Brooklynite here. In theory, I want to be behind taxi drivers. They're a local business owners with ties in the community, and I would rather support them than a Silicon Valley startup with a questionable stance on privacy and poor treatment of their workers.
In reality though, taxis need to fix a few issues:
1. I don't need to be able to hail a cab anywhere--I can't really hail Ubers, either. But if I call a cab, I'd like to have them show up within, say, 15 minutes. The reality is that the explicit promise given by dispatchers is usually an hour, and after an hour, the taxi often doesn't show up. And if I am in an inconvenient area, the time I most need to call a cab, that increases the chances of lateness or no-shows. This could be fixed by fining taxis for lateness or no-shows.
2. Auto-playing ads in taxis. The last thing I want after a long day is a screen yelling at me about some TV show I would rather have a root canal than watch. Unfortunately, it seems more likely that Uber will add ads than that taxis will get rid of them, and I don't see a way to prevent this. Advertising ruins everything.
3. Taxis that will actually take you somewhere inconvenient without a fight. When I lived in Flatbush, most cab rides started off with me having to threaten to call 311 to get them to take me home.
4. Racism. As a white person in a black neighborhood, I've watched black people try to flag cabs and almost universally the cabs just drive past empty. I've gotten in the habit of flagging cabs for black people, and even after the cab stops, sometimes when they realize that it's a black person getting in the cab instead of me, they drive off.
I agree with everything you've said. I live in a Chicago neighborhood people might describe as "sketchy," and while cabbies were fine driving me there, getting a cab from my neighborhood was and is an exercise in futility.
Before ridesharing became common, I had the same experience flagging cabs for black people. One time I watched several cabs drive past a young black woman with a child in a stroller. I stood slightly up the block from her, and flagged a cab for her. The cabbie drove off with their trunk open after they realized that I had flagged them for the mother rather than for myself.
I've actually experienced problems getting Ubers and Lyfts in my neighborhood as well though. I live close to a highway, and I'll often get drivers who are on the highway heading westbound, towards one of the wealthiest suburbs in the Chicago area. I'll watch on my map as they "miss" several exits in a row and keep heading west. I've kept my map open long enough to watch them get off on the exit for the nice suburb. With Lyft and Uber, I have a recourse though, because I know their name, and I can watch where they actually end up.
I've noticed that as time has gone on, more and more of the drivers are from my neighborhood or other similar neighborhoods nearby. This has become one of my favorite things about ride sharing. My neighborhood has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the United States. In certain areas, more than half of the young adult males are unemployed. Lyft and Uber, and the gig economy, have created access to economic opportunities that they wouldn't have otherwise had.
That being said, I think "gig employment" is a poor replacement for normal (W4) jobs, since they don't come with the same legal protections and benefits.
> I've gotten in the habit of flagging cabs for black people, and even after the cab stops, sometimes when they realize that it's a black person getting in the cab instead of me, they drive off.
Good on you. This is terrible - I've never been to NYC but I always hear from black people down there how difficult it is to flag a cab. Wasn't aware that it was still happening to this extent in 2016. The fact that the cab stops and then it drives away right after they find out it's not you entering is disgusting. To be honest I'd rather they drive away than I give my hard earned money to a person or corporation that clearly looks down on me and hates me to such an extent that they are willing to NOT take my money. You say Uber offers a solution to this - what is it? Meh, maybe I'm pessimistic but I don't believe any company (not even AirBnb) can provide enough incentives to mitigate this kind of stuff happening.
I'd just like to another: The confidence of knowing that the driver will get me where I need to go. I have, on more than one occasion, gotten in a cab in Williamsburg (which is in Brooklyn), asked to go to Park Slope (also in Brooklyn) and after staring at my phone for a while, looked up to find myself on a bridge headed to Manhattan (not in Brooklyn and not on the way between the two).
With Uber, I punch in my destination before even getting in the car and they just follow GPS. No cabbies that don't know the city making mistakes and no sitting in unnecessary traffic jams that technology could have helped me avoid.
Now when I'm in a proper cab, I have to be on constant high alert to make sure that they're going the right way if not giving them turn-by-turn directions on my own.
