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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

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.

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.