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by quinndupont
4386 days ago
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I agree. I share the author's sentiment that public transit needs to be improved. And, my view is more radical that private vehicles need to be all but abolished (except for conducting work, like carpenters, delivery people, etc.). And, Uber and Lyft are deeply problematic organizations, built on an ask-later "disruption" model that bakes in all kinds of shoddy assumptions about safety, working conditions, and so on. Yet, the author's view that Uber/Lyft = taxi is just plain false. The author asks us to "imagine" the future, and suggests that there will be no taxis. Not in my future! Insofar as there are still roads (perhaps this is 100 years in the future, not 1000 years), I would like to see no private cars (again, other than for work), but having vehicles for hire makes a lot of sense. The environmental savings of having occasional taxi use with predominant transit, bike, and pedestrian traffic would be immense. |
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/07/03/uber_and_lyft...
"If you could wipe the slate clean and make cabs and cab-like services cheaper and more broadly available in your Bostons and San Franciscos and Portlands and DCs and such, then you could imagine many more middle class people relying on Ubers and Zipcars for when they really need a car, while walking, biking, or riding transit the rest of the time. Which is to say that basically all alternatives to the dominant mode of private transportation—the one car per adult, drive yourself everwhere mode—are complements to one another. Uber makes much more sense in a city where lots of people don't own cars than in a city where everyone owns one. And not owning a car makes more sense if your city has some walkable neighborhoods and good transit lines. But conversely, the availability of private-cars-for-hire on demand makes it much more plausible to imagine not making the large up-front investment in a car that would lead you to rely on a car for your baseline transportation needs."