> But if I call a cab, I'd like to have them show up within, say, 15 minutes. The reality is that the explicit promise given by dispatchers is usually an hour,
> and after an hour, the taxi often doesn't show up
Out of curiosity, who are you calling that has these long response times? This reads strangely since you're saying cab/taxi, yet there's no way to call for an NYC yellow cab on the phone... only car services, which are independent companies.
In my experience, nearby Brooklyn car services send cars in 5 to 10 minutes in neighborhoods closer to Manhattan, or maybe around 15 minutes in more far-flung neighborhoods where the car services have smaller fleets. You just have to figure out which car services are physically located in the neighborhood you're in. e.g. call Arecibo from Park Slope where they're based, but don't call them from Coney Island because it's unlikely any of their drivers are there at the moment.
I agree with all of you points.
However, most taxi drivers are just leasing the taxi though from the medallion owners. The medallion owners are the small business owners. That being said I do wonder if more medallion owners drove their own taxis if the things you mentioned would change.
This is an interesting read on the medallion/leasing system if anyone is interested:
Uber is often locally-owned to the same extent. In both cases, the driver is your neighbor. Uber takes its cut, but the taxi medallion owner who rents the car to the driver might be taking a much bigger cut. Every driver I've met who has made the switch from taxi to Uber/Lyft says they're happier now and earning more.
The only folks you should feel sad about are the drivers who decided to take a loan to buy their own medallion. Those are the folks who need a hand because of the catastrophic collapse of their investment. But hey, that's what bankruptcy is for. Do you feel like failed restauranteurs deserve a bailout?
When I moved to New York a few years ago all it took was a handful of taxi rides to figure out that Uber will eventually put them out of the business. I've had drivers lie about not knowing where to go, intentionally take longer routes, and lie about credit card machines while trying to get rides from New York to Brooklyn, or Brooklyn to Brooklyn. To add insult to injury nearly every single cab is filthy and smells horrible, while costing the same if not more than an Uber ride.
Important point: while costing to the customer the same, if not more. The result? Uber operating at huge losses. The result of that? Well, austerity measures. You can already see the signs of Uber starting to clamp down and make their service worse and worse.
Recommended pickup locations -> No longer door to door?
Assigning next rides before the previous one has completed -> No longer "feeling like a baller" while your driver is fielding calls from other customers with you still in the car
Wait times have been getting demonstrably worse all over Manhattan, probably elsewhere too
General quality of car/driver has been in decline since Uber started, in part precisely because of their putting cabs out of business. What's your cab driver going to do when he decides it's not worth driving a cab anymore because of Uber? Duh, work for Uber.
There's no comparison right now, but there will be soon.
I'm never going to use Uber again except for business travel due to their nice tie-in with business accounts. Personal travel? Nope. In NYC I use Juno and elsewhere I'll use Lyft, Hailo, or any number of local alternatives.
I can tell you that among Black people in Brooklyn, Uber was a god-send. Cabs would outright lie as mentioned above, refuse to take you to certain boroughs, refuse to pick you up from Manhattan, etc.
Agreed that the cab experience is about half as good, but for about the same price.
Really a no-brainer. Everyone here uses AND loves Uber. I and a lot of my friends spend at least $100/mo outside of work commute costs.
I take cabs all the time (in Manhattan). I can't remember the last time I've been in one that's "filthy" or where the driver didn't take cards. All are pretty recent model cars with those screens in the back.
In contrast to that, in Los Angeles, Uber drivers quite often are not familiar with the area they serve, so they are glued to their navigation apps. This can not only create unsafe driving conditions, but sometimes can cause an Uber ride to take twice as long as a taxi ride.
If convenience, comfort, and customer service are not a priority, and I just need to get somewhere fast, the taxi is still the way to go.
With respect, I find these stories hard to believe. I've been in a very large number of NY taxis and very rarely had these experiences. Cabs aren't problem-free or pristine, but they are almost universally clean enough and very functional.
The cab driver doesn't want a bad-smelling, filthy cab either; they work in it, it affects their income, and the great majority are responsible, reasonable people.
