this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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In a faint way, I might almost frame this as a positive thing.
The gig workers driving Uber vehicles are generally the sort of people that absolutely need it. And, especially in a hub like New York City, $50 fares should be the sort of thing that pushes people into making use of either the bike share system or subway, rather than promoting increased traffic congestion at peak times. And yes, I am aware in many cases that results in increased trip times; which should be a motive to invest further in these systems to make them faster and more convenient.
I don't think it's just Uber - America will at some point have to wake up to the expected costs of its heavily service-focused industries, the value of an individual person's time, and of one's own personal vehicle for a trip.
Actually I live in NYC and often public transportation, especially bikes, are faster to get around Manhattan than car services. Outer boroughs need more infrastructure though. Places like Queens and Brooklyn as you get away from the city become harder to navigate without a car or car service and taxis can be rarer
As someone from rural Scotland, hearing Brooklyn described as 'getting away from the city' is unintentionally hilarious!
Ha, it is definitely a local slang. People in outer boroughs will say "I'm going into the city for the day" if they are going into Manhattan, even though all the boroughs are "New York City" and mostly high density
I miss going out to that far little hamlet of Whitestone Queens and getting a sandwich at Cherry valley.
As someone from Paris, I also find it quite bizarre.
I visited NYC this spring with my wife and we took precisely one Uber ride, from the airport to our hotel. It was $80. We then proceeded to spend less than $80 total the rest of our several day trip crisscrossing all over Manhattan on public transit, including back to the airport to leave. Public transit was faster, cheaper, and easier than the Uber, for sure.
Uber jacks up prices in "airport zones" to an insane degree. For example an Uber from Seattle to Sea-Tac is about $75. I rented a car in Portland, drove up to Seattle for the weekend, and drove myself to the airport for $60. An Amtrak ticket from Portland- Seattle is around $40 usually.
This doesn't work everywhere, but when I'm flying back into PDX (the best airport) I'll take the light rail public transit two stops and get a ride share from the Target parking lot. Ends up being about half the price once you're far enough away.
Last time I took a taxi from an airport was when I was on crutches recovering from a leg injury, and even then I thought twice about it.
“From airport to city center” is such a common trip that it’s often going to be the best arrangement of transit lines the city has, even if other paths are less optimal.
Example: Las Vegas
Monorail on the strip, Uber to get there
Corruption? I don’t follow. Why would anyone want to make it harder to access a place of business? Where I live, businesses often make shuttle services directly to their location from common departure points to ensure people are deeply incentivized to come in and waste their money. The specific example I’m thinking of is a casino.
Profit scheming with taxi drivers directly off of someone’s first expenditure in the city kind of sounds like poor planning even for the greediest of schemers.
Doesnt sound like you know the outer boroughs that well if you think we need cars in Broolyn. Brooklyn as a whole is very well covered with subway and bus lines. You simply don't need a car in Broolyn. Queens on the other hand is different. Although majority of the population in Queens has access to subway, a good chunk of the territory has limited access to subway lines. They can rely on public bus but that's not always convenient. For those parts of Queens, I agree, you MIGHT need a car. Even staten island has its own subway line and busses. Most people on Staten Island has a car because it's just more convenient to get out of the island.
You don't need a car in Brooklyn, but I am not wrong with what I said.
As you leave Manhattan the farther away you get the more you will see cars and the less you will see public transportation options. This is an inarguable fact. From the US Census, Staten Island has the highest amount of car ownership, only 16% of households in Staten Island did not have a car in 2021. 37% of Queens households did not have cars, 55% of Brooklyn did not have cars, 59% of the Bronx did not have cars. Maybe I should have said Staten Island and Queens instead of Brooklyn, but almost half the households have cars in Brooklyn.
In Manhattan, 76% of households do not have cars.
Many parts of Queens and Brooklyn are considered "underserved" by public transportation by the city and state governments and it is a very known equity issue in the city. Improvements have been made over the recent years, hopefully we will see the new Interborough Express completed.
Just how much is a banana, anyway?
The reason fatrs are up is because instead of subsidising the trips (i.e. anti-competitive behaviour), now UBER is taking a massive cut to make back all the VC money.
The fares should have never been dirt cheap to begin with.