It's not a bus. It's an ordinary Uber driver with their own car, with multiple customers and a different, confusing pricing scheme. It's not Uber buying and operating their own fleet of branded vans, like SuperShuttle.[1]
How does the driver get paid? If it's a regular route, with regular times, it ought to be a regular job paid by the hour, regardless of whether the vehicle is empty or full. But that wouldn't be Uber's gig slavery system.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetwburns/2020/12/30/rip-supe...
Ideally these routes wouldn’t need a driver for long. Waymo could offer this, for example. They don’t because they need not compete on price.
More practically: in many states where this has been announced, Uber drivers get a minimum wage.
In response to those laws, Uber has taken even more money from drivers.
The last number I heard was that drivers only get 53% of cash per ride.
Don’t misunderstand me, Uber is a cancer that needs to die and I am about to be at the point where I make a platform that will do just that.
My point is that those laws aren’t helping. More needs to be done.
Get the Transit app folks [1], great GPS tracking of the right bus for you, advocate for an efficient well-funded bus/train service in your city and a municipal DOT that doesn't have to host 5 community meetings for every small change in routes.
P.S: I'm an Uber One member, it certainly has its place in a car-less life. But this ain't it Chief.
National policy needs to do much better on an array of issues that contribute to 'poor public transit experiences'.
Issues like "mentally unbalanced passengers", inebriated, smelly (includes smokers!), overcrowded busses. I know they are rigged for standing room, but that should NOT be the expectation for a ride longer than 10 min outside of extreme crunches like sports games overflow!
Aside from running the correct busses to the places people need to get from and to:
I want the modern version of Star Trek utopia.
* American Dream (home ownership, vaguely near the jobs / family) within reach.
* Jobs that are a good match for worker's skills / family time needs.
* 'Child Care Assistance' - more than just schools, facilities that can help take care of children while parents work, are unexpectedly sick, etc. Daycare+++
* 'Employment Assistance' - connect workers with the best jobs that want them
* Diversion programs to help people with 'issues' that prevent access to jobs overcome VARIOUS issues such as: lack of stable food, lack of stable housing, supplies to keep clean and healthy.
* Recognizing people that aren't helped by current medical technology and social programs and assisting them with possibly contributing in unconventional ways, or simply being taken care of properly if they are cursed very beyond medical help.
Every last bit of that is more than just fixing a transit system.
Society as a whole system needs an approach that remedies and modifies the entire problem from all angles. Including the ones that change where people need to go for jobs and housing.
Everyone wants this. No one knows how to make it happen. Heck, even the TV writers stopped believing in it and they still had access to replicators and transporters for their storytelling.
Compared to Medieval times we might as well be living in a Star Trek "utopia" already. Look at all the technology in a modern apartment: modern insulation and soundproof construction, modern windows, electric lighting, indoor plumbing, stove, air fryer, microwave, laundry pair, computers, phones, TVs, the internet (with unlimited media to consume)...
What we don't have: equality. Medieval peasants can definitely relate to that. Our lords have different titles than theirs and ours have the police instead of their own soldiers. Otherwise, not much has changed. Turns out that human nature doesn't disappear just because we have more resources. People aren't going to give away their own wealth just to lift up their neighbours.
"" * 'Employment Assistance' - connect workers with the best jobs that want them ""
^^^ Would someone like to end welfare ('unemployement insurance')? How about just connecting people with useful work! The New Deal was one of the best social welfare programs the US _ever_ did and politicians are allergic to it.
Picard came from old money.
[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/bart-fare-gates-...
Every other service seems to manage this problem and operate in diverse communities, regardless of city, state, or national governance. It's specifically city services that fail in this regard, which is incredible, because they're also the only organization which could do something about it. Walmart has no authority to regulate anything, yet they bring low prices to everyone within a convenient distance of almost all Americans.
Seems like something that whatever transit authority can use as well. Uber just has a better PR department with much larger budgets than metro agencies, so to younger people this probably seems like an original idea.???
Our transit authority hasn't managed to spring this up for us and I'm not confident they have the capability.
FWIW I'm not "younger people". I'm just someone who's been using mass transit to commute for the past 15 years and desperately wants something better. I don't care if it is an original idea. I just want it to exist.
* There is an accountability component where if you behave badly you will be banned from the shuttle service
https://smdp.com/news/newsom-signs-bill-allowing-big-blue-bu...