Why would anyone believe otherwise? I think there's some class-based stereotyping here - maybe not in the parent comment, but in these comments generally - cabs are working class, Uber is professional class. Working class is the 'other' to many professional people; something foreign, unknown, and scary.
So, for context, yellow taxis run "anywhere" but in practice, they are somewhat rare anywhere but lower Manhattan and at the airports.
Green taxis, a new category, are only permitted to pick up hails outside of lower Manhattan. They're useful for going between outer boroughs but are reluctant or unwilling to take you to lower Manhattan because they can't pick up a hail there.
There is also another, long-standing category known as "car service", where a central dispatcher reached by phone sends you a towncar/minivan/SUV either at a scheduled time (say, for an early flight or your regular work commute), or as soon as possible. Like Uber, they may have an "account" for you so you don't need to provide payment information to the driver, but nowadays many of them have Stripe too. Prices are arguably better for airport rides than cabs.
I live in Central Brooklyn and my impression is that there are far more Uber "U"s than any of the other categories, at least in my neighborhood.
Surely you are joking? Your evidence in the "difference" is a shutterstock video clip and a jpeg? I don't even understand what you are trying to show. I see plenty of taxis in both.
"If you were to teleport a Manhattanite from 2006 to 2016 I think they'd be shocked to see the large number of non-yellow cabs on NYC streets."
They would be shocked? Shocked to see the presence of something that didn't even exist a decade earlier?
What might "astonish" a Manhattanite is the fact that there are there are so many more taxis on the street now than there were is 2006, and this increase is year over year for the last decade. Example in 2014 there 48,580 taxis in 2015 the last year for which there is data there were 63,261 taxis. It's never been easier to get a cab.
I'd love to see a similiar study for Chicago. The cabs here are, at best, customer hostile and at worst dangerous. My wife is sexually harassed by drivers or is on the receiving end of political talk. Complaint calls go ignored and every cab request is a like playing psycho whack-a-mole. One time I had to walk out of my home with a weapon to make sure my wife was able to get out of her cab safely as the driver kept pressuring her to get out a block away and to be 'helped out.' Oh, the CPD couldn't care less about these kinds of things.
Worse, there's a $1 'gas surcharge' for every single ride that was voted in a few years back when gas prices got high. So, a 8 block ride in a Prius means I have to pay an extra $1 in gas? Its incredible how corrupt the entire system is, especially considering how the meters here run on both time and distance and a tip is expected. What should be a $5 ride via a sharing service like uber, turns out to be $10+ with tip and charges. That's on top of inconveniences like loud auto-playing ads in the back of the taxi and constantly being pressured to pay cash or with the driver's swipe account on their personal cell phone (not sure if this is easily read by card reader apps, but shortly after I do this I often have fraud warnings).
Thus far our uber rides have been pretty low stress and problem-free. Its mostly younger people from the suburbs looking to make some extra cash. I think driver screening and taking complaints seriously is something uber can do to differentiate itself. I'd say a good 25% of cab drivers in the city have serious mental health issues, if not are wanna-be criminals, and should not be allowed behind the wheel. I think the narrative of safety is often ignored with the cab vs uber debate, but its important to many.
Brooklyn has always been underserved by Taxis. Brooklyn has traditionally been the domain of "black cars" which are premium private livery services. So this isn't saying very much. Also he author states:
"October 12, 2015 marked the first day that Uber made more pickups in Brooklyn than yellow and green taxis combined."
First of yellow cabs don't operate in Brooklyn, the only way to get a yellow cab in Brooklyn is to happen to catch one who just finished dropping someone off on a Manhattan to Brooklyn fare and happens to have his "on duty light on." The will generally on put this light on if they aren't too far into Brooklyn as they don't want to continue further in.
Yes there are geen "Boro cabs" that were introduced in 2013 but even these underserve much of the outer boroughs so again this says less about Uber and more about the Boro Taxis failings in Brooklyn. Source:
I'm going to give my two anecdotal experiences that caused me to no longer feel bad about using uber over taxis.
