> really good public transportation with buses and trains. I'm completely sure private cars or taxies would be discarted.<p>Wow. Talk about thinking everyone is exactly like you, and only your transportation needs need to be met.<p>What about the elderly? (Who can't walk the last mile from the bus.)<p>Or young children? What about a large family that needs a full car load of groceries - you're going to put that on a bus? And somehow carry it home?<p>Inevitably every single person who writes about public transportation is young and single, or at least no kids, and they think: No more cars, problem solved.<p>News flash: The entire world is not like you. Getting rid of cars is a complete non-starter for a HUGE segment of the population.
> Let's be serious, people are paying $12-25 for taking a Uber or Lyft when they could be paying just $2.25. Does it take longer? Yes. So much longer that you willing to pay 4-11x? I don't think so. People are wasting money.<p>Disclaimer: I don't live in SF.<p>Yes, a million times yes it is worth it. The bus system where is I am from is far worse than SF but still, google map from location A to B and toggle between car and bus options. I can get there in less than 15min by car but unless I time it perfectly (and the bus is on time) it will take over an hour to get there by public transit.<p>Not to mention there are times when the busses do not run where I live. The author seems to think it's: busses or lyft/uber (and again that might be the case in SF) but where I am from your options after 11pm is taxis or lyft and I will easily pay more (though the rides so far have been nearly the exact same as the taxis I've taken) for a ride that I know is coming, I don't have to give turn by turn directions to, and I can pay by CC (completely impossible with taxis in my town).<p>So the author's argument of "Lyft/Uber sucks because busses" seems quite BS to me...
The central assumption of his whole argument:<p>> If you had to think what the transport systems would be on a sustainable modern city, I'm sure you would think that the solution would be a really good public transportation with buses and trains. I'm <i>completely sure</i> private cars or taxies would be discarted. (my emphasis)<p>is mere opinion. I like libraries and think the are great, but I still want my own books. There's no contradiction there.<p>Additionally, the title is inflammatory by calling people hypocrites instead of trying to understand why people use the services mentioned.
"I'm a young master engineer"<p>I'm an old engineer (electronics and software), and as I age and gain experience I realize I still have a lot to learn. I don't think you can be a "young engineer" and a "master engineer" at the same time - and I think those who truly master engineering have become <i>MORE</i> adept at questioning their abilities.<p>I think the attitude conveyed by his tag-line is repeated (several times) in the article's body ... one mind-set, one "best" and everyone else must be wrong. His ideal seems to be centered around Madrid's transportation systems, but if your (singular) goal is what's good for the environment, I've seen many Asian cities that easily beat buses and trains (with walking and bicycling).<p>If you're living an unhurried continental life, walking to the local market and carrying home your fresh-picked vegetables might be an alternatively to taking the bus/train to a larger grocery store. If you're a hurried SF-based founder, a door-to-door service is optimizing for a limited amount of time. Why does there have to be just one "best"?<p>Here's an example ... suppose Elon Musk flies around the country in a corporate jet while working to promote solar energy at prices that will ultimately lead to a significant decrease in emissions. Should he instead bike across the country so his jet isn't polluting the skies? Or would the duration of each trip simply make it impossible to accomplish his goals?
> Is $2.25 for a single ride expensive? Is $76 for the monthly cost of the BART and bus expensive? If you take into account what tech people earn is a ridicoulus price. So price is not a problem for tech people.<p>> Let's be serious, people are paying $12-25 for taking a Uber or Lyft when they could be paying just $2.25. Does it take longer? Yes. So much longer that you willing to pay 4-11x? I don't think so. People are wasting money.<p>Regardless of whether you believe public transit is the solution, the statement that people "are wasting money" is entirely subjective and dependent on what they perceive value to be. In fact, if tech people are indeed earning so much money (as is implied by the first sentence) then the higher they earn, the less of a "waste" the extra cost of private transportation would be be due to the factored in time-savings.
"I'm sure you would think that the solution would be a really good public transportation with buses and trains. I'm completely sure private cars or taxies would be discarted."<p>This is something I always wondered, WHY? Have you calculated the numbers yourself? I don't believe so.<p>In Europe most people repeat this phrase, without knowing why, or just looking at the numbers.<p>I was born in Madrid, It looks to me like government propaganda too. You find ads on TV that tells you something like "a bus could carry 50 people, if everybody used buses we will be saving that much".<p>But most of the assumptions are wrong, E.g Most of the time the buses or subway are less than half empty.<p>And when they are full, people don't want to use the services. In Madrid, subway trains are designed for 4people per square meter!!!<p>Politicians want people to use public services(while not a single of them uses them). They want to raise taxes, people not being able to buy private cars, but giving the money to politicians in order to make big public works(and enrich themselves by the way, the bigger the amount of money they handle, the easier it is).<p>On the other hand, moving 2 tons for every 0.1 tons person does not make sense. We need individual alternatives like electric motorbikes or something.
