[mgob]

The idea that uber will replace public transit in NYC is laughable. Sure, there is a group of rich yuppies (and their parents) that will gladly give uber their business, but NYC's transit system serves a much, much broader demographic of customers that cannot and/or will not to pay ten dollars or more every time they want to get around the city.

[wcummings]

I can't imagine everyone who gets on the L every morning getting to Manhattan via Uber.

[Spooky23]

Public transit is a system. Uber will never put the subway out of business, but an Uber bus or other uber services could well nip at peripheral bus lines and make them uneconomic to operate.

This ultimately results in less feeder traffic for the subway, higher subsidy requirements and is overall a bad thing for the system.

Über's valuation is all about the market clout they are building. The fantasies of robot cabs are just a veneer.

[mahyarm]

What is the unsubsidized price of an NYC transit ride? For example, the unsubsidized price of a MUNI ride in SF is $10. So there is an edge case where a subsidized uber-like service would be cheaper than MUNI for the state.

[slimslam]

Laughable? Check out the theory of disruptive innovation. From http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/01/ec...:

"The theory of disruptive innovation was invented by Clayton Christensen, of Harvard Business School, in his book “The Innovator’s Dilemma”. Mr Christensen used the term to describe innovations that create new markets by discovering new categories of customers. They do this partly by harnessing new technologies but also by developing new business models and exploiting old technologies in new ways. He contrasted disruptive innovation with sustaining innovation, which simply improves existing products. Personal computers, for example, were disruptive innovations because they created a new mass market for computers; previously, expensive mainframe computers had been sold only to big companies and research universities."

[timdierks]

Have you ever been to NYC? Do you have any idea how much extra vehicle capacity would be necessary for Uber to supplant the subways? A subway track has capacity of roughly 25000 people/hour (112 people per car, 10 cars per train, 20 trains per hour) in each direction; that's as much as 10 freeway lanes. Manhattan has 20 subway tracks across its width (5 lines, each with express and local, in 2 directions), so that's at least 200 extra lanes of cars for Uber's disruption to innovate out of nowhere.

[slimslam]

Just got back from a trip last month, amazing city and I had an absolute blast. Took subway and Uber while I was there (no medallion cabs this time, but plenty in past trips). No doubt that the world-class subway system imposes substantial competitive pressure on cars in general.

I'd arguing that Uber has the potential to pose a disruptive threat to taxis, not subways. And to lots of transportation systems in plenty of other cities around the world.

[pavel_lishin]

Okay, but Uber literally cannot put enough cars into the city to move five million people around every day, and they're sure as shit not going to dig their own tunnels.

[codyb]

They raised just North of a billion dollars [0] in September, the 2nd Ave Subway is expected to cost $4.5b [1] for 1.5m of track, three new stops, and a new entrance at an old stop. So yea, you can be sure as shit they're not building their own tunnels. At least not here.

[0] - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uber/funding-rounds [1] - http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/31/news/economy/nyc-subway-cons...

[larrys]

Obviously building a subway is not just having the money to build the subway. Anywhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway

[Spooky23]

They could easily offer premium priced bus service. You could probably really hurt MTA with 250k-500k displaced trips.

[telotortium]

Uber replacing public transit is not a case of disruption as defined by Christiansen, though, since Uber is more expensive. It's not even disrupting street hails per se. Uber is disrupting taxi dispatch, and in doing so displacing street hails by making them less relevant.

[alex_anglin]

Check out a critique of the theory of disruptive innovation: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/the-disruption-...

[slimslam]

I agree that this is something honest, intelligent people can disagree about. As such, it's unfair to characterize it as "laughable."