RIDE-HAILING RED FLAGS
Effect on transit unknown
The prospect of ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft arriving in B.C. comes as there is sparring over how their services may not bolster, but possibly undermine, the use of public transportation.
TransLink, which oversees Metro Vancouver’s public buses, trains and ferries, hasn’t done any research or made predictions about a future with these ride-hailing services.
Instead, it, like many others, refers to a 2016 American Public Transportation Association study that jibes with the view that Uber and Lyft complement public transit use.
But there is an emerging tale this week from one of the larger ride-hailing markets, New York City, where use of these apps, along with enticing discounts and offers from these companies, is not only threatening the local taxi industry, but also “siphoning passengers away from subways and buses, while raising concerns over worsening street congestion,” the New York Times reports.
So, which is it?
“Ridesharing ... extend(s) the reach of transit by service to the first and last mile,” said Uber Canada spokeswoman Susie Heath, in an email. “In London (in the U.K.) for example, nearly 30 per cent of Uber rides end within 200 metres of a tube or train station in the outer boroughs during the morning rush hour.”
Heath said “many transportation agencies are looking to Uber for help with some of their toughest challenges.”
Uber is “currently in conversations with transit authorities in many Canadian cities” and is pleased Trans Link CEO Kevin Desmond is supportive of working with ride-hailing companies.
Where authorities might be under pressure to “cut bus routes at night because they go to an area where few people live, but are still essential to reach, the service can be replaced with agreements with Lyft and Uber,” said Germain Belzile, senior associate researcher at the Montreal Economic Institute. “Instead of running routes that cost $300,000 a year, they can pay Uber $60,000 a year to provide shuttle buses.”
Heath said in Summit, N.J., “the city recently signed a partnership with the company to help get commuters to and from their local rail station, avoiding the need for taxpayers to fund an expensive and unpopular new parking garage.”
However, Kara Kockelman, a transportation academic at the University of Texas, is wary of making too much of the oft-cited American study linking ride-hailing services to more active use of public transportation.
“I looked at (the study) and they mostly asked (people already using ride-hailing services) ‘ do you use public transportation?’ The experiment needs to be that you give a random person the option of using ride-hailing services and see how they change their habits. Do they let go of their vehicle? Use it less?” Kockelman said.
She said in large cities served by massive subway and light rail networks, there might be a case for Uber and Lyft connecting commuters to public transit. However, “around Austin, we are a smaller region with about two million people. We are not New York or San Francisco.”
Some of these conflicting developments are happening at the same time, said Sumeet Galati, an associate professor at the University of B.C. who studies the economics of urban transportation.
Ride-hailing services will intensify an existing trend in Metro Vancouver, especially for condo dwellers, where people are letting go of car ownership, which creates a bigger pool of public transit users. However, because it will no longer cost $20 to get from A to B in a taxi — perhaps just $5 or $3 with ride-sharing options — people are likely to make more road trips. This means even though fewer people own cars, there will still be congestion on roads, and possibly more of it, Galati said.
And obviously, if prices are low enough to compete with the cost of taking public transit, not to mention offering a more hassle-free option, these companies will lure away users, Galati said.
Still, he believes in Vancouver, the “car-owning effect would dominate (public transit use) over time rather than the impact of public transportation users bleeding into Uber and Lyft.”
The companies told the New York Times this week their goal is to replace car ownership and to supplement, rather than substitute, public transportation.