I'd be interested in hearing more about the claims made at the beginning of the article and the sources of those.
I moved to SF in 2012 when uber was barely a thing (still only black cars) and haven't noticed the traffic being worst.
I've also not noticed any parking spots that are now free (but even if this happened, isn't that a good sign?).
To the opposite, and again my own sources are biased since I worked at Uber for a while (i'm not anymore), but I've heard a lot of studies proving the opposite - reduced traffic, better for the environment, etc.
As an example, I googled "how many cars per day in SF" and the first thing I found is that 110 000 cars cross the golden gate bridge alone. I'd assume the Bay bridge is seeing at least that if not twice. So the argument that 5700 more cars because of Uber and Lyft in the city are the cause of traffic seems a little short sighted.
It's also the same argument that was made by De Blasio a few years ago about NYC and studies proved that it was false.
I'm not saying the article is lying or anything, and again, I'm very biased, I'm just surprised to see an article from Engadget making such claims without links to sources/studies. The author saying "I'd realized congestion in San Francisco had gone insane" doesn't convince me this is particularly true...
Everyone who is driving contributes to congestion, this includes but is hardly limited to Uber and Lyft drivers.
This idea that one single subset of driver's is responsible is kind of absurd.
Furthermore, the amount of construction that takes forever causes tons of problems. For example, Van Ness alone has been a total cluster for more than a year now and there's no sign that it will be concluded any time soon.
The same writer would likely be happy to defend the point of view that if you don't like how a platform is treating you, like banning you for your views, then you can just leave.
This article is all over the place. It just felt like complaint soup.
They start on about Uber and Lyft causing increased traffic and then turn to complain about the tech busses (a measure to reduce traffic!) in the same breath.
I don't really see what the Facebook ads story adds to the local politics angle.
Did the author have a source for the waymo car "causing" another vehicle pinwheel (I assume this means spin out) and fleeing the scene? That seems really serious.
As for the scooters, another clean solution to reduce traffic, but people throw a shit fit cause they're tech.
Don't get me wrong, these companies are awful. Ads are psychological warfare, Facebook has done actual experiments to affect people's moods. So many of these products are designed to be addictive, capturing our attention for their profit. As well, the pervasive surveillance state that smart phones, apps, and data collection has created. This doesn't address any of that, instead it's just SF political pandering.
Edit: The article has like / share buttons for basically all these companies at the bottom of the page.
> Did the author have a source for the waymo car "causing" another vehicle pinwheel (I assume this means spin out) and fleeing the scene? That seems really serious.
It was from a New Yorker story this week where there were emails from Lewandowski discussing an accident. This is linked in the post so I don't know how you missed it.
Funnily, the description of the accident makes it the human driver's fault for failing to properly merge into traffic though it implies the robo car was at fault for "boxing in" the other car.
Back when I drove trucks I put many a Californian driver on the shoulder under the exact same circumstances -- law says trucks must use the right lane and can't exceed 55mph so that's what I did to the detriment of people yacking on the cellphone and Oh, Shit, truck!!! as they come barreling down the onramp without even giving a basic attempt to safely merge.
>This is linked in the post so I don't know how you missed it.
It's almost as if my brain is trained to completely ignore underlined text from all the sites that use it for inter-linking spam. Seriously, didn't even notice it.
I wish we could start putting more ideas and investment into the physical world of roads, trains and bridges now that we have the information part doing well. Sadly it won't happen for decades with the current political situation poisoned by the extreme right.
17 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 51.8 ms ] threadThis is the underlying message being propagated by the media with their anti tech narrative.
Very SF-local story, too, I don't understand why it's in a globally targeted publication.
I'd be interested in hearing more about the claims made at the beginning of the article and the sources of those.
I moved to SF in 2012 when uber was barely a thing (still only black cars) and haven't noticed the traffic being worst. I've also not noticed any parking spots that are now free (but even if this happened, isn't that a good sign?).
To the opposite, and again my own sources are biased since I worked at Uber for a while (i'm not anymore), but I've heard a lot of studies proving the opposite - reduced traffic, better for the environment, etc.
As an example, I googled "how many cars per day in SF" and the first thing I found is that 110 000 cars cross the golden gate bridge alone. I'd assume the Bay bridge is seeing at least that if not twice. So the argument that 5700 more cars because of Uber and Lyft in the city are the cause of traffic seems a little short sighted. It's also the same argument that was made by De Blasio a few years ago about NYC and studies proved that it was false.
I'm not saying the article is lying or anything, and again, I'm very biased, I'm just surprised to see an article from Engadget making such claims without links to sources/studies. The author saying "I'd realized congestion in San Francisco had gone insane" doesn't convince me this is particularly true...
Summary via NPR: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/01/634506179/ride-hailing-servic...
This idea that one single subset of driver's is responsible is kind of absurd.
Furthermore, the amount of construction that takes forever causes tons of problems. For example, Van Ness alone has been a total cluster for more than a year now and there's no sign that it will be concluded any time soon.
They also released an interesting interactive map [2] that is worth exploring
[1] https://www.sfcta.org/sites/default/files/content/Planning/T...
[2] http://tncsandcongestion.sfcta.org
They start on about Uber and Lyft causing increased traffic and then turn to complain about the tech busses (a measure to reduce traffic!) in the same breath.
I don't really see what the Facebook ads story adds to the local politics angle.
Did the author have a source for the waymo car "causing" another vehicle pinwheel (I assume this means spin out) and fleeing the scene? That seems really serious.
As for the scooters, another clean solution to reduce traffic, but people throw a shit fit cause they're tech.
Don't get me wrong, these companies are awful. Ads are psychological warfare, Facebook has done actual experiments to affect people's moods. So many of these products are designed to be addictive, capturing our attention for their profit. As well, the pervasive surveillance state that smart phones, apps, and data collection has created. This doesn't address any of that, instead it's just SF political pandering.
Edit: The article has like / share buttons for basically all these companies at the bottom of the page.
It was from a New Yorker story this week where there were emails from Lewandowski discussing an accident. This is linked in the post so I don't know how you missed it.
Back when I drove trucks I put many a Californian driver on the shoulder under the exact same circumstances -- law says trucks must use the right lane and can't exceed 55mph so that's what I did to the detriment of people yacking on the cellphone and Oh, Shit, truck!!! as they come barreling down the onramp without even giving a basic attempt to safely merge.
https://www.wired.com/story/god-is-a-bot-and-anthony-levando...
It's almost as if my brain is trained to completely ignore underlined text from all the sites that use it for inter-linking spam. Seriously, didn't even notice it.