Uber’s Plans Include Attacking Public Transit

[M II A II R II K]

Uber’s Plans Include Attacking Public Transit


MAY 6, 2019

BY TIM REDMOND

Read More: https://48hills.org/2019/05/ubers-pl...ublic-transit/

Boring Details: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/d...tm#toc647752_2

Uber has acknowledged in a federal filing that its long-term goal is to privatize public transportation around the world. In a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the ride-hail company reports that it seeks, as part of its growth strategy, not just to get people out of private cars but to get them off public buses and trains.

- Those public services would be replaced by Uber Buses, now being tested in Cairo. That stunning revelation is deep in a 300-page document called an S1, which the SEC requires for any company planning an initial public offering. Uber’s IPO is expected this Friday. The document was filed April 11. I don’t think any of the major news media covering the IPO have noticed or reported on this part of Uber’s plans. --- Uber admits in the document that it might never make a profit; that it continues to lose billions by underpricing its product (rides) to gain customer loyalty and market share; and that its entire business model could collapse if regulators or the courts decide that its drivers are employees, not private contractors. So how is this company going to be attractive to investors? By about page 160, the company starts talking about its “Total Addressable Market.”

- "Our Personal Mobility TAM consists of 11.9 trillion miles per year, representing an estimated $5.7 trillion market opportunity in 175 countries. We include all passenger vehicle miles and all public transportation miles in all countries globally in our TAM, including those we have yet to enter, except for the 20 countries that we address through our ownership positions in our minority-owned affiliates, over which we have no operational control other than approval rights with respect to certain material corporate actions. --- These 20 countries represent an additional estimated market opportunity of approximately $0.5 trillion. We include trips greater than 30 miles in our TAM because riders already take trips over 30 miles on our platform, and over time riders may increasingly use our Ridesharing products for trips greater than 30 miles as the cost of such trips, and ultimately the degree to which individuals acquire their own automobiles, declines."

- Uber plans to grow its business by replacing public transportation. The company, as far as I know, has never admitted that before. Its PR materials always talk about the environmental benefits of getting people out of private cars. The idea of decimating public transportation in the name of profits for a global corporation is pretty scary. --- We have seen this before, starting in the 1930s, when a handful of big companies including General Motors and Standard Oil bought up urban rail lines around the country to force people to buy private cars. This is now considered a dark moment in environmental and transportation policy that created, among other things, the freeways and smog of Los Angeles and the end of rail transit on the Bay Bridge. There’s a reason transportation, especially urban transportation, is public. Many Muni lines would lose money if they were treated as business ventures.

.....

Uber Busses

[llamaorama]

An Uber Bus sounds like a tarted up version of those taxi vans that they have in every third world country

[Busy Bee]

Who gives a rip, this is all fantasyland.

[lrt's friend]

Privately owned transit competing with other private operators or public operators is an experiment that failed over 100 years ago. It leads to oversupply and then failure and increased subsidies for public operations. This is why we ended up with monopolies, usually public. Transit can only be efficient if can serve 100% of the available market. There is still competition, of course, from other modes of transport.

[Skintreesnail]

The only other mode I can see them impacting is bus transit. I don't see them investing in rail infrastructure and if you clog the roads with uber cars and buses everyone will be taking the train where it's available and hopefully that would result in more lines being built. I do think public bus transit should be protected though; allowing a single or small number of private companies to control an entire mode of transportation is obviously a bad idea. Transportation is a public necessity, especially in urban areas, and should continue to have a public offering. That said, I really doubt a company like Uber will replace public transportation, at least in the US. I think that the impact companies like Uber have had on urban bus transit is an indication that maybe that mode is a little out-dated and could benefit from some innovation. I can picture something like Uber, maybe small bus-like vehicles that are more modular could operate on a pickup location/destination based algorithm and maintain the traditional buses on the heavily traveled routes.

