Ridesharing has been good for urbanism.
Despite all of the problems, I think ridesharing has been a net positive.
Years ago, I made a video talking about ridesharing being a good thing for urbanism, and I stand by that. So in today’s article I wanted to touch on the topic again and provide some potentially bolder claims — including that ridesharing is probably a net positive even for public transit use, particularly in countries like Canada and the US.
To be clear, ridesharing has some well known issues from safety concerns as well as poor wages and worker protections, and it should probably be better regulated on a broad basis. That being said, ridesharing has done a lot of good for cities.
The biggest element of this which I highlighted in the video is that ridesharing has been the amenity that allows people to go car-free. For some reason, probably the ease of use, people are much more willing to take a Lyft or an Uber in cities with less of a “taxi culture” — say New York — than they would be willing to grab a cab. This makes it clear to people that if they were to ditch their car and move to a dense walkable neighbourhood, that for those odd times they needed to get somewhere (however wouldn’t want to call a cab company) they would have an option.
What’s great is that much like how EVs face the uphill battle of “range anxiety”, I think people with cars face a “car availability anxiety”, and what I mean by this is that often people are concerned that they might need a car when they really do not. Most EV owners don’t run out of range because most people aren’t driving several hundred kilometres per day, and most people living in dense walkable areas aren’t driving much if at all. By having ridesharing as a mental fallback when someone ditches their car, they can feel reassured, but I don’t think that many people are actually using the services as often as they might have expected before going car free.
Now, the other big benefit with ridesharing is the resource and fleet efficiencies. Compared to regular personal vehicles, rideshare vehicles are driven a lot more, and this not only uses the resources poured into manufacturing, maintaining, and storing that vehicle more efficiently, but it also incentivizes the driver to use a car that uses less fuel, and thus emits less pollution and greenhouse gases — in 2023 that’s very often a hybrid or an EV — and this is something rideshare companies further incentivize.
There has been a lot of discourse on the impact of ridesharing on public transit, but I’m skeptical in a lot of cases. The idea that ridesharing will decimate transit ridership just doesn’t seem likely for cities building and running good transit networks.
For one, driving should not be time competitive with transit — particularly during peak periods, and if it is, I would argue it’s likely the transit speed which should be brought up. In Toronto, streetcars average less than 20 kph, while subways — which often have more dense stops than most cities — are over 30 kph. If you have a good transit network, it’s hard to believe that hailing a rideshare is going to be faster than getting on rapid transit in most cases. That being said, this may be an issue in cities which do not sufficiently prioritize speed, but that’s just another reason to think about speed.
Rideshare is also likely to be more expensive — much more, so if transit is even remotely within the ballpark of the same time as taking a private car, it’s usually not worth paying 5 or more times as much. If rideshare if competitive, then your transit prices probably are too high.
Now, there is a circumstance that often gets brought up to me, which is travelling in groups. You see, a $20 express train fare might make sense for one person, but since a rideshare has multiple seats, the scales tilt in its favour the more people you have. This is why transit agencies should be serious about implementing group discounts and tickets, as well as policies like free transit for children.
On a more personal note, I think well maintained public transit is just more comfortable. I have only taken rideshare a very limited number of times, and as with taxis, vehicles were often dirty, and drivers were often extremely rough and aggressive — which could make an uncomfortable ride verge on scary.
That being said, rideshare if better regulated (i.e. requiring extra licensing and training for drivers) can continue to be positive. Of course, the desire to use ridesharing would only be further reduced by things like additional road tolls and congestion pricing, policies that I’m in favour of and do slowly seem to be becoming more common.
Now, there is always the potential that the companies running the various ridesharing companies end up tanking — but I think in that case we’d still be in a better place than pre-ridesharing, as competition from ridesharing has led to taxi companies improving their customer service, including apps for booking trips and simplified payments.
Based on my own experiences, I fully agree. I sold my car early last year. When I did, I realized that owning a car changes how you think about everything. I had exactly the mental hurdle you mentioned when I wanted to sell it - worrying that there would be times when I'd need to go somewhere I can't get to on transit. Or after transit shut down for the night.
In the end, exactly as you said, the fact that rideshare (and Zipcar) are available as backup options made it much easier to overcome that hurdle. And also exactly as you said, in the past year or so I've only actually used rideshare or Zipcar within my home metro area a few times. I regularly accept rides from friends who still have cars, but usually the trip was either unnecessary (and probably wouldn't have occurred if I wasn't with that particular person), or I could easily have done it via transit/walking/biking.
I think that ridesharing will work especially well in cities that only recently got good transit. In these cities you can probably use most trips by transit but the old mentality of needing cars is still there. It is possible that some people might make 80% of their trips by transit but still keep their cars 'just in case'. Ridesharing can save these people a lot of money.