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Studies Are Increasingly Clear: Uber, Lyft Congest Cities (apnews.com)
One promise of ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft was fewer cars clogging city streets. But studies suggest the opposite: that ride-hailing companies are pulling riders off buses, subways, bicycles and their own feet and putting them in cars instead . From a report: And in what could be a new wrinkle, a service by Uber called Express Pool now is seen as directly competing with mass transit. Uber and Lyft argue that in Boston, for instance, they complement public transit by connecting riders to hubs like Logan Airport and South Station. But they have not released their own specific data about rides, leaving studies up to outside researchers. And the impact of all those cars is becoming clear, said Christo Wilson, a professor of computer science at Boston's Northeastern University, who has looked at Uber's practice of surge pricing during heavy volume. "The emerging consensus is that ride-sharing (is) increasing congestion," Wilson said. One study included surveys of 944 ride-hailing users over four weeks in late 2017 in the Boston area. Nearly six in 10 said they would have used public transportation, walked, biked or skipped the trip if the ride-hailing apps weren't available. The report also found many riders aren't using hailed rides to connect to a subway or bus line, but instead as a separate mode of transit, said Alison Felix, one of the report's authors.
There are two kinds of congestion in cities - cars just going somewhere, and cars looking to park/parked.
Uber/Lyft reduce the second kind, which means traffic flows more smoothly even with more cars. A car just dropping people off does not impact traffic the way cars circling a block looking for parking will, and also will not fill up valuable parking spots that might have otherwise been filled.
Also congestion pricing itself naturally means there will be fewer uber/lyft drivers around at peak normal traffic times. The majority of uber/lyft drivers come out during surge pricing, which is when other forms of transport come less frequently or are not available - one person I know who commutes to downtown usually takes a bus, but if he's going in later will sometimes take an Uber if he misses the bus because it will be 30 minutes before the next one.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
These companies aren't actually "sharing" rides, they are taxiing people about.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Mass transit apparently is of limited use where you live. Try Europe for a change. I live in Amsterdam, which, like other Dutch cities, has a dense public transport network, and the country's railway system is one of the densest in the world. In many cases I find it far more convenient to use public transport than to go by car.
It is possible to have good public transport. It does take a willingness to spend resources on the public interest. Perhaps that willingness is stronger in Europe than in the US.