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Your calculations disregard the fact that rides can be shared. These are vans, likely with room for 4-passengers. So, the average ride will have 2-passengers.
by jhatax 7y ago
Your calculations disregard the fact that rides can be shared. These are vans, likely with room for 4-passengers. So, the average ride will have 2-passengers.
Secondly, I laud Seattle for finding ways to reduce congestion. It can take 45-minutes to go 4-miles by car from Beacon Hill to downtown. Particularly, they are trying to find a solution that is affordable to a large swath of the population, not just the tech-rich.
Finally, all public transit systems are designed to be subsidized, one way or another. To wit, every rider who pays $2.75 on a bus is getting a subsidy of $2.17 (each rider costs $4.92). At what point is the subsidy “too much”?
- topkai22 7y agoThe definition of “ride” is ambiguous, but I’m relatively confident that the majority of hails are going to be single rider, and the subsidy is averaging at least $7/ride before they get to the transit station. The article also has plenty of transit advocates stating the obvious- this cost more than even low ridership bus routes, so isn’t a long term solution, and strong fixed route transit solutions are needed. The subsidy here is large enough that if the investment is worthwhile, then it would also be worth investigating what would happen if we gave small, low cost electric vehicles (bicycles, scooters, or covered variants thereof) to households in the service areas.