improving somehow, adding more busses when the riders aren't there generally doesn't cause a surge in ridership. Dedicated lanes, singal priority, off-bus payment and fining employers that don't provide transit passes is a proven way to start the cycle toward high transit ridership.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Short of fining employers for each employee that doesn't get a transit pass through the employer, there isn't much cities can do to curb this. Rather than fining employers for failure to get a transit pass for each employee, they could tax them per employee and just issue the transit passes.
- metildaa 8y ago
  Doing so forgets the human side of the equation. There is technically a couple ways to avoid the fee (eg: self-certifying as a bicyclist, walk to work or carpooler) which give the city fairly accurate data as to how people get to work. Meanwhile, employees feel better about their emploer giving them a "free" transit pass rather than a tax funded passes for all plan. It creates a surprisingly strong incentice for people to switch companies to one that will give them a transit pass (particularly among the $100+k a year workers). Employees literally feel jipped when their employer doesn't give them a pass, I don't think you could create this kind of positive incentive to be a transit rider any other way.