Automated vehicles are coming. This is not something we can stop. People want them, companies are developing them and most agree that at some point in the next 10 to 20 years, they will become the dominant vehicles on the road. What form they ultimately take is still in question, they could be similar to the cars we have today, they could be small buses, they could become smaller single-person transports, moving offices or even mobile retail stores.
The point of all of this is to say that AVs have the potential to completely transform our streets and it’s up to us, as a city, to think these things through. But it’s not all that far off in the future.
Consider Uber and Lyft and the current impact on the Boston area. A study of nearly 1000 ride-hailing customers by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council found that 40 percent would have taken public transit if not for a ride-hailing service and 12 percent would have walked or biked. Most people chose Uber or Lyft for reasons that you’d suspect: convenience and speed. “The responses to those questions provide strong evidence that TNCs are pulling from, not complementing, public transit,” said Alison Felix, the transportation planner who spearheaded the study.
But there is a ripple here in Newton already and it hit us in the same way that it hit New York: taxi medallions. Newton Yellow Cab shut down in August of 2017, then there is this is from the Public Safety and Transportation Committee meeting in December:
Officer [Rocco] Marini then stated that some companies chose not to renew their public auto or taxi licenses, other companies have downsized due to Uber, Lyft and ride share apps. These ride share companies are taking away business from Newton businesses. In Newton, the businesses carry a one million dollar insurance policy and Uber and other vehicles are not regulated.
Officer Marini then stated that according to City Ordinance, the Police Department may issue 81 taxi medallions and 17 public auto medallions according to City population. At this time, 54 medallions are issued for taxis and 4 medallions are issued for public autos. Previously, the Police Department had a 10‐year waiting list for people desiring a medallion; today, there is no waiting period. Officer Marini then stated that this year, no company chose to pay for exclusive taxi stands. These premier locations are now unoccupied, valuable parking spaces and desirable land to the City.
In that quote alone there are issues around city revenue, street use, and insurance. If we don’t take control now we will be left to scramble and catch up.
Full disclosure: I do, in fact, use Lyft (and my family members use Uber) as part of our overall transportation mix. If you are interested in understanding my full transportation mix, I’m happy to discuss.
The horse and buggy industry is also suffering. Perhaps we should restrict the sale of motor vehicles.
Please get out of here with this nonsense, Uber and Lyft make life better for the majority of Newton citizens, especially in the areas in the gaps between the public transit system.
@Yuppie and Jeffrey: I didn’t interpret Chuck’s post as an argument against Uber and Lyft. Rather he’s introducing evidence showing that this transportation transformation has repercussions for our municipalities in the form of lost revenue.
Chuck – I’d be interested in hearing about your transportation mix.
Uber and Lyft make the world a much better place. Thank you, Uber. Thank you, Lyft.
@YuppieScum, I think you’re missing the point. It’s not just about business, but about how we rebuild our cities around this new system. We did it once after the horse and buggy industry went away. In some ways for the better, in others not.
We ripped up streetcar lines in favor of buses. It may have been a good idea, it may not have been, the streetcars competing with single-occupancy vehicles wasn’t ideal, but then again, buses just aren’t the same as those that run on a fixed track. When the gas tax dies, and the excise tax goes away, and the medallions are no longer used, and parking spaces are less in need, and we lose revenue from meters and parking lots, and retail vehicles use our streets as methods of commerce, what will the city get for that? What will the state get for that? These are questions we need to consider.
@Merdith: I occasionally use Lyft, other members of my family also use Uber. We also have two cars, I use the T when going downtown alone, but if we are in a family situation we’ll drive. There is an MBTA bus from my corner which has acted as a primary commuting vehicle when jobs have allowed. I try to bike as often as possible, especially in warmer weather and attempt to use the bike for trips that are within 2 miles of my house. That means food shopping is often by bike. I have a personal goal of using the car mostly when it’s more than one person, but I’m not always successful. My children walk, bike, and take an MBTA bus to school, and they do also receive parental rides in certain circumstances (pouring rain, frigid temps). In other words, we try to use the right mode for the right situation, and that mode doesn’t always default to a car, but we also try to have options.