As someone who lived in SF for a while, I found that SF public transit was utter shit. Muni delays could be as bad as 20 minutes in the tunnel between two stop or a line showing up 45 minutes late. Or even catching everything on time getting from the middle of the Sunset to the middle of the Richmond took over an hour.<p>On the other hand, I've never had Bart break on me or be delayed (in SF itself).<p>So yes, when people have be money and want to take a cab, it's usually a better bet.
Of course this article is a lot of hyperbole, and whether you agree or not depends on your worldview. But one bit I couldn't agree more. Uber and Lyft are NOT examples of the sharing economy. Just adding an element of technology to good old fashioned capitalism does not a sharing economy make.
So following the same thinking, we should burn the restaurants to the ground, because we can all cook, and we pay 10x more. Waste of money.<p>We should also stop buying clothes at more expensive brands, because Primark clothes are also wearable and will keep you warm. What else can we downgrade?<p>Dear OP, people do things because they like conveniences, coolness and everything. If it works that way for you - great! But it doesn't mean everyone has to be the same, have the same values and attitude :)<p>EDIT: Am I saying that because of the tone of the post? maybe. Because, like other people are saying, I don't like tone of this post :)
Hypocrite isn't the word the author is after, but even if it were, effectively just insulting people you disagree with will not bring them around to your view point.<p>Uber and Lyft may well be 10 times the price public transport, but the services are otherwise barely comparable. It absolutely <i>is</i> worth $20 to me versus $2 to get where I'm going in a fast, comfortable, and private manner, in exactly the same way as I don't baulk at a $3 Starbucks, despite being able to brew a coffee myself for 1/20th that price.<p>Public transport is never going to win simply by being a cheaper option, you have to appeal to other motivators, such as sense of social responsibility.<p>As an aside, my "future city" vision of public transport would be publicly available, self-driving, electric "cars" recharged with renewable energy. Not mass-transit. I don't want to be forced into a shared space with strangers, if I can avoid it, thanks.
The tone of the article is not relaxed, however I'm a bit perplexed of reading here that many don't believe that the author main argument is right, which is: sustainable transportation for the future needs to be, mostly, public. I don't mean public as necessarily "provided by gov/city", but in which the common routes are handled by busses or trams or similar systems where, unlike cars, the weight of the moved people is not minimal compared to the weight of the moved vehicle.<p>Taxies have their place of course, you can't serve everything via public transports. Also one thing is normal people moving inside SF, another thing is arriving at the SF airport with a business meeting 45 minutes later. But the <i>bulk</i> of how people move, should be, mass-transport systems.
Author misses the point that transportation in SF/Bay area sucks for two reasons:<p>1) Mismanagement of the infrastructure. MUNI couldn't manage its way out of a wet paper bag, AC Transit tackles increasing ridership by replacing transbay buses with smaller capacity local buses. To get anything done you have to organize across 30+ agencies. Lack of investment in the public infrastructure verses the increasing population. The list goes on...<p>2) People want public transit just not in their back yard. Witness the central subway debacle of it not going all the way to North Beach/Fisherman's Wharf. Witness Marin voting not to extend BART to their cities. Witness the Marin SMART line first phase not ending at the Larkspur ferry terminal. Witness the high speed rail link mess and the fact that it's impossible to take a train from San Francisco to Sacramento without having to transit through about 3 different systems.<p>So it's no wonder that companies are running their own buses or people are looking to alternative services like Uber or Lyft because it's their only option for getting around, and as a wise man once said "There ain't no getting 'round getting 'round"
This article is misguided. Using a taxi is good for the environment exactly because it is expensive. You use a taxi first of all because you don't have a car. You don't have a car because you either ride public transport or you walk/cycle.<p>Don't get mad at people who use taxis a few times per week for short distances. Get mad at people who clog highways with their polluting owned cars.