[M II A II R II K]

There’s also the future plans for flying Uber.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Skintreesnail

The only other mode I can see them impacting is bus transit. I don't see them investing in rail infrastructure and if you clog the roads with uber cars and buses everyone will be taking the train where it's available and hopefully that would result in more lines being built. I do think public bus transit should be protected though; allowing a single or small number of private companies to control an entire mode of transportation is obviously a bad idea. Transportation is a public necessity, especially in urban areas, and should continue to have a public offering. That said, I really doubt a company like Uber will replace public transportation, at least in the US. I think that the impact companies like Uber have had on urban bus transit is an indication that maybe that mode is a little out-dated and could benefit from some innovation. I can picture something like Uber, maybe small bus-like vehicles that are more modular could operate on a pickup location/destination based algorithm and maintain the traditional buses on the heavily traveled routes.

Rail transit is only really viable if it fed by public buses. In cities where bus transit is poor, rail transit is less successful. Uber in combination with rail transit will automatically be less cost efficient because of double fares. The temptation will be to take Uber to your destination because of this. If you look at what is being offered by Uber, we will end up with more congestion than ever and pressure to build more roads to support big corporations. Furthermore, Uber will strip public transit of many riders making it even more underfunded. Also, consider an Uberbuss that might hold 10 passengers versus standard buses that could hold up to 100 passengers. It seems to me that we are actually moving backwards when we think of moving people around a crowded city efficiently.

If we reduce the numbers riding public transit, we will reduce those using rail transit leading to less revenue and less incentive to build more rail lines. The value of the public transit monopoly is its ability move a person pretty well anywhere in a city. A private operator requiring profit will decide to service only where it is profitable.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Rail transit is only really viable if it fed by public buses. In cities where bus transit is poor, rail transit is less successful.

This isn't really true unless you accept that North American cities will always be medium to low density. However, the new model in US cities is to concentrate dense development along rail lines so they don't need feeder service to be successful.

Of course, upzoning is a tough sell politically, so this really only happens when the new line is built in an industrial corridor, that way there are fewer NIMBYs to obstruct development.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by ardecila

This isn't really true unless you accept that North American cities will always be medium to low density. However, the new model in US cities is to concentrate dense development along rail lines so they don't need feeder service to be successful.

Of course, upzoning is a tough sell politically, so this really only happens when the new line is built in an industrial corridor, that way there are fewer NIMBYs to obstruct development.

Yes, intensification along a rail corridor will make it more successful but that takes time and requires that park n ride lots are not the dominate feature at rail stations.

However, good feeder bus service will always make rail transit more successful. And when rail reaches the suburbs, it becomes even more important when rail ridership is dependent on the entire catchment population of the area rather than only those who are walking to a station.

This is why Canadian rail systems tend to have higher ridership. Our own rail line to open soon is expected to have 250,000 daily boardings from day one because of feeder buses.

[Doady]

Canadian cities have way higher transit ridership than US cities and the number one reason is bus service. The US model of prioritizing rail and ignoring bus has been a miserable failure. The amount of bus service is far more important for ridership than the amount of rail service. If Uber kills bus transit, then they will kill rail transit too.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Yes, intensification along a rail corridor will make it more successful but that takes time and requires that park n ride lots are not the dominate feature at rail stations.

However, good feeder bus service will always make rail transit more successful. And when rail reaches the suburbs, it becomes even more important when rail ridership is dependent on the entire catchment population of the area rather than only those who are walking to a station.

This is why Canadian rail systems tend to have higher ridership. Our own rail line to open soon is expected to have 250,000 daily boardings from day one because of feeder buses.

Most US cities don't have the basic pedestrian infrastructure to even support bus service. If you're lucky, there are sidewalks... but then good luck finding a crosswalk that doesn't require 1/2 mile or more of walking. The fastest growing cities in the US are exactly the ones that are most unsuited to neighborhood bus service, while half (or more) of the older cities are declining in population and literally can't support basic services.

