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. **
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 ?