When I was in Miami, I decided to use a cab from the airport instead of an uber, because the cab was already there. The seatbelts in the back seat didn't work, which the driver assured me was legal in miami. It is legal, but definitely not preferable. He drove me to my hotel, told me the price was 35 dollars, which seemed a little steep, so I checked the meter and found that he hadn't run it. I guess he drove me to the hotel and thought to himself "That felt like about 35 bucks".
When I took an uber from my hotel to the airport a few days later, it was 10 dollars, and the seatbelts worked fine.
The second one, just a few weeks ago, is only related to price. Richmond airport taxi ride to short pump, 70 dollars. Uber from short pump back to the airport? 30.
I understand that uber is operating at a loss, but that still makes it cheaper for users, so just because it's likely going to cost more in the future, isn't going to stop me from using it now.
> depending on where you live there is no guarantee a taxi is around the corner
Exactly. You go to a warehouse party in East Williamsburg and it's 5 AM and feel like going home. The public transit situation in Brooklyn would make that trip take a while (wait 20 minutes for the L, get off, wait 20 minutes for the G, or alternatively wait an hour for the next bus). And what kind of yellow cab is going to hang around an industrial district waiting for a fare? Uber wins every time.
It's the density thing. The taxi model works well enough in Manhattan because there are enough people around the hot spots to provide off-the-street fares. A lot of things that work in Manhattan don't always transfer easily to the lower-density reality of the rest of the city/country.
I don't know about Brooklyn, but when I was traveling in India, Uber was a lifesaver.
In the past, you had to leave your dwelling to venture out into the streets, looking for the auto-rickshaws ("tuk-tuk"s). Then you had to haggle with them about the price (no one used a meter). Then, only if they felt like it was worth it, they'd agree to take you there.
With uber, you tap the app and the ride appears outside your door. No haggling about the fare. Since Uber pays them by the ride (and not the distance), it's in their interest to get you to your destination faster. And my Uber app that I installed in US worked flawlessly. All in all, it made taking taxis a totally different experience.
In China, Didi (acquired Uber China recently) drivers is more than ten times as the taxis: 14 million vs. 1.35 million. It operates in more than 360 cities.
Uber really doesn't have that great of a value proposition in NYC IMHO. While Uber provides a huge value add in most markets via markedly lower rates and the convenience of not finding a taxi, this is not the case in NYC. Drivers still need to be licensed by the taxi commission so rides end up being more or less the same cost all in with the 20% tip as a normal yellow cab. More importantly, a cab is often the worst way to get from point a to point b in Manhattan. The subway and/or the bikesharing program, Citi bike, are generally the fastest ways to get around from 8AM to 8PM. Even if a cab/uber is going to be your best option, cabs are generally always available within a minute or two of waiting on any Manhattan corner while Ubers usually take 5-10 minutes to arrive depending on traffic and the time of day. It really boils down to population density. NYC is simply too dense to give Uber a logistical advantage like the majority of its markets.
I mostly agree for lower and midtown Manhattan, but NYC is much, much bigger than that. Elsewhere cabs are far less frequent, and subways less likely to be the fastest route (especially during weekend and late night service).
Until Uber is cheaper than the subway (maybe with self-driving cars?), I totally agree that taking the subway in NYC generally makes more sense. But compared to taking a taxi, Uber is a way better experience. In taxis I'm always stressed out the whole time making sure that the driver isn't going the long way to jack up the fare.
Why should I care if Uber succeeds? I care if drivers succeed, whether taxi, Uber, Lyft, bus, or otherwise. How are the drivers doing in NY? (I don't need the Uber PR version.)
Uber goes out of its way to say it doesn't care about workers, my community, or our rules. Why should I care about them?
Are there really only ~2x the green cabs in Brooklyn? They're everywhere in Astoria/LIC in Queens - maybe because of the airports?
Edit: also worth noting that green cab drivers often drive for Uber/Lyft as well. It makes a lot more sense for them since they're typically owner-operators.
It's because Astoria/LIC has seen a large population density increase. Look at all of the new high rises along the East River and Astoria because its slightly cheaper because it doesn't have the cachet of Brooklyn.