The basic fabric of US cities will never support good bus service in my lifetime, at least not outside of the coastal and northern cities where the sidewalks and the bus service are already sorta decent. You can't turn Atlanta into Toronto, the die is already cast. The only hope for a transit revival is to grow islands of walkability around high-frequency transit, whether that is a rail line or busway/BRT.

[The North One]

public transit isn't profitable in like 80% of the world so good luck with that.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Most US cities don't have the basic pedestrian infrastructure to even support bus service. If you're lucky, there are sidewalks... but then good luck finding a crosswalk that doesn't require 1/2 mile or more of walking. The fastest growing cities in the US are exactly the ones that are most unsuited to neighborhood bus service, while half (or more) of the older cities are declining in population and literally can't support basic services.

The basic fabric of US cities will never support good bus service in my lifetime, at least not outside of the coastal and northern cities where the sidewalks and the bus service are already sorta decent. You can't turn Atlanta into Toronto, the die is already cast. The only hope for a transit revival is to grow islands of walkability around high-frequency transit, whether that is a rail line or busway/BRT.

The walkability of a typical US city is much closer to Toronto than Atlanta. Atlanta is an anomaly, even by US standards.

Toronto only builds rail when the ridership gets too high, not when it gets too low. That's the only real difference with Toronto vs the US cities.

Transit ridership is declining everywhere in the US. Where is ridership still growing? Seattle. Las Vegas. Bus-based systems. Why follow the failing Atlanta or Dallas model instead of the succeeding Seattle or Las Vegas model?

Buses can move a lot more people than cars. Cars take up too much space. You can't have high frequency rail line fed by just cars. If people stop using buses because of Uber, chances are they will stop using rail as well.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Doady

The walkability of a typical US city is much closer to Toronto than Atlanta. Atlanta is an anomaly, even by US standards.

Atlanta is somewhat anomalous, but I'd say there are no more than a half dozen U.S. cities that have similar or larger walkable geographies as Toronto (NYC, DC, Bos, Philly, Chi, SF). Seattle, LA and Miami are probably borderline/arguable.

I don't think the walkability has much to do with bus ridership, BTW; Canadian cities with much crappier walkability, like Calgary, still have very high transit usage compared to U.S.

Originally Posted by Doady

Toronto only builds rail when the ridership gets too high, not when it gets too low. That's the only real difference with Toronto vs the US cities.

Actually, Toronto builds rail where there's little usage. The newest subway extensions serve outer sprawl. Probably driven by politics, same as in U.S.

Originally Posted by Doady

Transit ridership is declining everywhere in the US. Where is ridership still growing? Seattle. Las Vegas. Bus-based systems. Why follow the failing Atlanta or Dallas model instead of the succeeding Seattle or Las Vegas model?

In the most recent quarterly numbers, U.S. Transit ridership seems to have stabilized. Rideshare is probably near-peak and now factored in. Seattle has always had high transit share, and Vegas has terrible transit, maybe it grew because the area has a booming low-income and foreign-born population.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Atlanta is somewhat anomalous, but I'd say there are no more than a half dozen U.S. cities that have similar or larger walkable geographies as Toronto (NYC, DC, Bos, Philly, Chi, SF). Seattle, LA and Miami are probably borderline/arguable.

I don't think the walkability has much to do with bus ridership, BTW; Canadian cities with much crappier walkability, like Calgary, still have very high transit usage compared to U.S.

Calgary is not super walkable, but it is walkable enough for good transit. Most US cities should be walkable enough for transit as well.

Actually, Toronto builds rail where there's little usage. The newest subway extensions serve outer sprawl. Probably driven by politics, same as in U.S.

The York University corridor is not a low usage corridor. The former 196 York U Rocket bus by itself carried 20,000 people per weekday with 2 minute headways. The overall subway ridership increased 40%, or 111 million boardings annually, because of that extension. That one 8.6km subway extension has higher ridership than the entire Long Island Rail Road.

