Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeNigh
ya but most of these buses run nearly dead. it'd be more efficient to heavily reduce the bus routes and just give people some uber credit. then you can just keep some main line bus routes and have them very frequently run. It'd also be insanely more economical for the rider to go exactly where they are going at the exact moment they need to go there. This will make a lot more neighborhoods viable and bring them out of poverty.
Also with this setup you could have people double up, uber to the very frequently run bus stop / subway then uber from the end stop. it would probably take less extra uber drivers on the road than you'd think.
High tech point to point (congested traffic avoidance, demand / event predictions, etc), with the economical benefits to the rider, even against subsidized public transport will probably eventually win out anyways especially if the city won't properly utilize the land around the subway stops. The city might as well make it official, subsidize uber so 1 token takes you 1-2 miles then otherwise take one of the remaining running mainline bus routes or subways. If not uber then start it's own septa clone of uber.
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Your posts demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of the entire point of Public of Transit and its benefits, not to mention the business plans of Uber and Lyft.
The whole point of public transit is that it is cheaper and more efficient to move a lot of people on one bus, trolley, subway, train etc. as opposed to each of them traveling in their own vehicle. Basic economies of scale. If public transit devolves into everyone in their own individual uber car, it ceases to have a point.
Ride sharing is definitely having an effect on public transit, but in the long run that affect will be minimal. Even today, the difference in price be SEPTA fare (1.80) and an UBER or Lyft ride is significant. But what you fail to realize is that current Uber and Lyft prices are massively deflated.
At this stage in the game, the most important thing for both companies is to grab as much market share as they can. To do this they artificially lower their prices through enormous investor contributions. But this can't last forever. Despite how enormous Uber is and how successful it is perceived to be, it doesn't come close to turning a profit. Eventually that will be a problem, eventually, like every company, Uber will be expected to make more money than it spends. When that day comes Uber and Lyft will both be significantly more expensive than either is today and will fall more in line with the cost of cabs.
Cabs have been around forever and plenty of people still took the bus or the subway. At the end of the day it's the cabs that will suffer, not the buses or the subways. Uber and Lyft isn't a fundamentally new idea, it's just a better way of handling an idea that has been around for a century.
That said, SEPTA shouldn't ignore ride sharing technology. Cabs and PT have often worked hand in hand, and ride sharing's greatest inovation has been the ease of use, which could certainly benefit SEPTA. People frequently take a train into town and then a cab to their exact destination etc. If someone could open an app, input their destination and then purchase an itinerary that included a Uber ride to a train station and then the train fare itself, that would be interesting. So I agree that SEPTA should look into the best way to utilize this innovation. But removing the majority of bus routes and replacing them with Uber rides is a really terrible idea.
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