Chuck as always finds some narrow “evidence” that supports the story he wants to push. Lets look at actual behaviors, not just some random polling.
1. T ridership is unchanged – Slide 9 of T’s statistics (link at bottom)
2. Parking meter revenues are at record high in Boston – http://www.ipsgroupinc.com/tickets-down-parking-meter-revenue-up-in-boston/
So please stop pushing your opinion as the fact. I bike and share cars, but don’t expect others to do so. You on other hand are actively trying to change the public policy and opinion to your flawed perspective. Just Stop!
Real Evidence
T Ridership – https://d3044s2alrsxog.cloudfront.net/uploadedfiles/About_the_T/Board_Meetings/M.%20%20Ridership%20Trends%20Final%20022717.pdf
Instead on focusing on uber changing the landscape, we should instead focus the complete lack of vision and leadership of public transportation in the Boston area.
Those failures have rise to uber. For a liberal city claiming to love the environment, the public transportation infrastructure should be much much better. It should not be faster and easier to drive to work than to take public transportation…
The future that’s being predicted has to do with a drop in car ownership in favor of AVs that offer pay-per-ride. This predicted future also comes with a corresponding drop in the need for parking. Assuming that this is the future, then we as a city put at risk more than $13 million in excise tax revenue, $1.5 million in parking violation revenue and $1.5 in parking meter revenue. http://www.newtonma.gov/civicax/filebank/documents/82264.
In the short term, this revenue isn’t going anywhere. It’s fine and safe, but it could change quickly, and that’s the point of the quotes above.
It’s also worth noting that in the studies referenced in the main post, researchers needed to find different ways to collect data (like surveys) because the ride-hailing companies refuse to share their trip data, even though they use public property (public streets) as a core part of their business model. If we simply requested information in exchange for use, that would be enough to help drive better policy decisions. Instead, we allow them to use public roadways without any sort of exchange.
My goal is not to push people to use a certain mode of transportation for any particular purpose. That’s a personal decision. But I hear people ask for our village centers to be more vibrant, for our traffic to flow better, and for our streets to be safer for pedestrians. All this is possible, but not if we decide that we MUST live ONLY behind the wheel of a car.
I’m not alone in that school of thought. In fact, MassDOT is calling for Complete Streets and providing funding to municipalities to make it a reality. https://www.mass.gov/complete-streets-funding-program. From the website: “A Complete Street is one that provides safe and accessible options for all travel modes – walking, biking, transit and vehicles – for people of all ages and abilities.”
If you want to complain about that, then maybe reach out to Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack. She happens to be a Newton resident.
And @bugek I agree with you. We do need to fix our public transit.
I’m sorry, but this made me laugh: “If you are interested in understanding my full transportation mix, I’m happy to discuss.” And the elaboration was: sometimes we walk, sometimes we ride bikes, sometimes we take public transit, sometimes we use Lyft/Uber, and sometimes we drive because we have two cars. Is that such a unique mix? Our family does the same, albeit I’m less haughty about it than Chuck because it’s simply what works for us.
Even though I feel bad when there’s a loss of jobs and the closure of a Newton business, I can’t bear to take another taxi. Between the inflated prices, the smelly cab, having to pay cash, and having the taxi driver get lost because they don’t use a GPS, there’s really no draw to calling a cab to pick me up.
net net… the regulation of uber/lyft to provide insurance coverage/revenue which has been pointed out to be lost because of taxis not existing shortly should more appropriately be re-homed to a state level issue and then to the extent that road damage is borne by towns/cities it can be provided back as a % or as real travelled data provided by the companies. (what about the gas tax to kWh looming tax crisis)
I think the argument of regulating uber/lyft in the same vein as taxis is misleading because the existing regulation fit the market pattern of business (transactional, no real time anything) where as we need a new look for the opportunities that ride services present (frictionless app based travel).
And the fact that said ride services are autonomous or not is entirely irrelevant. Except eventually to people who make a living driving a vehicle.
@Chuck
I think the far more significant impact on Newton from AVs could be home values and the resulting tax base. Newton’s property values are based on a fairly clear formula of: proximity to Boston + good schools. If AVs make commuting less onerous, as one can use that time more productively, demand for Newton could/should go down.