Every few years, a Silicon Valley gig-economy company announces a “disruptive” innovation that looks a whole lot like a bus. Uber rolled out Smart Routes a decade ago, followed a short time later by the Lyft Shuttle of its biggest competitor. Even Elon Musk gave it a try in 2018 with the “urban loop system” that never quite materialized beyond the Vegas Strip. And does anyone remember Chariot?
Now it’s Uber’s turn again. The ride-hailing company recently announced Route Share, in which shuttles will travel dozens of fixed routes, with fixed stops, picking up passengers and dropping them off at fixed times. Amid the inevitable jokes about Silicon Valley once again discovering buses are serious questions about what this will mean for struggling transit systems, air quality, and congestion.
Five years ago, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report that found ride-share services emit 69 percent mo
re planet-warming carbon dioxide and other pollutants than the trips they displace — largely because as many as 40 percent of the miles traveled by Uber and Lyft drivers are driven without a passenger, something called “deadheading.” That climate disadvantage decreases with pooled services like UberX Share — but it’s still not much greener than owning and driving a vehicle, the report noted, unless the car is electric.
Khosrowshahi insists Uber is “in competition with personal car ownership,” not public transportation. “Public transport is a teammate,” he told The Verge. But a study released last year by the University of California, Davis found that in three California cities, **over half of all ride-hailing trips didn’t replace personal cars, they replaced more sustainable modes of getting around, like walking, public transportation, and bicycling. **
And when they’ve put regular buses out of business with VC money, they’ll crank those prices through the roof. Enjoy.
If bus is run by government and for free, then it probably won’t affect anything. But then uber only operate in places where there’s no efficient public transport.
It’s super hard to resist public transit at higher prices
It’s super hard to resist public transit at higher prices
It was 65 dollarydoos for a projected 25 minute uber home from Brisbane airport on Friday night.
I took the train for 55 minutes instead. $22.30 of my train fare was for the 10 kilometre section that is privately owned by “Airtrain CityLink Limited”, the public owned section that took me the remaining 10km cost 50 cents.
Fuck the corporations that want to try to replace public transport.
What the hell is up with your trains where it takes 55 minutes to go 20kms?
Many stops and 100 yr old alignment, we don’t take public transit seriously in most of Australia and particularly in Queensland. It can take longer as there is only a service ever 30mins.
One time it was pouring rain, I had to stand on the seat at Eagle Junction Station becase the cover where you wait is like a bus shelter and it was blowing in.
It also shares the line with freight in parts, and our spangly new inland rail freight line will end in suburban Brisbane where they’ll the offload to trucks to transport it 50km to/from the sea port and it does’t extend to the next biggst freight port a few 100km up the state at Gladstone. Many of us seem to think this is a marvelous idea.
Was watching a video of the new metro line in Vietnam and sighed :(
I used to live on the Gold Coast and caught the train all the time as well as the tram on the Gold Coast (was car free living there) My mother asked one time how long it took to come up and see her, I said I don’t know, i was engrossed in my book. She refused to catch the train :)
Another balls up, instead if going to the airport on the Gold Coast they’ve decided to turn Burleigh Heads into a giant bus stop and use buses and Trams.
A decent argument was to be had over should it be extending heavy rail (my pick) l, or light rail to the Gold Coast airport, the new government chose buses …wtf ?
For now, these prices seem … “reasonable”
Looking at it objectively your options were to:
- Spend 1 hour going 20km for $22.80
- Spend 1/2 hour going 20km for $65
3x the price for 2x the speed isn’t wonderful, but it does have a niche. That is, assuming the speed is guaranteed (it’s not) and the price remains the same (it won’t).
Of course, these axes I’ve provided also ignore the important distinction that the train probably transported a bunch of other people, too, and the Uber would not have.
Also fuck that private section of the track, that’s horrible.
Also fuck that private section of the track, that’s horrible.
The rest of the train and bus network for a hundred kilometre radius is 50 cents.
Previous state government in the late 90s “did a deal” with a private corporation to construct the line out the to airport and allow control for 35 years.
10 more years of this shit and then it gets handed over to state government.
Going to be interesting for the Olympics :)
Would be nice if the article fucking included a picture of the shuttle.
It’s literally just a bus with “uber shuttle” written on it. Or an airport shuttle with the same
No, it’s literally just a bus that isn’t legally one. So they can get away without meeting basic requirements for a bus.
Well it’s going to be pretty slick when the poors riding the normal bus in the bus lane get to watch all the uber shuttle people stuck in traffic.
It’s every few weeks another scam project that “””reinvents””” the concept of buses or trains pops up. Just make good public transportation and all these slop projects will look even more foolish than they already are
But public transport is COMMUNISM. Someone needs to be profiting!
It won’t be easy to compete with public transit. You’ll need to make sure to gun it when old people are still finding a seat. Whenever someone asks for help you need to get pissy. You’ll need to look customers at stops directly in the eye and then pass them up. You’ll have to leave customers in 110F weather while you play on your phone and eat ice cream. Whenever the city alerts you to construction you have to ignore it and drive into dead end streets so you can sit there for hours until another driver can come help you reverse. You’ll need to just say “Fuck it” and not run routes when you don’t feel like it. You’ll need to lose entire buses and tell people with a straight face “guess you’ll have to wait another hour.” You’ll have to charge people out the ass and then act indignantly when they try to use your services. You’ll have to let people play gambling games or Tiktok at 300% volume. You’ll have to let kids vape and cloud up the bus.
Well actually I guess it won’t be that hard. Just hire average Americans, treat them badly, stress them up a bit, and they’ll be fucking up other people’s days in no time.
😆 these guys keep reinventing the metro, the train and the bus…wtf is wrong with them…is it a branding issue, are the busses for the “poors”? Ok, call it the new west coast high-speed dragon rail gun. And the deep tube network and the 2D space shuttle :D
