Lyft and Uber are increasing traffic by 180 percent, claims an arithmetically challenged study of ride hailing. As a result, reports NPR, ride hailing is adding to congestion. Moreover, says the study itself, ride hailing is inequitable and less sustainable than transit.
The study does have some useful numbers, but it was written by Bruce Schaller, a long-time transit advocate who obviously has a bone to pick about ride hailing. In reality, the study offers no real evidence that ride hailing is increasing congestion or that it is otherwise a serious problem for anyone but taxi companies and transit agencies. For them, it is a serious problem.
Schaller calculates that ride hailing grew from 1.90 billion trips in 2016 to 2.61 billion in 2017, for a net growth of 710 million rides. In those same years, transit ridership declined by 255 million rides. So, if only 36 percent of ride-hailing users would otherwise have taken transit, then ride hailing is responsible for 100 percent of the decline in transit ridership.
On the other hand, Schaller doesn’t think that many users would have otherwise driven their car. Ride hailing “put 2.8 new vehicle miles on the road for each mile of personal driving removed, for an overall 180 percent increase in driving on city streets.” That’s the source of the 180 percent traffic increase, but it would be a 180 percent increase in driving only if ride hailing replaced all personal driving. Since it replaces only a tiny share of personal driving, the percentage increase is tiny.
In fact, Schaller specifically estimates that ride hailing “added 5.7 billion miles of driving annually in the Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington DC metro areas.” This is another case where a big number sounds scary but is not. According to table HM-72 of the 2016 Highway Statistics, people drove 492 billion vehicle miles in those metro areas in 2016. Adding 5.7 billion miles, then, is slightly more than 1 percent. Nor is it clear that even most of that 1 percent adds to congestion. A disproportionate share of ride hailing takes place in the evenings or mid-day, not during rush hour.
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Schaller’s claim that ride hailing is inequitable is based on data indicating that ride hailing is “highest among . . . residents living in households with incomes of $50,000 or more.” But, as the Antiplanner showed last month, that’s also true for urban transit. The difference is that taxpayers are subsidizing high-income people to ride transit, but they aren’t subsidizing high-income people to use Uber and Lyft. Those subsidies are the real inequity.
Historically, it was cars that democratized mobility, not mass transit. Before the automobile, transit was used mainly by the elites as it was too expensive for the working class. When ride hailing using autonomous vehicles becomes a reality, it will be much less expensive and thus used by people with a broader range of incomes than either ride hailing or transit today.
Schaller, however, warns that all of these trends will get worse (from his point of view) when autonomous ride hailing becomes prominent. Instead, he advocates “public policy intervention” to “steer AV development away from this future” and towards “frequent, reliable and comfortable high-capacity transit service.” This is 1920s thinking that ignores the likelihood that autonomous vehicles will reduce, not increase, congestion, both by increasing road capacities and by finding the least-congested routes.
Ride hailing is impacting urban transportation and autonomous ride hailing will be the most important force reshaping our cities since Henry Ford’s mass-produced automobiles. In the face of this rapid technological change, the last thing we need is to have advocates of nineteenth-century transportation in charge of setting future transportation policies.
From his bio:
Non-profit and private sector clients include the Regional Plan Association, the Design Trust for Public Space, transit advocacy groups, international unions and major banks. He has also worked for MTA New York City Transit, the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission and several other New York City agencies.
Transit and taxi companies along with their associated unions pay his way so it’s likely that he’s going to bias his reports in their favor. From his presentation called The Road to Shared Autonomous Vehicles which includes charts showing declines in subway ridership:
[TNCs =Uber, Lyft and other Transportation Network Companies]
?Subway ridership declining despite economic growth
?Many reasons for this, from crowding that is product of years of ridership growth to need for capital renovations.
?TNCs provide option for subway riders fed up with crowded, slow and unreliable service.
?I estimate about 1/3 of gap on this chart is related to people switching to TNCs
To get that 1/3 decline back, he advocates forcing sharing on TNCs and:
Policies can include limiting parking supply and limiting or banning low-occupancy vehicles from certain streets (possibly based on time of day)…An essential additional element is providing frequent and reliable bus and rail service. Less traffic will make bus service more attractive and build ridership, creating a virtuous cycle of faster trips, shorter waits, easier transfers and thus broader accessibility.
So it comes down to shoveling more money at mass collective transit and outlawing private, non-shared ride hailing services, autonomous or not. That makes transit agencies and their employee unions happy.
