[TakeFive]

Why do streetsbloggers hate ride-share, poor people and women?
Part One

Mostly for misguided reasons; they're paranoid that ride-share is a direct threat to transit. Only partially true they miss the more important points. Transit is what is killing transit. Starting with the millennial's the rest of us have moved on to the next century while transit is still stuck in the last century.

What about all that congestion caused by ride-share? For example, what about the new study that states over half the increased congestion in San Francisco is directly attributable to ride-share.

When analyzing studies with a suspected political agenda it's important to look for what they overlook or how they skew the data. There's several points to be made with that study including their primary focus on VMT or vehicle miles traveled. They always fail to mention that ride-share adds about 1-2 percent to the miles driven although it may be a bit more in San Francisco.

2010 used as the Base Year
Unemployment is always a lagging indicator and 2010 was likely the bottom for employment following the Great Recession. I recall reading that VMT was down quite a bit and that transit ridership was up. Primarily it was that with fewer people employed there was less need to drive.

Principle of Substitution
I would contend (and it's my experience) that most people (but not all) use ride-share as apposed to the hassle of driving and parking their own car. This would mean that there aren't more cars on the road in theses cases. That study doesn't even consider this point.

Congestion is caused mostly by growth in car ownership
They totally ignore this real world reality except for using employment growth within San Francisco but NOT the greater metro area to look at per capita data. They don't correlate increased congestion with the economy or increase in car ownership. Increasing car sales especially starting in 2014 is a much bigger factor.

I'd like to see 2014 used as a base year and increases in auto ownership for any study that wants to learn the Real Reasons for increasing congestion.