> pub transit degrades bc now it shares service with competition

Privately-operated buses on city bus lanes seems fine? Like, American cities have largely failed at making bus rapid transit economically sustainable and comfortable for the broader population. Trying a different model seems prudent versus going for puritinism.

(The alternative for these riders isn’t the bus. It’s private Ubers and cars. If cities won’t permit something like this, it warrants asking if public resources are better used turning those bus lanes into standard ones.)

> Taxpayers fund Uber and buses

Why? Charge a use fee.

I wouldn't call transit systems "unbiased social good" in every case.

In many cities, bus systems have to strike a balance between frequency and coverage. My transit system had big plans to switch many routes to have straighter routing and fewer stops, while providing much better frequency and hours of service. This would have attracted more riders and increased funding for the system. But, local councilors were swayed by the idea that impoverished senior citizens relying on their milk run that comes every 45 minutes until 6 PM would no longer be near enough to a stop, and so not equitably served (never mind that we have a paratransit service for people who truly can't walk to a stop 500 metres away). So, nothing changed.

I'm not surprised that private services are going to fill the gaps here.

> Or we could just all get mercenaries for our burbclaves. Not like police turn a profit either!

There was literally a documentary on Citizen in 2023: https://www.vice.com/en/article/watch-new-documentary-tells-...

In Australia it's not unusual for taxis to be allowed to use bus lanes, and a portion of taxi fees go to the state. They can also charge Uber a fee to use the bus lane so the state gets more revenue than before for the same asset.

> Turning a profit” for public services is the most harebrained meme that is simultaneously deeply damaging and continually propagated by certain folks

Thank you. I don't know why this has gotten so ingrained. Whenever making public transit free, or functionally free like some places in continental Europe now do, you have people immediately pop up and get almost comically agitated about how the system would be immediately and permanently overwhelmed by demand and there's just no money anyway and it's a stupid idea and please never say it again.

Ignoring that it already didn't happen where it literally is done today, what a nice problem to have: people going out to do things. That's called the economy, stupid, and the money you spend on running that system both promotes economic activity like going to work and popping to the shops on a whim, spends lots of it locally on staff, as well as reducing the money that is "lost" to imports like fuel, cars and externalities like environment and healthcare. And that's just the dead-eyed homo ecomonicus areshole argument: more importantly, allowing anyone to just go out and partake in wider society at some place of your choosing for free is good for wellbeing and good for society in general.

When people don't have money to spare, spending several hours' work worth of discretionary cash just going to the park or library (ditto for the argument to fund the everliving fuck out of them rather then cutting cutting cutting) to hang out is just impossible, let doing going further afield.

What's a public service? Supermarkets are more important to me than buses, they're not run by the state.

You forgot the step where, after public transit competition is crushed, they raise prices.

> - Uber gets access to bus lanes

IIRC in my city private bus companies that participate in the state public transport scheme already have access to bus lanes and transit corridors.

If uber wants to hang all that regulation around their neck, no issue with them using those bus lanes.

I'm pretty sure that is just your biases talking. Where's the experience elsewhere in the world?

In Buenos Aires there are only privately-operated buses and bus routes. The city did and does build bus lanes. Idk if the bus companies pay a fee to access the bus lanes but I imagine that they must.

You have no idea how amazing the bus network is in Buenos Aires.

I'm not sure I know of any city whose bus lanes work well enough that any substantial degradation would be noticed if Uber used them also. That isn't saying that you don't have a point, buses just don't work that great in the first place (at least bus lanes don't seem to help in the cities I use them in).

That's quite the slippery slope you've made there.

Co-mingling public and private transit seems to work pretty well in places like Europe. Remembering that the only real market for this service is to take drivers off the streets during rush hour - it's hard to see this as compete with city busses or even be a bad thing.

There's already an Uber for mercenaries. https://www.techspot.com/news/106838-protector-uber-guns-app...

> Buses, like Amtrak and pub transit, degrade and degrade and degrade - look how government can’t do anything!

As an LA resident: Public buses degrade just fine without any uber buses. And we seem to lack the political will to fix that.

As for Amtrak: Outside the NE corridor, it's one of the more useless train systems I've seen. Only eclipsed by CA HSR.

Yes, we shouldn't corporatize the commons. But... that requires us to develop the will to actually care about the commons as a polity.

>pub transit degrades bc now it shares service with competition that operates under an entirely different model.

Public transit degrades because bus lanes are now congested with people taking mass transit instead of single cars ... and we don't want this why?

The goal is to get people into taxis/uber, buses, subways, bicycles ... basically anything except a car.

> only one has the revenue model to provide unbiased social good

Yes! All government programs are perfectly efficient and immune against corruption. Why don't people understand this??

> pub transit degrades bc now it shares service with competition that operates under an entirely different model.

Public transit is already extremely degraded, which is why there was an opening for private fixed-route transport. Whether you were born in 1920 or 2000, you can wistfully recall how much better public transportation was when you were a child.

Complaining about private buses doesn't get public transportation funded. Funding public transportation gets public transportation funded.

Much of Japan's train network is privately operated. Japan has some of the best transportation in the world.

Take a look at Brightline. Brightline from Orlando to Miami had 2.7 million riders last year. They're already working on Brightline West from LA to Las Vegas.

I think public transportation infrastructure is great for rural areas. It's similar to USPS serving everyone. But if USPS was the only mail carrier everywhere, package delivery service would be demonstrably worse.

What is wrong with both private and public transportation infrastructure?

>Turning a profit” for public services is the most harebrained meme that is simultaneously deeply damaging and continually propagated by certain folks, to include ITT.

It's not a meme. It's common sense and is how you avoid wasting resources.

Most of BUS lanes in NYC are not fully occupied. 2/3rd of the time they are just sit empty.

But, I agree on the part that they will slow down a bit existing public transportation, but, if Uber served routes that are currently difficult to reach, it has public service as well.

Why would someone pay $10 for the Uber service, meanwhile the local one is just $3? There is a good chance that the local bus doesn't cover certain areas properly, or stops too frequently, making it a slow trip for regular commuters.

Ps. In Europe there is both public and private trains, both running the same tracks. I don't see a problem with this.

*including

And burbclave police already exist.

Otherwise I agree. This is dumb. It also feels like a safety issue, but I can't quite articulate why. Also, private commuter busses already exist that can use bus lanes... But technically it's a service provided by the local transit authority. @uber: get in line with all the other contractors, bub.

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