This is the critical point, and the one that Schaller does not address. Ride-hailing services are seldom used during peak periods, when networks are most likely to be congested. In fact, during off-peak periods, most urban road networks have spare capacity that could easily absorb a 1% increase in traffic volumes.
What matters for congestion is how these trips are distributed:
1) Across the network
2) Across time (especially outside of traditional peak periods)
3) Among modes. Particularly which modes these services are a substitute for
From the perspective of congestion, a ride-hailing service substituting for a single-occupant driver is pretty much a wash. The only possible residual effect is on parking supply. If the trip takes place during uncongested periods, then it matters little which mode the ride-hailing service is substituting for.
The fact of the matter is that even if the supply of rail-hailing vehicles did increase congestion levels slightly, it might still be socially desirable for people to use them. Even in large cities like NYC which have well-developed transit networks, transit trips still consume a lot of time. If passengers can reduce the private time cost of their trip by switching modes, then it probably makes sense for them to do so. Add in the fact that most large cities incomes are proportionally higher, meaning that the time cost of a trip is (accordingly) higher as well, and hence the opportunity cost of using a slower mode. That conclusion is also supported by the reported data in Schaller’s paper on the income characteristics of rail-hailing passengers.
And finally, if congestion is occurring, it is important to remind policy makers that in a congested network all of the users of the network are imposing external costs, so the correct response is to price access to congestion locations and facilities to mitigate that problem. Charging taxes or fees on only one group of users is both inefficient and inequitable.
Poor people buy cars, and give rides to other poor people.
Informal carpooling or as we call it “Bum rides” was decimating transit long before Uber and Lyft existed. I’m not poor but I used and gave Bum rides all the time.
So their attempt to get high income people out of their cars; they’ve shifted transits focus away from what used to be their primary customer base. The chief demographic transit was originally meant for, the Poor, the Handicapped, the elderly and children. Paratransit services have largely outmoded collectivist transit approaches of taking care of the elderly and handicapped by offering essentially door to door service. Vans can carry children to their afterschool destinations and back or the soccer moms with their 7-8 passenger SUV’s. And programs aimed at helping poor people buy a car are statistically shown to better alleviate poverty, because once you have an automobile you’re no longer locally geographically bound to a career and are free to pursue work or even a new residence elsewhere….which is what cities fear most; people fleeing. The automotive revolution and the building of the interstate allowed people to leave the geographic constraints of cities for better places. Transit is merely the methodology of urban planners to re-acclimate people back to urban appreciation. THEY FAILED.
So their next option is to hire more planners and this time around, use the power of the law to craft the next “Livability” standards. Attracting high income earners is meaningless, for one even if they rode transit there aren’t enough of them to patron the system in a financially sound manner. Two, unlike airlines with 1st, business, coach seating; a taxpayer public subsidized organization cant discriminate the fares be higher just because that person just so happens to be a wealthier person unless they pay for premium services that they offer or something like that. Third, Attracting high income people means building transit in high income areas which still costs taxpayers Billions but serves very little use because again……….THERE AREN’T THAT MANY OF THEM. Once again they overlook in the areas that need transit the most….which again overlooks the individuals mentioned above. This only alienates the people further, makes the transit agency look more incompetent,Wastes taxpayer money, further fuels political regimes to formulate even greater ways to milk the taxpayer for expanding the program to compensate for their own failures; the result of the very policies they implemented as the solution for the problem they already were facing.
Only government can somehow manage to take a problem, promise to fix it, create a program aimed at helping to alleviate the problem, exacerbate the problem, promise to fix the exacerbated problem while ignoring the fact they worsened it; expand the program to compensate for their own incompetence trying to fix the problem in the first place that really wasn’t that big a problem but thanks to them is an even bigger problem. Then create new problems when the entitled complain about the problem…and even if they fix the problem they retain the program that’s no longer necessary cause the problem went away and that creates a problem.
Another major benefit of ride-hailing that should be emphasized.
It reduces the need for parking spaces and parking lots, both of which use up valuable urban land space. As many of the people using ride-hailing would otherwise be driving their own cars, more parking spaces are available for others and the need to tear down buildings to build unsightly garages or parking lots would be nullified.
Many businesses have already incorporated ride-hailing into their business models. For example, I went to a brewery located in a city. It had a parking lot with less than 10 spaces. They told me they expected about 300 people that night for a party. I asked the bartender where they would all park; her answer: “Uber.” Problem solved. Many other businesses are setting up in cities knowing they will not have to worry about providing parking for customers. A benefit for all.