I seem to recall reading that the city of SF (or another municipality?) had conducted a study that found, perhaps counterintuitively, that improving taxi service would actually end up increasing transit ridership and decreasing overall vehicle miles traveled. Improved cab service, it was claimed, would let people get rid of their own cars and begin using more convenient, more sustainable modes of transit for most things, resorting to a now more reliable taxi service as a crutch when necessary.<p>Taxi industry bullshit? I don’t know, because unfortunately I can’t find reference to this study at the moment—does this ring a bell with anyone?
> You may have to leave your home 10 min earlier, or arrive your home 20 min later; but it's a small price to pay to build the city we want to live in.<p>Given that most people will not take a job that is further than 30 min away[0], that actually makes a big difference<p>[0]<a href="http://www.citynews.ca/2013/12/03/commuting-times-key-factor-for-job-selection-among-younger-workers-survey/" rel="nofollow">http://www.citynews.ca/2013/12/03/commuting-times-key-factor...</a>
This guy gets the wrong impression because he doesn't understand that uber is growing to something totally different:<p>1.Uber recently started to offer it's uberxl suv service, which carries upto 6 passengers and in sf costs $5 base fare + the lowest of ($0.45/minute or $2.15/mile)[1].<p>2.Given enough demand, uber can offer a highly efficient personalized route service, which builds optimal routes needed to transport 6 people. Let's assume such routes can be only 25% longer than normal routes , on average[2].<p>Combine both of those, we can replace 6X30 minutes car trips , with a single 37.5 minute suv trip, which will be charged $21.87 for 6 passengers, or $3.64 per person.<p>If we wanted to have a similar trip in public transportation, it would probably take around 1.5-2 hours , but might cost $2.<p>And if we compare this to a normal car trip, the uber experience could be much better - you could watch a tv episode on your tablet after a long work day and unwind, instead of the stress of fighting traffic. And it's priced pretty closed to the cost of personal transportation.<p>And the secondary effects from shifting so much traffic to highly efficient forms would greatly decrease traffic jams and further increase speed.<p>TL;DR - with it's new offering uber is evolving to be a much better, new mode of public transportation, both cost effective and a great experience.<p>[1]<a href="https://www.uber.com/cities/san-francisco" rel="nofollow">https://www.uber.com/cities/san-francisco</a><p>[2]research of "demand responsive transportation" talks about similar efficiencies.
<a href="http://www.sengifted.org/archives/articles/can-you-hear-the-flowers-sing-issues-for-gifted-adults" rel="nofollow">http://www.sengifted.org/archives/articles/can-you-hear-the-...</a><p>> <i></i>Perceptivity:<i></i> [...] Adults gifted in this way detect and dislike falsehood and hypocrisy.<p>Having issues with hypocrisy (outward or inward) is something that "gifted" people typically have an issue with. Extreme intelligence (which is an indicator of being "gifted") is something that pervades our industry - hence our industry generally has a strong reaction to hypocrisy.<p>Don't believe for one second that the average person (or SFer) cares how hypocritical they are being, don't think for one second that pointing that out to them will change anything.<p>The only way to change their behavior is to the remove or resolve the problem that causes their hypocritical behavior.
I live in New York where the subway and bus system is pretty extensive, and taxi and livery cabs are relatively plentiful in Manhattan. I take public transit every day, but I still take cabs and own a car as well. Subways get me to work and home every day. Taxis are nice for me and my wife to have a pleasant evening together. I've even used a Uber on days when the subways are failing me so I can get back home in time to relive my babysitter. The car is nice so my wife and kids can go shopping or take trips out of the city. These are all valid use cases equally applicable to living in San Francisco (where I've lived as well.) I see no hypocrisy here, nor any room for someone else's judgment that I'm a hypocrite.
> Public transportation in San Francisco doesn't suck.<p>Moments later...<p>> The BART sucks.<p>That's a bit of cognitive dissonance right there. It's understandable given utopian transportation won't arrive overnight, ESPECIALLY in San Francisco. When I first moved here, I was totally blown away by the lack of a major highway connecting the North Bay to the South Bay. Yup, you gotta take Van Ness!<p>The fact there is massive inertia on infrastructure change in San Francisco is part of our moral system here, like it or not. That doesn't make me, or others like me, hypocrites, nor does it mean others aren't working on solving the problem. Personally, I'm working on implementing morality in other systems in which I have experience.
I don't think I've seen anyone suggest that Uber is cleaner compared to other forms of transport, just merely more convenient than normal taxi services.
