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With Uber and other ridesharing services becoming a common transit option for some D.C. residents, we wanted to get a sense of when someone might substitute an Uber trip for a Metrorail trip. To do this, we plotted data on travel time and cost, creating a visualization that shows whether Uber or Metro is faster, and at what cost, for 114 different trips between Metro stations. By adding in the time it takes to wait for a Metro train or Uber, walk to the Metro, or sit on a delayed train, we can see how a person's decision might change depending on their circumstances.
The trips we analyzed include trips between the city and the suburbs as well as trips within the city.
[...] We found that for longer trips between the center of the city and the suburbs, Metro tends to be both more cost-effective and quicker than Uber. But for trips within the city that require a Metro transfer, Uber is often quicker than Metro, especially when Metro wait times are long, like on weekends, or when there are delays. While Uber's regular service tends to be much more expensive than Metro, Uber Pool makes some Uber trips nearly as affordable as Metro.
Did they factor in the need for a pack train, 3 days' provisions, and sherpas to get up and down the stairs in the Metro?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday October 18 2017, @07:55PM (1 child)
Well, for the NJ people, one key point here is that they live in NJ, a separate state, so they have precisely zero input into NY politics by definition, unless you count bribery or something like that. NYC has no obligation to listen to their concerns about anything. Anyway, what I'm proposing isn't shutting down car traffic Manhattan-wide, but on many small streets to make it safer for cyclists, and to get more people to stop driving by making it more inconvenient for them. Perhaps automatic vehicle-blocking columns could be installed too, to allow authorized emergency vehicles onto these streets when necessary but keep out all the private ones. Perhaps they should also institute a "congestion tax" the way they did in London.
Ideally, they need to improve the subway system a lot (there's not enough lines that go east-west, for instance), with more trains, automated trains, and cleaner stations, and lower prices to make public transit more reliable and a no-brainer for getting around the city. Then they should somehow encourage the building of large garages outside the city (like in Jersey City or something) so that Manhattanites who have cars can park their car their for weekend trips without paying an absolute fortune, and can get there pretty easily by subway. They should also improve the links to the NJ side, with actual subways going over there instead of having to take a special train, just like they do for Brooklyn.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 18 2017, @08:44PM
Many of those things would be possible if not for the weird, weird reality that NYC transportation is not controlled by NYC. It's controlled by the state legislature in Albany that mostly comprises non-urban assemblymen and state senators. Mayor Bloomberg wanted to implement congestion pricing, but he was blocked by state legislators representing people in Long Island, Westchester, and Rockland counties upstate that want to keep driving to work in NYC. NYC wanted to extend the A line one stop so you could take the subway to JFK, and the 7 train so you could take the subway to LaGuardia, but Albany blocked them and put in the AirTran instead that costs something like $15 one-way and is only convenient to, you guessed it, people from the suburbs.
Cleaner stations would be nice, but then they'd have to ticket the hell out of people for litter and also build public restrooms around the city so the homeless and drunk people wouldn't treat the stations like restrooms.
People in Jersey can get to Manhattan without taking light rail into Penn Station. The PATH trains are basically subway trains that share stations with many Manhattan subway stops. But Jersey people don't use them. They are too wedded to their cars. They live in a car culture and cannot give the damn things up even when it makes no sense for a particular journey.
Washington DC delenda est.