> Current law allows organizations like the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) and the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) to issue prohibition orders. BART is the only such agency that has actually issued prohibitions in California, giving out 1,118 such orders from 2019-2022. About 30% of orders issued by BART in 2022 were for battery or threats against riders.
Curious if these bans are actually effective.
They probably have all the tech to make them effective but don't want to turn it on for "petty" stuff like this because they don't want normal non-battery inclined customers and the general public to be aware of how surveilled they are on public transit.
The vast majority don't.
The reason transit in this city sucks (still head and shoulders above the vast majority of the US) isn't because there's 12,000+ homeless people living in it[1], it's because the buses don't run frequently enough and because all the fucking single-occupant car traffic turns what would be a 20 minute bus ride into a 40 minute slog, and because you'd be insane to bike for your last-mile.
---
[1] Increasing every year, and under the current mayor's tenure, we lost a net of 200 shelter beds.
Yup. The subway works because one doesn’t bother checking timetables. You show up at the station and expect a car. I could totally see interspersing shuttles between buses to increase frequency leading to an uptick in bus use.
There are homeless people literally smoking fentanyl on Seattle buses (and the light rail). Does that qualify?
And I'm not even talking about mere antisocial behavior like blasting shitty music from Bluetooth speakers or screaming obscenities at people.
The response of the city was that it's perfectly fine, and that the research shows that it's safe. I kid you not: https://komonews.com/news/local/drug-addiction-opioid-king-c...
I'm no longer using buses in Seattle, partially because of this.
It's not unusual to never have problems with the homeless (especially if you rarely come into contact with them), but your personal experience here is worthless. Especially irrelevant is your experience of people in SUVs with phones. Not knowing if the people around you are homeless is not a sign of open-mindedness, it's a sign of a possible lack of sensitivity.
People who are homeless are going through issues, and are largely being shunned and ignored by the public. They often became homeless because they were impossible to live with. The ones most likely to be around you, in your space, and that you're likely to clock as homeless are the most aggressive, because homeless people with all their marbles generally make an effort not to seem homeless and don't ask strangers for anything. They die quietly, off alone in a corner, unless someone saves them first.
And rationally, which I discovered myself as a homeless teenager 30-some years ago: you'll never meet, or help, the homeless people who aren't pestering you and bothering you and invading your space.
So when visible homeless people are being talked about, there's no reason to completely avoid drawing any conclusions or making any generalizations about them. I feel it's a clumsy attempt to avoid judging people based on their wealth, but there are many other homeless people in the same position as visibly homeless people, but who are not visible. Pretending that the visually homeless are completely indistinguishable from other groups of people is just a form of active neglect. Pretending not to see them does not make them disappear.
Why is yours any more worthwhile? When in cities, I regularly interact with people who you might assume are homeless. I think my direct experience is definitely valuable to the conversation - unless it disagrees with you, of course.
> People who are homeless ...
It's your narrative that is worthless.
> They often became homeless because they were impossible to live with.
Is there some data for that? The leading cause of homelessness, last I saw, was losing your home to medical bills. Anyway, I'm not living with them, just talking at the bus stop or outside the store.
> homeless people with all their marbles generally make an effort not to seem homeless and don't ask strangers for anything
That is certainly untrue. The confused and mentally ill people generally are in their own worlds. The people talking are fine. Maybe if you act with hostility or defensiveness, you get a different response, but I guarantee if you just stop worrying about it and behave decently as you (hopefully) do with anyone else, it's really no issue at all.
> you'll never meet, or help, the homeless people who aren't pestering you and bothering you and invading your space.
You're just making things up, including that homeless people are pestering and bothering me, etc. IME, which is considerable, people who seem homeless are no different than other people, except they are vulnerable and don't dress as well.
> there's no reason to completely avoid drawing any conclusions or making any generalizations about them
There are plenty of very strong reasons to avoid conclusions about people you don't know - you don't know what you are talking about and will harm the people. Generalizations do the same thing, denying people their basic freedom to be themselves and be responsible for their own consequences, not someone else you met a year ago.
It's also a reason my direct experience is valuable, and your generalizations are worthless. Any serious pursuit of knowledge - science, courts, etc. - utterly reject generalizations and require direct observation.
> I feel it's a clumsy attempt to avoid judging people based on their wealth
That part is intentional and not clumsy at all. It avoids dangerous errors and protects vulnerable people. Looking at behavior today, who are the crazy ones - the billionaires or those without homes?
