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kccqzy • today at 3:13 PM • 5 replies • view on HN

Many cities already fund taxis. The city of Sunnyvale provides a taxi service under the name of Beam for $3.50 per ride. It does not seem like a big stretch to extend this to food and grocery delivery.

If you don’t want to be taxed for some service, you can always choose to vote to get rid of that service or move to a place without that service. I welcome more experimentation in municipal services.


Replies

paxy • today at 3:26 PM

Cool I don’t want to pay for those either. Spend tax dollars on mass transit.

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fhn • today at 3:36 PM

personal chauffeur to work and back home for $7 everyday? Not a bad deal. Google says insurance is $180/month(higher end) or $6/day. Add gas, registration, maintenance and this is a good bargain.

Buttons840 • today at 4:08 PM

If the government is going to get involved here, I would regulate companies like DoorDash or Uber to require them to provide company vehicles to drivers.

When DoorDash drivers subtract vehicle wear and tear, fuel, depreciation, and maintenance from their earnings, their net hourly pay frequently drops below the standard minimum wage.

DoorDash benefits from desperate people who slowly transform their vehicle into cash by laboring thousands of hours. They could have just sold the car; either way they end up with cash but no car.

People need to pay rent, so they look at their capital, owning a car, and then trade away that capital for less than it's worth, and a few years later they are worse off, but at least they made rent for those months.

mtoner23 • today at 3:21 PM

transportation is treated as a necessity to a good life. I'm not sure restaurant delivery should be treated the same.