It's also worth noting and evident on the map I linked to that when people talk about Brooklyn in many contexts(uber, hipsters, nightlife etc.) they are only ever talking about a small subset of Brooklyn which is strip generally nearer river that extends from Greenpoint to Redhook. They are almost never talking about the majority of Brooklyn - East New York, Dyker Heights, Canarsie , the Flatlands etc. Brooklyn as the city's largest borough is huge. Brooklyn is actually the 4th largest city in the U.S.
Yeah, green cabs are much more common in BK than Queens - higher concentration of nightlife and such. Hit up Williamsburg on a going-out night and see the traffic jams full of green cabs.
Concentration of green cabs scales with gentrification - Brooklyn has gentrified to a greater degree than Queens.
This. This chart is not that relevant, even with green cabs. I'd be wary of drawing conclusions from this data in regards to Brooklyn as a whole.
A more interesting comparison would be Uber to Gipsy/black cars. Those are going down in droves as the drivers move on to Uber and Lyft. Not a big impact for the drivers themselves, I suppose, but I've seen a lot of those little, "local" black car telephone stations closing down. No point in calling someone and waiting an indeterminate amount of time for a car when you can use an app and see where the guy is.
That impact is probably just much harder to measure though since everything, especially the payment, is a lot more informal.
I use Uber when I occasionally take taxis in Boston, but I never used in NYC. It takes longer to hail an Uber and squint at a hunch of license plate numbers in the dark looking for your driver than it does to hail a cab. There's cabs everywhere.
As somebody who lives in a suburban/ruralish area where cab service was practically nonexistent (one or two cab companies, with maybe a half-dozen vehicles total, to service an area of 100+ square miles), Uber has been a godsend.
[+] [-] imagist|9 years ago|reply
In reality though, taxis need to fix a few issues:
1. I don't need to be able to hail a cab anywhere--I can't really hail Ubers, either. But if I call a cab, I'd like to have them show up within, say, 15 minutes. The reality is that the explicit promise given by dispatchers is usually an hour, and after an hour, the taxi often doesn't show up. And if I am in an inconvenient area, the time I most need to call a cab, that increases the chances of lateness or no-shows. This could be fixed by fining taxis for lateness or no-shows.
2. Auto-playing ads in taxis. The last thing I want after a long day is a screen yelling at me about some TV show I would rather have a root canal than watch. Unfortunately, it seems more likely that Uber will add ads than that taxis will get rid of them, and I don't see a way to prevent this. Advertising ruins everything.
3. Taxis that will actually take you somewhere inconvenient without a fight. When I lived in Flatbush, most cab rides started off with me having to threaten to call 311 to get them to take me home.
4. Racism. As a white person in a black neighborhood, I've watched black people try to flag cabs and almost universally the cabs just drive past empty. I've gotten in the habit of flagging cabs for black people, and even after the cab stops, sometimes when they realize that it's a black person getting in the cab instead of me, they drive off.
[+] [-] Declanomous|9 years ago|reply
Before ridesharing became common, I had the same experience flagging cabs for black people. One time I watched several cabs drive past a young black woman with a child in a stroller. I stood slightly up the block from her, and flagged a cab for her. The cabbie drove off with their trunk open after they realized that I had flagged them for the mother rather than for myself.
I've actually experienced problems getting Ubers and Lyfts in my neighborhood as well though. I live close to a highway, and I'll often get drivers who are on the highway heading westbound, towards one of the wealthiest suburbs in the Chicago area. I'll watch on my map as they "miss" several exits in a row and keep heading west. I've kept my map open long enough to watch them get off on the exit for the nice suburb. With Lyft and Uber, I have a recourse though, because I know their name, and I can watch where they actually end up.
I've noticed that as time has gone on, more and more of the drivers are from my neighborhood or other similar neighborhoods nearby. This has become one of my favorite things about ride sharing. My neighborhood has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the United States. In certain areas, more than half of the young adult males are unemployed. Lyft and Uber, and the gig economy, have created access to economic opportunities that they wouldn't have otherwise had.
That being said, I think "gig employment" is a poor replacement for normal (W4) jobs, since they don't come with the same legal protections and benefits.
