Uber and Lyft, No!

A new conventional wisdom has developed in recent years: that Uber and Lyft are good additions to the way we do things. The promoters of these companies tried to call what they do "ride-sharing," but "sharing" was clearly not what it was about, so usage has settled on the more neutral term "ride-hailing." That's a good change.

But these services are not good in any sense. They are doing damage, as recently described by Angie Schmitt, writer for Streetsblog USA:

Two companies [Uber and Lyft] single-handedly wiped out transit ridership gains across the U.S. over the past 3+ years. The environmental and social effects of this are just staggering.

Almost all Uber trips replace biking, walking or transit or could just be avoided.  And we all got along fine without it like 5 years ago.

Honestly if a few more people own cars in cities that would be a small price to pay, in my opinion, for transit ridership increases in range of 12 percent nationally.

Uber loses a lot of money so it will probably go away anyway. The subsidized car ride gravy train can't go on forever.

Oh and by the way, the data doesn't even support the idea that Uber and Lyft discourage car ownership. Maybe for relatively well-to-do people. But it makes the lower income drivers MORE likely to buy cars.

Again, Uber = crap sandwich for cities.

Uber and Lyft also killed car sharing, which helped urban folks get by without cars without all the added car trips and deadheading.

Clearly, these are some thoughts from Angie rather than a concerted essay, but it got a lot across in a few words, so I wanted to put her thoughts in the filing cabinet.