I guess I find it hard to believe that you never encounter panhandlers or mentally ill homeless people acting erratically, aggressively, or both. I don’t really understand what you mean by “people who seem homeless are no different than other people, except they are vulnerable and don't dress as well”. Most homeless people dress as well as any other lower income housed person, unless you just mean anyone who looks kind of poor. The people sleeping on park benches in filthy clothes are rarely “no different” than other people, because again, they are almost all dealing with serious physical, mental, or substance abuse problems.
[1] https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/precision-pe...
[2] “Participants averaged five hospitalizations, 20 visits to the emergency department, five to psychiatric emergency services, and three to jail in the two years prior to being enrolled. While these are the homeless people who are the most visible to the general public, and to many health care workers, researchers said they represent only about 5 percent to 10 percent of chronically homeless individuals.” https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/09/418546/study-finds-permane...
> I think what they are talking when they say visible homeless is people that are “chronically homeless” which is people “experiencing homelessness for longer than a year with a serious mental illness, substance use disorder, or physical disability”.
I think it's a big leap to try to read their mind, or assume they had some scientific definition in mind.
> I guess I find it hard to believe that you never encounter panhandlers or mentally ill homeless people acting erratically, aggressively, or both.
I've encountered people asking for money; my point is there is no problem. They are just normal people - they might as well be asking for directions or the time. Most are even more passive: They sit on the ground - as if they need to demean themselves to assuage the fears of housed people - and quietly ask while people walk by. A few days ago someone walked up to me and said, 'I'm going to tell you straight - I need $40 for food and shelter tonight'. Again, he might as well be someone behind a deli counter trying to sell me something. And when I pulled out a few dollars and a ten dollar bill came with it, they asked for it directly. I said no, but again it was no problem at all; I never felt threatened. I think people bring their fear with them; every person generally acts like you treat them.
I see people acting aggressively and erratically, but it's to the air. I just give them a wide berth; they never bother me. I wish I could help them but I don't know how.
> unless you just mean anyone who looks kind of poor
That was the point I was making to the other commenter - I don't actually know who is homeless. I don't usually ask people for their housing information.
> The people sleeping on park benches in filthy clothes are rarely “no different” than other people, because again, they are almost all dealing with serious physical, mental, or substance abuse problems.
According to who? Also, plenty of other people deal with those things, but they have resources to support them, including family/friends and money. Lots of high-profile people have those problems.
Some billionaires are very publicly acting out on serious mental health issues.
> a small percent of homeless people do harass people for money, or scream nonsense, and end up arrested or in the hospital far more than the vast majority of other homeless people.
A small percentage of everyone is antisocial or have crippling mental illness. As I said, I've never been threatened by an apparently unhoused person, but I've been threatened by other people.
Once I parked in a spot that apparently someone else wanted. They got out of their car, flashed a badge (I think it was a fire department badge) and threatened to break my windows. Drunk people in bars can be dangerous. Law enforcement can. Another customer once hit me in nice bank office. I've seen threatening people at some sporting events. I'm pretty sure they all had homes.
Where? I don't see it in major cities I am in, and I take public transit regularly.
In New York or San Francisco?
I'd pay extra to not have to be afraid I won't make it home to my kids.
* I've been punched twice. Not hard, but an angry person hitting me in the shoulder and the back because they were drunk or high and I guess I looked at them wrong
* I've been shoved out of the way hard probably five separate times?
* People openly smoking crack, smoking weed.
* People high out of their mind. Just on monday some guy had his pants around his ankles high out of his mind swirling around and rubbing up against riders.
* A man shouting and punching the top of the train saying he's going to kill himself
* A man screaming profanities, calling women the c-word, sluts, saying he's going to rape people
* Multiple fights
* Someone getting their phone swiped out of their hand and punched in the head when he tried to chase them.
* I watched someone eat most of a burrito, stand up, turn it upside down and squish it onto the seat.
* I saw a man with a concealed gun tucked behind him into his belt walking around the station looking for someone.
These are definitely some of the worst events, but something on the spectrum of "bad" happens weekly.
All you need is a phone number and a credit/debit card.
Uber does not veto passengers at all.
Friends / people I've seen using uber have "home" and "work" saved. And they have trip history. They likely already have a very good sense of this stuff.
There's an app for that, it's called Google Maps.
> Dedicated stops don't have to be approved and built. Just pull over on a major street.