[+] [-] stuxnet79|9 years ago|reply
Good on you. This is terrible - I've never been to NYC but I always hear from black people down there how difficult it is to flag a cab. Wasn't aware that it was still happening to this extent in 2016. The fact that the cab stops and then it drives away right after they find out it's not you entering is disgusting. To be honest I'd rather they drive away than I give my hard earned money to a person or corporation that clearly looks down on me and hates me to such an extent that they are willing to NOT take my money. You say Uber offers a solution to this - what is it? Meh, maybe I'm pessimistic but I don't believe any company (not even AirBnb) can provide enough incentives to mitigate this kind of stuff happening.
[+] [-] prophetjohn|9 years ago|reply
I'd just like to another: The confidence of knowing that the driver will get me where I need to go. I have, on more than one occasion, gotten in a cab in Williamsburg (which is in Brooklyn), asked to go to Park Slope (also in Brooklyn) and after staring at my phone for a while, looked up to find myself on a bridge headed to Manhattan (not in Brooklyn and not on the way between the two).
With Uber, I punch in my destination before even getting in the car and they just follow GPS. No cabbies that don't know the city making mistakes and no sitting in unnecessary traffic jams that technology could have helped me avoid.
Now when I'm in a proper cab, I have to be on constant high alert to make sure that they're going the right way if not giving them turn-by-turn directions on my own.
[+] [-] evanelias|9 years ago|reply
Out of curiosity, who are you calling that has these long response times? This reads strangely since you're saying cab/taxi, yet there's no way to call for an NYC yellow cab on the phone... only car services, which are independent companies.
In my experience, nearby Brooklyn car services send cars in 5 to 10 minutes in neighborhoods closer to Manhattan, or maybe around 15 minutes in more far-flung neighborhoods where the car services have smaller fleets. You just have to figure out which car services are physically located in the neighborhood you're in. e.g. call Arecibo from Park Slope where they're based, but don't call them from Coney Island because it's unlikely any of their drivers are there at the moment.
[+] [-] bogomipz|9 years ago|reply
This is an interesting read on the medallion/leasing system if anyone is interested:
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/12/taxicab-med...
[+] [-] CptJamesCook|9 years ago|reply
This is actually one of most convincing pro-Uber comments I've ever seen.
[+] [-] malandrew|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xapata|9 years ago|reply
Uber is often locally-owned to the same extent. In both cases, the driver is your neighbor. Uber takes its cut, but the taxi medallion owner who rents the car to the driver might be taking a much bigger cut. Every driver I've met who has made the switch from taxi to Uber/Lyft says they're happier now and earning more.
The only folks you should feel sad about are the drivers who decided to take a loan to buy their own medallion. Those are the folks who need a hand because of the catastrophic collapse of their investment. But hey, that's what bankruptcy is for. Do you feel like failed restauranteurs deserve a bailout?
[+] [-] jasonbarone|9 years ago|reply
There's just no comparison here.
[+] [-] ethanbond|9 years ago|reply
Recommended pickup locations -> No longer door to door?
Assigning next rides before the previous one has completed -> No longer "feeling like a baller" while your driver is fielding calls from other customers with you still in the car
Wait times have been getting demonstrably worse all over Manhattan, probably elsewhere too
General quality of car/driver has been in decline since Uber started, in part precisely because of their putting cabs out of business. What's your cab driver going to do when he decides it's not worth driving a cab anymore because of Uber? Duh, work for Uber.
There's no comparison right now, but there will be soon.
I'm never going to use Uber again except for business travel due to their nice tie-in with business accounts. Personal travel? Nope. In NYC I use Juno and elsewhere I'll use Lyft, Hailo, or any number of local alternatives.
[+] [-] djtriptych|9 years ago|reply
Agreed that the cab experience is about half as good, but for about the same price.
Really a no-brainer. Everyone here uses AND loves Uber. I and a lot of my friends spend at least $100/mo outside of work commute costs.
source: I'm a black person in Brooklyn.
[+] [-] rayiner|9 years ago|reply
Maybe its different in the boroughs?
