Except for bus riders and cyclists that deal with much more congestion. And transit riders that deal with services changes as a result of decreased transit ridership.
Not to mention behavior like drivers randomly stopping in places that weren't designed for stopped cars.
Seattle might have a word about that. Or two. The words that start with "bus" and end with "lane".
>And cyclists that deal with much more congestion.
Pretty please, really?
>And transit riders that deal with services changes as a result of decreased transit ridership.
Right, blame decreased ridership on Uber, instead of all the problems that make people use Uber instead.
You know when MTA ridership was at its peak? 1946[1]. It has actually been on an increase over the last decade[2], trailing behind population increase, though. Only over the last two years we've seen it drop a little.
Uber has been there before this dip. You know what hasn't been? People getting naked in trains stuck in tunnels without AC[3]. One could think it might have something to do with decrease in ridership.
People want to take the trains. People don't want persistent delays, constantly increasing fares, service changes, shutdowns, being stuck in tunnels, unpredictability. You can blame Uber for many things, but hardly that.
[1]http://web.mta.info/nyct/110Anniversary/ridership.htm
[2]http://web.mta.info/nyct/facts/ridership/
[3]https://jalopnik.com/regular-evening-commute-turns-into-nake...
Really, the advice to cyclists is to stay out of bike lanes[1].
Then, congestion and cars blocking the bike lanes are not directly correlated. It's not like drivers could take the bike lane to avoid traffic.
But anyway, I just don't see the situation for cyclists change in any way due to traffic in NYC. City politics regarding bike paths play a way larger role.
the law of diminishing returns is in full effect here, regardless of what the engineers and SC want to tell themselves.
This is a good argument for treating all vehicles equally and reducing congestion with a tax, not by arbitrarily targeting Ubers but not single occupancy private cars. If you only target Ubers then a lot of that reduction will just be made up with more private cars being driven around to take up the slack in the congestion.
The only toll route I know of anywhere near London is the QE2 crossing, which is outside Greater London.
The CCZ (congestion charging zone) covers less than 5% of the Greater London area. There are plans to expand the CCZ, and tackle pollution via an ultra-low-emission-zone.
> "The Congestion Charge is an £11.50 daily charge for driving a vehicle within the charging zone between 07:00 and 18:00, Monday to Friday."
The "Greater London" is an abusive name to designate the whole region around London, with little relation to the actual city. It should not be used for any comparison.
For comparison, London and Paris are about the same size. Paris is 105 km2 while (The Greater) London is 1500 km2.
We have a mayor who's very anti-public transit so it will not happen anytime soon.
There is a limit where all these cars become a true public nuisance. It might be less than 100k.
Did you read the part where I said that most of the subway tracks in Brooklyn are going into Manhattan? Surprise, going to Manhattan is a breeze!
Now, have fun going from Kings Hwy to Bay Ridge (small challenge), or to Queens (ever tried getting to LGA by train? The Q line only started going to Astoria a few years ago!).
Your argument is a fallacy. You ignore the harm to those drivers who end up losing their jobs.
When you have so many drivers from the same company competing with each other for rides it brings wages down. I guess Uber doesn't care because they get their share either way and there are enough people who are desperate enough that they'll take low wages and long hours that they get.
Licenses for new drivers are stopped so the supply will dwindle, riders will get frustrated and stop heavy reliance on it.
The City Council approved a package of bills that will halt new licenses for Uber and other ride-hail vehicles for a year while the city studies the booming industry. The legislation also allows the city to set a minimum pay rate for drivers.
So not quite the leap made in your comment.
More cars on the road hasn't helped me at all.
Core problem an Uber driving from A to pick someone up at B then dropping them off at C is much worse than that person driving from B to C. On top of that they tend to drive around without passengers to get to better locations.
Taxi are also a problem but the limited number of medallions limited their impact.
PS: On top of this lowering the cost of using a car adds even more trips.
As someone who has lived in New York for the past ten years, the entrance of Uber hasn't changed my life at all, other than some VCs subsidizing/coercing some lower income drivers into taking $10 off my fare when I go to the airport.
Public transportation, which you deride, usage utterly dwarfs taxis/ubers/etc (notice all of the large buildings _in Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn_ where people work?). The MTA definitely has some issues, but calling it dysfunctional because it takes a little extra time to go from Astoria to Prospect Park is absurd.
