Cities Need More Public Transit, Not More Uber and Self-Driving Cars
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/37061-cities-need-more-public-transit-not-more-uber-and-self-driving-cars
New transportation technologies -- self-driving cars, electric vehicles and ride hailing services like Uber -- promise to revolutionize transportation, especially in cities. While there are certainly potential benefits to these technologies, they have been called "solution[s] in search of a problem" because many of the benefits touted by advocates of these technologies are benefits that public transportation, walking and cycling already offer in abundance....
The Pew Charitable Trusts recently looked at the burden of transportation costs on the lower third of households and found that it consumed 15.7 percent of their income in 2014. (By contrast, transportation expenses were just 8.2 percent of the income of the top third of households.) This is a significant percentage and it is likely even higher for the poorest households in this group. It is also likely that the vast majority of these expenses were for necessary travel to: work, food shopping or doctors' appointments. (This group is not taking many vacations.)
Given the impact of transportation costs, cities should look more closely at supporting options, in both the short and long terms, to make cities more equitable and conducive to lower-cost transportation. Paramount among the considerations should be walking, which has very few direct costs, although it is not feasible for those who live far away from where they work, which is the case for many poor people right now. After that, public transportation, which can save many people a significant amount of money per month over using a personal vehicle, and is heavily relied upon by poorer city residents. Cities could do a far better job of serving the transportation needs of low-income people if they made public transportation free and extensive. This is very desirable from an equity perspective and likely only possible on a large scale for public systems. Lastly, cycling is also a low-cost option that cities should accommodate better, even though it suffers from some of the same downsides as walking, at least in most cities as they are currently laid out.
Cities should also be very cautious about supporting new technology that is inaccessible to the poor, such as ride-hailing services, which are usually more expensive than public transportation, are not required to accept cash, and almost always require smartphones and credit cards. For example, The New York Times uncritically touted the UberPOOL carpool service as cheap and environmentally friendly, but most of these benefits were illusory. The trip highlighted in the story was from the Tenderloin to Noe Valley in San Francisco, took somewhere between 25 to 55 minutes, and if split evenly, cost around $10. The same trip on the San Francisco Muni's J-Church light rail line would have taken 18 minutes and cost only $2.25.
