Ride hailing too costly to transform Austinites

I’ve been app-hailing rides lately, as you might have read elsewhere on American-Statesman terrain.

Our tech coverage team enlisted me to be one of seven reporters who did test runs on the various ride-hailing apps (and the one for Yellow Cab) that have crowded the Austin landscape in the wake of Uber and Lyft skedaddling in May. I was the RideAustin guy, and frankly my team finished in the back of the pack. It was pricier than most and a bit slower to get me where I was going on our comparison jaunt between the Statesman building and a Hyde Park restaurant.

I’d like to tell you how my rides compared with Lyft’s and Uber’s, but I can’t. I never got around to taking a ride using the two “legacy” apps before they went dark in Austin on May 9 in protest of the electoral defeat of a substitute ordinance they wanted put in the city code.

I happened to mention my status as a ride-hailing virgin to a Lyft public relations rep the day before the May 7 election, and he didn’t really try to hide his incredulity or his contempt. How could I write about something that I hadn’t even used, he asked. I said that by that standard, there are a lot of reporters who had better take their hands off the keyboard. I had talked to plenty of folks who had taken rides, including my daughter, and really, how mysterious could it be?

You hail the ride, it shows up, you get in and go, and then you get out at the destination and rate the driver on the app. Shows up faster than a cab, costs less, the car is often