I don't need to be reminded of the standard, clean, regulated experience I have every time I jump into a yellow or green cab. Boro taxis were introduced into the city _two years after_ Uber entered NYC. How can you possible hand wave them away with "too little too late"? And Uber has its fair share of drivers who have no idea where they're going (actually, definitely more, but I will say they're better about following GPS, which can be both good and bad).
They're taking about limited the number and providing a minimum wage, hardly life changing stuff.
Ehh, depends where in the city you are. When I was super broke I used to live in an out of the way part of Long Island City. 50% of cabs in Manhattan would just refuse to drive there, and once there, good luck finding a yellow or even green cab. The local car service was also pretty unreliable and slow. When Uber came along I suddenly had more options to get home, I was able to reliably get cars to the airport, etc. It was a huge and instant bump in my quality of life.
As someone who has lived in NYC for longer, I find your experience atypical. Do you take taxi/ride-hail trips outside of Manhattan? Are you a person of color? If either of those are true, your transportation experience has been fundamentally changed by the existence of Uber/Lyft.
And I'm sorry, but any favorable comparison of the cleanliness of an NYC yellow cab to an NYC Uber is laughable. The cleanest, best-smelling NYC yellow cab I've taken was worse than the dirtiest NYC Uber I've ever taken.
Nothing but actual experience, hello from Brooklyn.
>The entrance of Uber hasn't changed my life at all, other than [...] when I go to the airport.
Good for you, and I can actually know I can go to the airport.
>Public transportation, which you deride,
Who, me? I love public transportation. Especially when it works. Have fun using the MTA getting from Brooklyn to Queens, though.
>but calling it dysfunctional because it takes a little extra time to go from Astoria to Prospect Park is absurd.
A little?
Getting to LGA from, say, Kings Highway in Brooklyn is a 2+ hour trip using trains and buses, going through Manhattan and crossing the water twice.
Getting to JFK is 2+ hours using subway, LIRR, and Airtrain.
Taxi? 45 minutes.
That's one practical example for you, but we can sit down with the map one day and talk actual trip times for people living outside Manhattan.
>I don't need to be reminded of the standard, clean, regulated experience I have every time I jump into a yellow or green cab
Hahahaha. These cabs only got GPS and card readers like, what, five years ago? I still remember getting into a yellow cab with a driver who circled around the block asking for directions - and charging me for it.
>Boro taxis were introduced into the city _two years after_ Uber entered NYC. How can you possible hand wave them away with "too little too late"
That's why I called it too little too late. First, because it was too late. Two years too late, thanks for pointing that out. Secondly, because it's still too little; I very rarely see green cabs (but tons of Ubers).
>They're taking about limited the number and providing a minimum wage, hardly life changing stuff.
This sentence, to me, seems, how should I say it - ah, hyperbolic and disingenuous; thank you.
You and I have had vastly different experiences in cabs.
The cabs are disgusting. I can't understand the driver and he takes the long way around to squeeze more money out of me.
Huh, haven't been in one where the driver wasn't on the phone in ages. Two weeks ago, my black friend was refused pick-up. Brooklyn-based friends are regularly refused transport. At least the credit card machine broken trick stopped a few years ago.
Yet they're still common. I've reported them, and occasionally there's a fine, but at a certain point the cost of constantly reporting outweighs the benefit. It doesn't help that the TLC is a political position with the same financial conflicts of interests as the City Councilman who presented this bill [1].
[1] https://nypost.com/2018/01/27/taxi-committee-head-got-thousa...
Really, the life of nearly everyone (who's not a taxi driver, perhaps) improved a bit since Uber entered the city.
Even the fabled subway in its theoretical best has been dysfunctional in Brooklyn since the takedown of streetcars a hundred years ago (see how all the tracks are running towards Manhattan and very few across?).
And need anyone be reminded of the countless problems with the yellow cabs (good luck hailing one around Kings Highway!), green cabs (too little too late, same problems), car services (aka taxis you order by phone, which may or may not come to pick you up and may or may not go where you need to, and can tell you to, quote, f$#k off when they're late), etc?
Obligatorily, I have a lot of reservations towards whatever Uber is doing elsewhere - but the NYC situation looked unfixable before Uber came a long with a stick (or candy) large enough.