The upcoming subway extension is along Yonge which has similar bus ridership. The York Region Transit buses come by every 3 minutes there. The TTC 53/60 buses together come by every 2 minutes.

In the most recent quarterly numbers, U.S. Transit ridership seems to have stabilized. Rideshare is probably near-peak and now factored in. Seattle has always had high transit share, and Vegas has terrible transit, maybe it grew because the area has a booming low-income and foreign-born population.

I looked at the APTA Q4-2018 numbers and they paint a bleak picture. Houston and Austin are growing. Pittsburgh growing. Champaign-Urbana growing. NYC stable. But almost everywhere else is like 5% decline.

Las Vegas has always had above average transit ridership. The ridership is not far from Seattle or Portland. It's slightly better than even Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is another great US example of good ridership and continued growth using mostly buses.

Rail follows ridership, not the other way around. Look at the big four Texas cities: Dallas has the most rail, and the worst ridership. To think that transit can thrive without buses seems like a big mistake. Cars and Uber can't replace what the buses provide.

Seattle, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh: these cities should be the model for the rest of the US, not Dallas.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Doady

The overall subway ridership increased 40%, or 111 million boardings annually, because of that extension. That one 8.6km subway extension has higher ridership than the entire Long Island Rail Road.

Wait, what? Those new subway stations out in Vaughn have a ridership of 400,000 weekday passengers? So heavier traffic than the Yonge line?

There's no way in hell that Toronto's subway ridership increased by 40%, and those fringe stations have very low ridership, among the lowest in the system. Every stop, except for York University, has performed below the system average.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/201...c-network.html

[mrnyc]

just for the record -- 2017 suburban lirr daily ridership (east of jamaica only) is 279,250.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Wait, what? Those new subway stations out in Vaughn have a ridership of 400,000 weekday passengers? So heavier traffic than the Yonge line?

There's no way in hell that Toronto's subway ridership increased by 40%, and those fringe stations have very low ridership, among the lowest in the system. Every stop, except for York University, has performed below the system average.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/201...c-network.html

lol, that's what the APTA numbers say. Subway ridership still increased 38% in 2018. I was very surprised too, to say the least. I think maybe the TTC was previously reporting the wrong numbers or something.

Looking at the numbers on Wikipedia, the extension averaged 89,860 boardings per weekday. Not higher than LIRR but at around 10,000 boardings per km it's not exactly low usage either. NYC subway is 20,000 per km, Washington Metro is 4,000 per km, so the extension is somewhere in between.

I think people exaggerate too much how unsuitable the suburbs are for transit, and the Toronto Star is the worst of them all. Outer suburban subway line with twice the ridership per km of the Washington Metro. Basic bus service should not be a problem either.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Most US cities don't have the basic pedestrian infrastructure to even support bus service. If you're lucky, there are sidewalks... but then good luck finding a crosswalk that doesn't require 1/2 mile or more of walking. The fastest growing cities in the US are exactly the ones that are most unsuited to neighborhood bus service, while half (or more) of the older cities are declining in population and literally can't support basic services.

The basic fabric of US cities will never support good bus service in my lifetime, at least not outside of the coastal and northern cities where the sidewalks and the bus service are already sorta decent. You can't turn Atlanta into Toronto, the die is already cast. The only hope for a transit revival is to grow islands of walkability around high-frequency transit, whether that is a rail line or busway/BRT.

My recent experience in suburban Chicago would agree that there are some fundamental problems with the design of American cities. Where I was located at a major hotel, it was almost expected that you would need a car to access anything. Food services within the hotel were very limited and nearby choices were almost nil. Access to the closest rail station had no pedestrian access. The street underpass near the rail station had no sidewalks despite being immediately next to a traditional main street. American city planners need to do some serious soul searching. Accessibility beyond private vehicles and Uber needs to be a lot better. Saying that we have always done a poor job, doesn't mean that better standards cannot be implemented going forward.