I also don't think switching to pure public transportation is a viable solution in a lot of circumstances. Yes it can be very good when you're travelling between common destinations, but once your destination is more than 10 minutes walk from the train/bus station, the journey time quickly starts becoming burdensome. It's also nice to have a redundant system in place for the rare occasion that the public transport network fails (line upgrades, malfunction, bomb scares, etc).
Did he ever travel to the South Bay from San Francisco? I have to doubt it, because I never saw the word "Caltrain."<p>By US standards, yes, SF has good public transit, but its incredibly shitty by the standards of the civilized world. I'm as progressive as you can get, have relied on Bay Area (VTA, Caltrain, MUNI, BART) public transit since 2008, and I'm the first to admit there are <i>major</i> problems with it. I don't think he's lived in SF (or the Bay Area in general) long enough.
I was in SF recently. BART is awful.<p>BART to a restaurant took over an hour. 9 minute walk to the stop, 12 minute wait for the train, 30 minute train ride, 15 minute walk. Even in the best case scenario of 0 train time, that's 19 minutes of walking.<p>The restaurant had a huge wait, so I used Uber to get back to where I was staying. 1 minute wait, 19 minute drive.<p>The Uber trip cost $10 more than BART for two people. I don't know how you value your time, but $10 for 50 minutes of time for two people is always worth it.
You're assuming that <i>not</i> getting to your destination on time is an option when taking public transportation around and especially in SF. At any point a MUNI bus/train can stop for extended periods of time with no explanation. Other times, there is an explanation like agents checking tickets and other idiocies. Either way, there's a great chance you're not making that 9am meeting with the VCs to secure funding.
One case where I use Uber/Lyft over a regular taxi is when I am at places/times where/when taxis are not readily available..Uber/Lyft works well in those situations as the drivers know the exact coordinates to show up at and do so relatively fast.
I thought the argument was going to be something like "SF supports restrictive practices in house building and rents, and therefore you should support restrictive practices in taxi service". Instead, it was even more dumb than that argument.
I used to live in Los Angeles (talk about Carmageddon) and I moved to New York 4 years ago. Since then I've sold my car and use subways, trains and my legs to get me to almost everywhere I need and once in a while I use a taxi or car service to get luggage somewhere or if it's late and I just need to get home without subway hassle.<p>I'm deeply considering moving to the Bay Area for reasons I won't go into here but I am really concerned that I will need to buy a car to survive. I spent 10 days there recently and I clocked almost 4 hours a day on the road to various places. In all fairness I had to commute in from up north (think Santa Rosa) for family reasons but I still had flash backs to my life in Los Angeles and the absolute necessity of having a car.<p>I’m doubtful that if I do move that I can find a commute to work as sweet as my current job. I walk (by choice) about 9 blocks and subway 9 more and can make the entire trip in 22 minutes anytime of day I like regardless of other commuters. In SF you have to consider traffic, bus overloading, being in just the right place at the right time to optimize your commute, or just buy a car or just use Uber and get there when you want on your schedule (still fighting traffic but that's the driver's problem).<p>Having grown up in Los Angeles I used to think SF public transportation was pretty advanced, but having lived in New York and the area here I realize trains, subways and the like are just much more effective here. My uninformed guess is because trains where ingrained in the local culture investments in subway, commuter trains and the like where easier to justify. In California the car was able to take hold early because of the sprawling nature of population distribution and since then it’s been near impossible to convince tax payers to build public transportation in face of all the other priorities for public tax dollars.<p>I think the “advent” of the electric car has made people feel they’re “doing the right thing” meanwhile it will not solve traffic issues and will only stall investment in public transportation by another fifty years.<p>I acknowledge the fact that many factors feed into transportation choices (Children, Luggage, Time, Schedules, Costs) but I also think underlying issues in a locality have a greater impact then individual choices. Walt Disney and Ray Bradbury both tried to fight the “good fight” for years in Los Angeles proposing Monorail systems and you can see where they managed to get.<p>To condemn individuals who use Uber and Lyft is like treating the symptom rather then curing the disease. Until we have real plans to make better transportation options available to the public they will continue to solve their daily problems using their own resources however they feel meets their needs. If you doubt this consider how many people ride horses to work these days…
I appreciate the sentiment of the post, but cannot quite relate it to the Silicon Valley ethos. Isn't it the natural progression that we are seeing here?
Sure Madrid has pretty good public transportation. But it also has an almost mysterious lack of bicycles. I have maybe seen a handful of them outside of parks. Not that I needed one myself, but it was just surprising to me.