Uber something less than Alles

[Hot Pepsi]

At least one or two municipalities have gotten rid of the zoning rules that require four or five parking spaces for every new residential unit.

It is a major plank of the YIMBY platform.

Around here, the problem with that policy is that the cars come anyway and take up parking on the streets, so the businesses in those areas don’t like it.

So new apartment buildings have to build some garage space for their residents. I don’t think it’s one to one, though.

Not accommodating cars works better in places where one doesn’t really need a car anyway. Like Boston or Hoboken.

[ursus arctos]

There have been a number of recent studies that have demonstrated that businesses in relatively dense cities significantly over-estimate the percentage of their customers that arrive by car (and underestimate the percentage that arrive on foot, bicycle or via public transport).

[Hot Pepsi]

There have been a number of recent studies that have demonstrated that businesses in relatively dense cities significantly over-estimate the percentage of their customers that arrive by car (and underestimate the percentage that arrive on foot, bicycle or via public transport).

I’m sure that’s true. The kind of people who think parking is their birthright are often vocal about it.

[ursus arctos]

That is exactly the dynamic that frustrates reform

[San Bernardhinault]

That is also often the demographic likely to be, or have the ears of, local politicians. Which also doesn’t help.

[Sporting]

In recent years, since there has been a broadly left-wing administration here, Valencia has embarked on a general policy of bike lanes, restricted parking and extension of pedestrian zones. It's great, but some residents in the casco viejo who previously depended on street parking have found themselves out of luck and having to park far away from their homes. I'd guess that an important number of these people are getting on, so mobility and other issues obviously come into play. Moving shopping from car to apartment, for example. The streets in the centre are often narrow so parking was always a problem and even more so now. There are five or so more times people seeking local parking permits than there are available parking spaces.

[elguapo4]

I'm just back from a weekend in Berlin, which has a top class public transport system, and there's still a whole lot of cars on the road.

[Hot Pepsi]

I'm just back from a weekend in Berlin, which has a top class public transport system, and there's still a whole lot of cars on the road.

Uber is making that worse.

European cities had the advantage of being laid out and built for pedestrians and, I guess, horses, because cars didn't exist when they were made. And it just so happens that's the right density for light-rail.

That's also why transit sorta works pretty well in the oldest US cities in the east and in the oldest parts of other cities, but starting in the middle of the 20th century, we thought - or, more to the point, car companies and lobbyists decided that we thought - that cars were the way to go.

And that was sorta ok when there were only 180m people living here and gas was cheap and we didn't know it was killing the planet and we thought interstates would always be zipping along at 55 mph like in the old newsreels. We also thought everyone should have, or aspire to have, an enormous, watersucking lawn and a two-car garage and plenty of parking at the Mall.

It's very hard to undo all of that.

[Nefertiti2]

Read about how Uber operate

[Snake Plissken]

Amazing how Mandelson, Macron, Osborne et al couldn’t wait to get their snouts in the trough.

[ursus arctos]

Will go down in history as of the classic Third Way grifts

[Sam]

It helps "proper" European cities have densities not known in most of the U.K. Ireland or the States though. Sprawl and the insatiable desire for a garden is the enemy of good public transport.

Dutch city planning is the envy of most of the world, in one of its most densely populated countries. And for the most part it's been carried out from what was a pretty car-centric situation there as recently as 30 years or so ago. I highly recommend the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes, run by a Canadian amateur city planning enthusiast living in Amsterdam. It's fascinating stuff.

[E10 Rifle]

Amazing how Mandelson, Macron, Osborne et al couldn’t wait to get their snouts in the trough.

Amazing as in not-surprising-at-all yeah. An absolute who's who of the West's foremost grifting neoliberal cunts, these revelations, aren't they?

[ad hoc]

My one cognitive dissonance in this is that basically they completely failed to crack Hungary, one of Europe's most corrupt governments

[ursus arctos]

Not a Third Way stronghold

[E10 Rifle]

I was gonna say "nor is Putin's Russia" but actually that's not true at all is it?

[Lang Spoon]

And Ireland. It must have hurt Fine Gael so much they couldn't "disrupt " the taxi licensing model here.

[Hot Pepsi]

Dutch city planning is the envy of most of the world, in one of its most densely populated countries. And for the most part it's been carried out from what was a pretty car-centric situation there as recently as 30 years or so ago. I highly recommend the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes, run by a Canadian amateur city planning enthusiast living in Amsterdam. It's fascinating stuff.

Well, their country is almost underwater. That tends to sharpen ones' focus when trying to build a city. By contrast, much of the US is built on the "we've got so much land. Just put that anywhere and we'll figure out how to get to it later."

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

And Ireland. It must have hurt Fine Gael so much they couldn't "disrupt " the taxi licensing model here.

Uber can't work here. The barriers to entry in the taxi market are so low and basic here, you're as well off being an actual taxi driver. I think in as far as it exists here it's a taxi hailing app.

[Hot Pepsi]

Uber can't work here. The barriers to entry in the taxi market are so low and basic here, you're as well off being an actual taxi driver. I think in as far as it exists here it's a taxi hailing app.

There are taxi-hailing apps now. If Uber had just stuck with doing that, it would have been better, I guess. It is nice not to have to take out a huge wad of cash to pay for a ride from the airport. And it's nice to be able to use the app instead of having to call a dispatcher and then not know when the taxi will arrive.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Uber can't work here. The barriers to entry in the taxi market are so low and basic here, you're as well off being an actual taxi driver. I think in as far as it exists here it's a taxi hailing app.

It's like that here in BC. A cab license costs something like CDN$800,000. There's no way the taxi companies were going to cave easily, even though Uber fought tooth and nail to open the window. They "won" eventually, but in practice it's going to be hard for them to operate as they have elsewhere.

At this time to allow Uber to operate in the Vancouver area, the planned rules require an Uber driver to have the same drivers license as a taxi and the same insurance as a taxi. They may also have to meet the same standards for safety inspections and the drivers will have to be able to make at least the provincial minimum wage after all their expenses. A bit over $12 an hour. Uber will have to treat them as employees and not independent contractors if they drive over 32 hours a week or so.

This is because Uber is no longer a "ride sharing service" where people give rides to others to where they are going anyway and has become an unlicensed taxi service with full time drivers.

Basically there's no advantage to being an Uber driver rather than a taxi driver.

[Lang Spoon]

Uber can't work here. The barriers to entry in the taxi market are so low and basic here, you're as well off being an actual taxi driver. I think in as far as it exists here it's a taxi hailing app.

Yep but they tried to have Inda break the requirement for all drivers to have a taxi license, FG would have done so in the name of consumer rights and choice had they not fucked up the 2016 election.

[Lang Spoon]

Also Fuckface Leo just last month:

"One thing I would like us to look at again quite frankly in Ireland is the whole issue of Uber and Lyft for example,” he said.

“What I find is, when you go to other countries you have other options than a taxi — whether it is public transport and you also have things like Uber and things like Lyft.

“They are just not available in Ireland in the same way and maybe we need to look at that again and see if we can liberalise that.”

[Lang Spoon]

Quite frankly I wish the cunt had the cuffs on him, but hey ho who am I to cast aspersions on the independence of the DPP process.

[caja-dglh]

It's like that here in BC. A cab license costs something like CDN$800,000. There's no way the taxi companies were going to cave easily, even though Uber fought tooth and nail to open the window. They "won" eventually, but in practice it's going to be hard for them to operate as they have elsewhere.

New York cab drivers got obliterated. It went from $1 million+ to $80,000.