A report from Associated Press claims conclusively Rides share add to Congestion. I have read many of the studies only skipping over the methodology part. First, I felt the study is a bit disingenuous, peculiarly UCD study which shows a higher of number of car owners using Uber instead of their cars. These studies may count the number of cars but say nothing about the number of car trips saved by Ride sharing. If a single car can do an average of 15 riders a day, that single car is doing the work of 15 cars. I assume these trips save would be single occupancy cars without Ridesharing.
The theses of many of these studies are the number of people optioning out of mass transit for Uber and the money lost. While I an older the demographic I used Uber a lot when I was employed. I cannot afford a car and rely on transit, Uber and to a less extent car rentals and cars sharing like Zipcar. Too often Uber had come to my rescue because the unreliability of the bus, Max and Wes trains. I rather pay more for Uber to get to work on time. Now that I am unemployed I will be telling the recruiters I willing to look at second shift work, in Beaverton because Uber is reliable.
On off rush hour, Transit is impracticable or Uber is safer. Trimet runs less frequently at night or early weekend mornings To get to Church on time for me means getting up at 5:30am and out the door to catch the bus at 6:14am to get to church at 8:05am, but only take me 35 minutes driving or Uber when I can snag a half off promotion. In fact I save an hour off my transit by taking Uber from Hillsboro to Sunset Transit station Sunday because the bus first two runs of Bus 52 on Sunday are 6:14am and 7:01am (ether one hour early to Church or 15 minute late). Other times Uber is more practical for groceries runs than taking transit. I can carry more groceries on Uber, Zipcar or rental cars.
The finally there safety and availability concerns while taking public transit. Because rentals cars were still very expensive I decided to take Max in the morning to the Convention center and Uber back home from Rose City Comic Con because ether the buses stopped or run once an hour, or I did not want to deal the crazies and aggressive homeless on the train at tight.
Yes, Uber is taking rides from transit because people like me stop believing the propaganda of Public Transit, biking and walking is a viable option compared to a car.