[+] [-] brendoncrawford|9 years ago|reply
If convenience, comfort, and customer service are not a priority, and I just need to get somewhere fast, the taxi is still the way to go.
[+] [-] hackuser|9 years ago|reply
The cab driver doesn't want a bad-smelling, filthy cab either; they work in it, it affects their income, and the great majority are responsible, reasonable people.
Why would anyone believe otherwise? I think there's some class-based stereotyping here - maybe not in the parent comment, but in these comments generally - cabs are working class, Uber is professional class. Working class is the 'other' to many professional people; something foreign, unknown, and scary.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kylebgorman|9 years ago|reply
Green taxis, a new category, are only permitted to pick up hails outside of lower Manhattan. They're useful for going between outer boroughs but are reluctant or unwilling to take you to lower Manhattan because they can't pick up a hail there.
There is also another, long-standing category known as "car service", where a central dispatcher reached by phone sends you a towncar/minivan/SUV either at a scheduled time (say, for an early flight or your regular work commute), or as soon as possible. Like Uber, they may have an "account" for you so you don't need to provide payment information to the driver, but nowadays many of them have Stripe too. Prices are arguably better for airport rides than cabs.
I live in Central Brooklyn and my impression is that there are far more Uber "U"s than any of the other categories, at least in my neighborhood.
[+] [-] kylebgorman|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MattRogish|9 years ago|reply
Manhattan 2006: http://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-2475317-stock-footage...
Manhattan now(ish): http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.12078243.1469201706!/ht...
If you were to teleport a Manhattanite from 2006 to 2016 I think they'd be shocked to see the large number of non-yellow cabs on NYC streets.
Regardless of how you feel about Uber-the-entity, the mark it's made on NYC streets is undeniable.
[+] [-] agumonkey|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bogomipz|9 years ago|reply
"If you were to teleport a Manhattanite from 2006 to 2016 I think they'd be shocked to see the large number of non-yellow cabs on NYC streets."
They would be shocked? Shocked to see the presence of something that didn't even exist a decade earlier?
What might "astonish" a Manhattanite is the fact that there are there are so many more taxis on the street now than there were is 2006, and this increase is year over year for the last decade. Example in 2014 there 48,580 taxis in 2015 the last year for which there is data there were 63,261 taxis. It's never been easier to get a cab.
source city data: http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/hail_market_analys...
[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|9 years ago|reply
Worse, there's a $1 'gas surcharge' for every single ride that was voted in a few years back when gas prices got high. So, a 8 block ride in a Prius means I have to pay an extra $1 in gas? Its incredible how corrupt the entire system is, especially considering how the meters here run on both time and distance and a tip is expected. What should be a $5 ride via a sharing service like uber, turns out to be $10+ with tip and charges. That's on top of inconveniences like loud auto-playing ads in the back of the taxi and constantly being pressured to pay cash or with the driver's swipe account on their personal cell phone (not sure if this is easily read by card reader apps, but shortly after I do this I often have fraud warnings).
Thus far our uber rides have been pretty low stress and problem-free. Its mostly younger people from the suburbs looking to make some extra cash. I think driver screening and taking complaints seriously is something uber can do to differentiate itself. I'd say a good 25% of cab drivers in the city have serious mental health issues, if not are wanna-be criminals, and should not be allowed behind the wheel. I think the narrative of safety is often ignored with the cab vs uber debate, but its important to many.
[+] [-] bogomipz|9 years ago|reply
"October 12, 2015 marked the first day that Uber made more pickups in Brooklyn than yellow and green taxis combined."
First of yellow cabs don't operate in Brooklyn, the only way to get a yellow cab in Brooklyn is to happen to catch one who just finished dropping someone off on a Manhattan to Brooklyn fare and happens to have his "on duty light on." The will generally on put this light on if they aren't too far into Brooklyn as they don't want to continue further in.
Yes there are geen "Boro cabs" that were introduced in 2013 but even these underserve much of the outer boroughs so again this says less about Uber and more about the Boro Taxis failings in Brooklyn. Source:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/new-yorks-green-cabs-stay...