I say some cities used to have them, not because they went out of fashion (though sometimes they did), but because a Marshrutka is a specific type of passenger van, usually an old one not subject to modern safety requirements for economic reasons. Many of the companies operating them have modernized, and they have low-floor accessible shuttle-style buses with air bags and seat belts, including for disabled people, but they still go their route, can be waved down to pick you up, and drop you off when you ask.
There has never been a similar mode of transport in any Western country I've lived in, though I have heard rumors, and apparently, some US states have/had jitneys. Norway may also have something similar in the western tourist towns, because I found buses drop you off where you ask. But perhaps it's a courtesy. UK companies have made some similar efforts[1]. Generally, such mini-buses are not needed in urban areas. But there are areas where either super quick travel from point A to point B is essential and walking to and from a bus stop is unacceptable (airport-rail links and similar), or where there isn't enough demand to run a proper bus service. These could benefit from a taxi bus approach.
Anyway, Marshrutki and their contemporary counterparts address all the issues you've listed.
P.S. The solution for scheduling is the free market. Operators compete for customers, flooding the streets[2] during relevant hours. There may be 20 uncoordinated mini-bus operators, but for the user, the overall experience is that they usually have to wait only a few minutes along the route before waving one down.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-44614616
[2] https://www.alamy.com/fixed-route-taxi-minibuses-move-along-...
But if a city really invest into public transportation, there's no need in the small routed hailing vans, because they have lower throughput. E.g. in Bogota a good bus system (they couldn't build a subway because soils) performed better than Busetas (aka Marshrutki). They did dedicated bus lanes for high-speed large buses. Although compared to Bogota, typical US/EU city has way lower ridership I think.
I think the circumstance that they pop up "when public transport sucks" is seen more in the US. Jitneys are considered "paratransit" there — fundamentally a substitute. In many Eastern European countries, a common issue was that marshrutki cannibalized existing public transport options by duplicating routes (more on that in the Wiki article I linked in my parent comment). They compete more as equals, not fill an under-served market niche.
By the way, a marshrutka serves one of the last NATO-Russia routes[0]; a very meaningful route in both public transit and diplomatic, cultural contexts. I will concede to you that this is a case of "public transport sucks" to the highest degree, on a global scale.
These route taxis are very versatile, and the diversity of how they are used and their relationships with public transport is huge.
They coexist with an extensive mass transit system in Bangkok. In smaller cities and tourist towns it’s the only thing going besides taxis and such.
My understanding was that jitneys only served immigrant communities because they're illegal.
Uber/Lyft can already make pretty accurate educated guesses on all of this (in aggregate) with their existing data.
The point to point for number of dollars information that Uber may have is the critical part. Municipal transit organizations are information poor since even if they could use municipal datasets of bluetooth sniffers etc to determine point to point commonalities, they still don't have pricing data to construct a meaningful offering.
The typical bus already runs at loss of 4 dollars for every 1 dollar it takes in in fare.
So you're not going to end up with a much cheaper ride than if you just took a private taxi, but you're going to have a significantly longer trip.
Almost no one is interested in that.
I hope to be proven wrong.
Sorry, but, what the actual fuck? If your bus stop requires parking so you can drive an hour in your car to be driven another hour in a bus, then why bother building a bus stop?
Also, we're talking about buses, not trains. Unlike a train, you can take a (small) bus into a lower-density area, as it is the case in some cities.
Each city council is able to sabotage bus services through their area, and they do. It inflates property values and keeps “undesirable” people out.
This bypasses the intentional sabotage that’s been applied to bay area public transit. Of course, it’ll still be much, much worse than a competent bus system. I wonder how well it will work in other countries.
> Why will it be much much worse?
Off the top of my head:
- Efficiency-wise, it's worse to have two things that do the same thing than to have the one thing work as it's supposed to (keyword being 'supposed to').
- (Overlaps with point 1) Market inefficiencies by having marketing & branding overheads for each service, when a single solution would not need to have it.
------
Whilst I agree it would be worse than having an actual competently-run bus system, having no competition causes perverse incentives (both external & internal) to leech into the system & make it incrementally worse.
At the end of the day, it's a sign that's necessary to point out existing failures. Banning this specific sign from existing only allows the failures to worsen, regardless of the intentions behind banning/regulating it out of existence.
I lived there for a long while and I'm genuinely wondering what this is? I feel like there were at least some unintentional secondary effects of certain policies but can't think of anything recent and intentional.
I still find my personal transport more convenient and the fastest to do my 40 mile commute every day [east bay to south bay]
The City shut it down.
[0]: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/liberty-village-shutt...