[beguiledfoil]

Even Seattle is seeing per capita transit ridership drops, odd considering expansion of rail lines.

In an urban environment the car is what turns transportation into a game of the prisoner's dilemma. From this point of view ride shares are just the latest way that America has managed to extend the game.

My desire is that we develop ways to make cities hospitable to carless families. That goal seems more remote now than it did in 2010.

[mrep]

Light rail usage has grown by leaps and bounds [0].

The reason you are seeing a per capita transit ridership decline is because Seattle is the fastest growing city in the country [1] so it's understandable why public transit rates are declining despite the huge investments.

[0]: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sou...

[1]: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-once-...

[DrScump]

  because Seattle is the fastest growing city in the country ... it's understandable why public transit rates are declining

I don't see how the latter logically resuls from the former. It seems counterintuitive.

[lsc]

>My desire is that we develop ways to make cities hospitable to carless families. That goal seems more remote now than it did in 2010.

Eh, from where I stand (in silicon valley) being carless is way more practical now than in 2010; I mean, I don't have a child, so I'm not a carless family, but I've gotten rid of my car and more than half of my 'ride sharing' trips are in the actual 'ride sharing' mode where they can pick up other people. I take fewer trips in general (I now use grocery delivery, etc..) and I'm having a hard time seeing how my use of ridesharing services instead of driving myself could increase traffic, unless ride shares spend more time driving empty than they spend driving two-up, which isn't my perception.

Ride sharing services do make public transit marginally more useful. I usually use the train to get to SF, but because they shut down so early, I usually come home on a rideshare. Before rideshare, I'd have to drive to SF both ways or get a hotel 'cause the train back would be closed by the time I wanted to come home.

[apendleton]

> I'm having a hard time seeing how my use of ridesharing services instead of driving myself could increase traffic

I don't think it does; your use is in line with the rideshare operators' claims as to why traffic should go down given their service: that it makes it easier for people to not own a car, and that consequently while some of their trips will be ride share, they might be shared, and others will be more likely to be transit.

I think what the studies are showing, though, is that not everyone's behavior is like yours. Some people (like me, for instance), didn't ever own a car, but now at least sometimes use Uber or Lyft because it's cheap and convenient when otherwise they/we would have used transit, because it used to be our only option. Apparently we're hurting more than you're helping?

[lsc]

Makes sense. I mean, I say that it was totally impractical to not have a car and live in silicon valley before the rise of the ridesharing services; but I know a guy who did it. He had a bicycle and just always lived near work and a grocery store. Come to think of it, he now uses a rideshare service a lot more often than he bummed rides before, so ridesharing has increased his automobile usage. maybe there were just a lot more people like him (and you) than I thought before, people without cars who nonetheless live in cities designed without people like them in mind.

[apendleton]

Yes, I should say: I live in Washington, DC, where not having a car is super doable. I know there are studies here that show this effect, and in NYC where car ownership was already rare it's even more pronounced. Overall I suspect that it's much stronger in these places, or in Boston (the subject of the article) than in SV; these are cities with robust transit systems designed before the advent of the personal car.

[closeparen]

As far as I can tell, the surveys are asking about specific trips. It's true that I substitute ridesharing for public transit for specific trips (therefore contributing to these results), but also true that if ridesharing were banned, I would buy a car.

[DrScump]

Own car: To work, to grocery store, to home = 3 trips.

Your method: trip to pick you up, trip to drop you at work, trip to pick you up at work, trip to take you home, trip for grocery picker to store, trip for groceries to your home... there's six trips. The traffic burden you create is increased, not lessened.

[lsc]

except that most of those trips are pooled; the grocery picker (I use amazon fresh, but have used the Safeway delivery in the past, but the same idea applies to both... the insticart model may be different, but I haven't used them.) makes a bunch of deliveries in one trip. That should be lots more efficient than me driving to the store and back for just my groceries.

Same with taking one of the pool mode rideshares to or from work; they often pick up a few other people going the same direction (which, I hope, offsets the "drive to pick me up" issue

I mean, clearly if I'm not using the pool mode, (and I often don't in the mornings, when I'm late) then yeah, I'm creating more traffic (but using less parking) because they need to drive to pick me up... but in high density areas, the pickups are pretty fast; there's usually someone fairly nearby when I want them where I am.

[DrScump]

  the grocery picker... makes a bunch of deliveries in one trip

That would mean that the customer who is the farthest along the delivery route had better not bought any perishables like ice cream or rotisserie chicken.

In actual practice, that model doesn't work for anything but dry goods... which means somebody is making an additional trip yet for temperature-critical perishables.

Webvan crashed and burned partly because they failed to think out the "edge cases".

[lsc]

>In actual practice, that model doesn't work for anything but dry goods... which means somebody is making an additional trip yet for temperature-critical perishables.

Safeway uses a refrigerated van

Amazon fresh packs produce with ice packs in a bubble wrap cooler inside a paper bag; frozen things get dry ice; I've ordered ice cream 'unattented delivery' (where they leave it outside my door) and it can go hours without harm.

(Amazon fresh uses a whole lot of packing material, which is another problem... but point being, they've solved the 'food melts on the way to your house' problem)

[guitarbill]

Seattle is especially bad in newer areas like SLU, where they could have made it pedestrian/bike friendly. Instead, they put in wide/American-style roads, car-focussed traffic lights (with short pedestrian crossing times that only trigger when you press a button, even on the busiest streets), and barely any new public transport. That, and every shitty construction site is happy to block the sidewalk, so good luck walking two blocks without having to cross over.

Anyway, transport-wise it looks and feels like any other American city, which is a shame. (I mean it's not LA-levels of bad, but that's not an achievement.)