[+] [-] bananabill|9 years ago|reply
When I was in Miami, I decided to use a cab from the airport instead of an uber, because the cab was already there. The seatbelts in the back seat didn't work, which the driver assured me was legal in miami. It is legal, but definitely not preferable. He drove me to my hotel, told me the price was 35 dollars, which seemed a little steep, so I checked the meter and found that he hadn't run it. I guess he drove me to the hotel and thought to himself "That felt like about 35 bucks".
When I took an uber from my hotel to the airport a few days later, it was 10 dollars, and the seatbelts worked fine.
The second one, just a few weeks ago, is only related to price. Richmond airport taxi ride to short pump, 70 dollars. Uber from short pump back to the airport? 30.
I understand that uber is operating at a loss, but that still makes it cheaper for users, so just because it's likely going to cost more in the future, isn't going to stop me from using it now.
[+] [-] jy1|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Tan__|9 years ago|reply
For one it usually costs less. And two, depending on where you live there is no guarantee a taxi is around the corner. Uber is more convenient.
[+] [-] Nav_Panel|9 years ago|reply
Exactly. You go to a warehouse party in East Williamsburg and it's 5 AM and feel like going home. The public transit situation in Brooklyn would make that trip take a while (wait 20 minutes for the L, get off, wait 20 minutes for the G, or alternatively wait an hour for the next bus). And what kind of yellow cab is going to hang around an industrial district waiting for a fare? Uber wins every time.
It's the density thing. The taxi model works well enough in Manhattan because there are enough people around the hot spots to provide off-the-street fares. A lot of things that work in Manhattan don't always transfer easily to the lower-density reality of the rest of the city/country.
[+] [-] 1024core|9 years ago|reply
In the past, you had to leave your dwelling to venture out into the streets, looking for the auto-rickshaws ("tuk-tuk"s). Then you had to haggle with them about the price (no one used a meter). Then, only if they felt like it was worth it, they'd agree to take you there.
With uber, you tap the app and the ride appears outside your door. No haggling about the fare. Since Uber pays them by the ride (and not the distance), it's in their interest to get you to your destination faster. And my Uber app that I installed in US worked flawlessly. All in all, it made taking taxis a totally different experience.
[+] [-] turingbook|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HoyaSaxa|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ceras|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] falsestprophet|9 years ago|reply
Uber offers $5 shared rides anywhere in Manhattan during communing hours.
[+] [-] mkolodny|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] awad|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hackuser|9 years ago|reply
Uber goes out of its way to say it doesn't care about workers, my community, or our rules. Why should I care about them?
[+] [-] madgar|9 years ago|reply
Edit: also worth noting that green cab drivers often drive for Uber/Lyft as well. It makes a lot more sense for them since they're typically owner-operators.
[+] [-] bogomipz|9 years ago|reply
It's also worth noting and evident on the map I linked to that when people talk about Brooklyn in many contexts(uber, hipsters, nightlife etc.) they are only ever talking about a small subset of Brooklyn which is strip generally nearer river that extends from Greenpoint to Redhook. They are almost never talking about the majority of Brooklyn - East New York, Dyker Heights, Canarsie , the Flatlands etc. Brooklyn as the city's largest borough is huge. Brooklyn is actually the 4th largest city in the U.S.
[+] [-] potatolicious|9 years ago|reply
Concentration of green cabs scales with gentrification - Brooklyn has gentrified to a greater degree than Queens.
[+] [-] kchoudhu|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whatever_dude|9 years ago|reply
A more interesting comparison would be Uber to Gipsy/black cars. Those are going down in droves as the drivers move on to Uber and Lyft. Not a big impact for the drivers themselves, I suppose, but I've seen a lot of those little, "local" black car telephone stations closing down. No point in calling someone and waiting an indeterminate amount of time for a car when you can use an app and see where the guy is.
That impact is probably just much harder to measure though since everything, especially the payment, is a lot more informal.
[+] [-] artursapek|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wcummings|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] douche|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gjolund|9 years ago|reply
I feel like there has been a post like this on the front page of HN every day for the past couple years.
[+] [-] sharemywin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] salamisultan|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] AncoraImparo|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]