Ride hailing services are not the panacea it's supporters claim

It's a new industry, this on-demand ride hailing service that exists in several large cities around the world (and coming to BC).
It's being cited as a partial solution in the fight against climate change; reducing the need for car ownership while getting more usage from vehicles currently owned.
While valid points, ride hailing services also create issues that the new industry haven't yet answered.
Point/counter point.

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/04/how-uber-and-lyft-could-do-better-by-the-planet/558866/

My 2 bits

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Getting past the bullshit on #siteC

Image
Again, since I can't stress it enough, SiteC is wrong and should be cancelled. Its financial impact in cancellation is less of a burden than to carry out its construction. Worse, but most compelling for me, is the impact on reconciliation efforts with First Nations and the stated objective of the NDP government to get to a place of compliance with UNDRIP. There is time to reverse this decision, but the government must move quickly to do so. I certainly get the level of frustration going on with the SiteC decision, what I didn't expect is the level of online harassment, name calling, and outright bullying that's happened as a result. It is over the edge. BC is better than this, and internally, so is the NDP. The government has decided to move forward with SiteC, and therefore will have to own all fallout that comes from complications in construction cost overruns (almost a guarantee). They will first have to mitigate the justified uproar of the good folks the Treaty 8 in...
Read more

Dr. Weaver is off base on tolls as well

Image
With respect to Dr Weaver and the NDP/Green accord that ousted the BC Liberals from office, I believe that Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver is off base with his criticism on the NDP's toll elimination policy. Dr Weaver makes two points that need to be addressed. First, he says that eliminating tolls would add billions dollars to taxpayer supported debt. He is wrong. As early as 2009, the Auditor General raised a red flag on that very notion. Until tolls were supporting the actual debt of the bridge projects, classifying as the BC Liberals did was at best shady. But clearly wrong. Second, he mentions that tolls are a way to manage transport demand. Well that argument falls apart when you see what happened to traffic flows on Port Mann and Golden Ears bridge. Traffic ended up being diverted by those unwilling to pay stiff fares to other free options. This meant, paradoxically, that drivers ended up driving further, driving longer, and ended up in high polluting traffic jams...
Read more

Lets ban big money influence to political parties

Image
A lot of noise has come from the periphery of the BC political activist community regarding political donations. While everyone is (finally) in agreement that corporate and union donations ought to be banned, another thorny question has come up over fundraising dinners, etc. The BC Liberals were famous for their big ticket, intimate dining experiences with high ranking BC Liberal politicians. Some were $5,000 per ticket, some $10k or $20k each. To be sure, the BC NDP has held a handful of their own $5k per ticket events, but most of them are a fraction of the cost of the BC Liberals model. But the question is, are fundraising dinners even ok? Certainly they're legal in the current framework, but given the tone right now, should that change? What did the parties campaign on? (Spoiler: nothing) In an earlier blog post, I invented a scenario where I hosted a backyard BBQ fundraiser for [party] and charged $75 a person. Food cost for a burger and salad might hit $5 each, an...
Read more