Of course, the parking lot industry will now join the attack.
Thomas Sowell stated, “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” Since HSR is being pushed by politicians on the taxpayers dime they’ll be long out of office by the time the consequences of this boondoggle manifest themselves. Government is seldom chastised for poor decision making, let alone held accountable.
There’s no long term consequences to a highway, a six lane highway can be turned into a four lane highway easily by ripping up the asphalt and planting trees again. Once you build rail and it’s accompanying infrastructure you’re stuck with it forever unless you let it rust into oblivion.
Like MJ points out, the question isn’t how much but WHEN are the trips being made THEN how many.
Schaller also avoids the key question of when during the day – at what time on the clock – are trips occuring, he avoids that in order to manufacture other claims.
My favorite is “An essential additional element is providing frequent and
reliable bus and rail service. Less traffic will make bus
service more attractive and build ridership, creating a
virtuous cycle of faster trips, shorter waits, easier transfers
and thus broader accessibility.”
What? Everyone has been out and about and seen nearly empty roads with some transit bus, full size, chugging along with all of 2 people on it + a driver. Funny how that lack of traffic doesn’t actually lead to ridership building on those empty buses over the years. Sure, it may work on some stretches of select corridors. But at the end of the day, standing around waiting for the bus will always _feel_ slower than driving.
Schaller clearly avoids the time of day question so he can build a big ol’ castle made of sand. He builds his sand castle and stands in the high tower, trumpeting how if government implements _his_ plans and only his plans will things get better. If government doesn’t’, well, they’re going to be overwhelmed and drained. Yep, he literally claims that.
http://www.schallerconsult.com/rideservices/automobility.pdf
”
CONCLUSION
New mobility has much to offer cities: convenience, flexibility,
on-demand technology and a nimbleness to search for the fit
between new services and inadequately served markets. But
development of ride services must take place within a public
policy framework that harnesses their potential to serve the
goals of mobility, safety, equity and environmental
sustainability. Without public policy intervention, big
American cities are likely to be overwhelmed with more
automobility, more traffic and less transit and drained of the
density and diversity which are indispensable to their economic
and social well-being.
“
This is the kind of claim I’d expect in some high school civics class. It’s a clearly faslafiable. Any schmoe like myself can google a few things and realize that a place like downtown Minneapolis has 65,000 to 75,000 parking spots. Downtown Minneapolis is a vibrant place not because “ONLY [emphasis mine] high-capacity vehicles create effencies in the use of street space”.
Downtown’s like Minneapolis show you can have a butt ton of space occupied and used for automobiles and still have a vibrant downtown. In fact, for post WWII America that happens because of the automobile, not in spite of. Downtown Minneapolis would not be vibrant without being served by multiple high capacity freeways, having twice as many parking spots as residents, etc. Transit accounts for less than 10% for residents of the city. It’s even lower for the metro region. And to be vibrant downtown Minneapolis has to pull in people from across the region.
”
Only high-capacity vehicles create efficiencies in the use of street space that make possible dense urban centers with lively, walkable downtowns; a rich
selection of jobs, restaurants, entertainment and other activities; diversity of population; and intensive and inventive face-to-face interactions that make cities fertile
grounds for business and artistic innovation. If everyone drives their own car to the city center, the need for parking to accommodate the cars would make impossible this density of jobs and activities.
” ~Schaller
BTW – Note that there’s a contradiction occuring in urbanista circles. As a whole they tend to embrace and champion the idea that there is far, far TOO MANY roads. They run around yelling STROAD! STROAD! and declaring that there’s not enough traffic to justify those streets, it’s time to trim them down. We need a road diet.
And increasingly, often times the same people are latching onto the idea that ridesharing / uber / lyft is a problem because it’s creating too much traffic and too much congestion. Wait…. what? We don’t have enough space on the roads as its and you want to remove it? Wait…. WHAT??!?!????
And somehow that garbled mish-mash of misthinking becomes the reason, so they say, that more than ever we the public need to spend $20 on a transit trip that would’ve cosft $12 if the person just grabbed a Lyft. Somehow all those 80 person capacity buses running around with 2, 5, 13 passengers are __EFFECIENT__. That’s right, somehow a system that costs 40%, 80%, 115% more per trip is more efficient.
They keep using words that don’t mean what they think they mean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk
Oh, and before we forget about this topic:
New evidence suggests that the introduction of ride-hailing services has made roads more, not less, safe.