Uber Is Serving New York’s Outer Boroughs More Than Taxis Are

[Recursion]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/uber-is-serving-new-yorks-outer-boroughs-more-than-taxis-are/

The recent debate between Uber and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio over whether the ride-for-hire company was exacerbating Manhattan congestion was fueled by incomplete, misleading data. There was no way of knowing exactly where Uber cars and taxis pick up passengers, and so the city agreed to a study of Uber’s effects last month as part of its detente with the company.

Now, thanks in part to a Freedom of Information Law request, we have data. A lot of data: nearly 93 million trips taken by Uber and conventional taxis over a six-month period from April to September last year, including date, time and coordinates of the pickups. And while we can’t yet say whether Uber has exacerbated Manhattan congestion, the data we’ve analyzed shows that Uber has a point when it claims that it is doing a better job than taxis in serving the boroughs of New York City outside of Manhattan. Of the 4.4 million Uber rides for which the data shows a pickup location, 22 percent started outside of Manhattan, compared with just 14 percent of the 88.4 million yellow and green taxi rides.



The city, though, has a point when it says that most of Uber’s trips are in the city’s busiest areas. Uber’s Manhattan pickups were heavily concentrated in the part of the island south of 59th Street, just as taxi pickups are. In fact, 63 percent of all Uber rides in New York started in that area, which includes the midtown and downtown business districts, compared with 62 percent of all taxi pickups. (Taxis picked up a greater proportion of their riders in Manhattan north of 59th Street: 25 percent, compared with Uber’s 15 percent.)



The data shows just how much of the market for rides is concentrated in Manhattan south of 59th Street, home to less than 10 percent of the city’s inhabitants but the destination of most interborough commutes. It is also, though, the part of the city best-served by the subway and with the worst traffic congestion.

[PSPS]

1. Do rides that include assaults, wrong destination, or an uninsured crash count?

[Recursion]

2. Sure, also for taxis

Taxi drivers also assault passengers, go to the wrong place, and let their insurance lapse and get into accidents.

[Recursion]

3. Medallion Financial Corp owns about two thirds of NYC taxi medallions

And financed the purchase of most of the rest. Their stock is down more than 50% since 2013. Piss off rich people, and they find a way to astroturf.

[NYC Liberal]

9. Uber partners with ALEC, a right-wing corporate lobby group.

Support Uber and you support ALEC.

[Recursion]

10. Uber and Lyft both left ALEC a year ago

http://www.commoncause.org/democracy-wire/uber-and-lyft-leave-alec-at-curb.html

[philosslayer]

4. Uber is like a cancer

It should be legislated out of existence.

[Recursion]

5. Because only local medallion owners should exploit drivers?

It's interesting to me that for all the talk of how little Uber drivers earn, nobody's ever been able to actually say they earn less than hack drivers.

[yeoman6987]

6. Uber is affordable

Taxi are ridiculously expensive. Long live Uber. Sorry a smart company is doing better then the has been. I say everyone needs to get with the times. I understand that it was a shame blockbuster didn't get with the times and are gone. Perhaps taxis can cut their prices in half and use technology like a cell phone app like uber does. This should be celebrated not condemned.

[NYC Liberal]

11. Uber is only "affordable" because they break the law.

Kind of like Walmart being "cheap" because they pay their employees crap wages and import low-quality garbage from China.

[yeoman6987]

12. Break the law? They absolutely do not

This is a company where a person with little to their name but a car can provide themselves a wonderful life. I think that in itself is worth having this company.

[NYC Liberal]

22. They do.

Someone with "Little to their name but a car" should not be providing taxi services unless they are licensed, insured, and regulated as a taxi service.

Uber doesn't want to play by the same rules that everyone else has to. (They are also anti-labor.)

[ericson00]

17. Uber is worse than Wal-Mart

because with Wal-Mart, quite frankly, the labor isn't terribly skilled yet can have full-time work.

Uber is simply mass underemployment masquerading as a "job creator." They're also more dangerous to society, given how their drivers pass no tests, undergo no background checks, and you can't be full time with benefits; even that's possible with Wal Mart.

[Dwayne Hicks]

7. Agreed

Regulate it out of business. Uber is skirting the law and unfairly competes.

[Recursion]

16. Who cares? They're hurting rich medallion owners, not drivers

People have this mental image of a cabbie owning his own cab and medallion, but that's not how it works just about anywhere anymore. Why do you care that it's a Silicon Valley company taking a cut rather than a local slumlord taxicab company taking a cut?

[Adrahil]

19. The medallion system is corrupt.....

There is a lot to NOT like about Uber, but until the medallion system is scrapped, I think it provides a viable alternqtive to the corrupt and crappy taxi service.

[Starry Messenger]

8. Does the survey include the origins of the Uber driver?

Cabs have to start their day at a certain time and place at the cab yard. People picking up in their personal car are in a different situation.

[Recursion]

15. In terms of the traffic? Good question

I'd imagine very few of those cars are kept overnight in Manhattan, unlike the taxis.

[brush]

13. What about the livery cabs?

Are they still operating, as they used to serve the outer boroughs more than medallion cabs?

[Recursion]

14. Uber cars are livery cabs (nt)

[AngryAmish]

18. Most of those converted to Ubet

More rides, more money. Most of these have expanded.

[Lee-Lee]

20. Uber & Lyft = scabs. Do you support workers rights or exploitation

At least real taxi drivers in NY have a union and are treated like actual employees.

If you have an respect for organized labor and real workers rights you won't use Uber or Lyft.

[christx30]

23. Taxis have failed me multiple times.

One time, it was midnight, and 32 degrees. I had no ride home because my gloves were soaked and I wanted a ride, so I called a cab. Two hours later, the taxi still hadn't shown up. Called about 10 times checking on them. Finally called them and told them to screw themselves and walked 9 miles home.
If taxis could compete with services like Uber, they would be doing much better. But the service from the drivers just isn't there. The customers are demanding better service.

[alcibiades_mystery]

21. I grew up in the outer boroughs...indeed, in one of the neighborhoods highlighted in Chart 1

This analysis is incomplete without an analysis of the car service pickups. Yellow cabs and street pickups have never been common in places like northeast Queens, but everybody uses car service, and there are cheap car service companies throughout the area. The same is true for most outer boroughs "cab" transport. It's a flawed analysis. Yellow cabs are for Manhattan and the airports. Neighborhood "cabs" you call the local car service place. Been that way for 40 years at least.