Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Earlier this week I wrote a “Tech Tuesday” post talking about Uber’s new Smart Routes functionality, which it is currently testing out in San Francisco. At the end of the post I ended by saying that it’s not just the taxi industry that should be thinking about Uber, it’s also public transit authorities.
And that’s because many people in cities rely on multi-modal forms of transportation (I know I do) and in my mind it is clear that Uber is trending away from just “Everyone’s Private Driver” to a service that is starting to look and feel a lot like urban mass transit.
Then today my good friend Evgeny sent me a post called, “Public Transit Should Be Uber’s New Best Friend.” And it’s one of the best pieces I’ve read on Uber and its impact on urban mobility. I highly recommend you give it a read, particularly if you’re in the city building arena.
The article does a deep dive into how New Yorkers commute. Here’s how they broke it down.
It then talks about what it will take for a company like Uber to make a meaningful dent in car ownership (which is one of the company’s goals) and how the truly big opportunity for Uber is to go more mass market and tap into the public transit market – either by interfacing with or by building its own version of it.
Here’s their concluding paragraph:
But there’s a much wider potential audience if Uber can also reach middle-class customers who want to save money. Perhaps in the distant (or even the not-so-distant) future, Uber can build its own version of “public” transit, making rides so cheap that they cost less than the $4 or $5 that Americans now pay, on average, to make a trip in their personal cars. In the meantime, it might have more success among “car-cutting” customers who can use Uber along with public transit. That might mean Uber’s growth is concentrated more in cities like New York, San Francisco and Chicago — and in Europe and Asia — that already have reasonably strong public transit networks.
It’s definitely worth a full read. Thanks again for sending this over Evgeny.
Last week I wrote (yet another) post about Uber where I argued that leading cities will be the ones that engage with the sharing/rental economy (as opposed to try and outright ban it) and that Uber is going to continue to impact current beliefs around vehicle ownership.
As to be expected, some people agreed with me and some people didn’t:
@GladstoneHotel @RebuildHamilton with all due respect, I think @donnelly_b has @uber wrong. They’re not eliminating private car ownership…
— Martin Kuplens-Ewart (@mkuplens)
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
But I also discovered following that post that there are groups, and hopefully cities, who are working to adapt to the changing realities brought about by disruptive innovation.
One of those groups is The National League of Cities – which I truthfully don’t know that much about. But they have created something called “The Sharing Economy Advisory Network.”
“Cities across the country have been struggling to respond to the rapid emergence of the Sharing Economy,” said Clarence Anthony, National League of Cities executive director. He continued, “Cities are looking for ways to update and improve their current regulatory framework to ensure that regulations like safety and health protect residents, while at the same time supporting the growth of new businesses. It is imperative for cities to learn how this industry operates and discover ways to engage in order to support these new modes of doing business and to create jobs.”
It sounds like the right kind of initiative and I wish them lots of success. I hope it’s effective and I hope that Toronto will look at how it too can properly manage these economic changes. This is going to take both the private and public sectors working together.
Image: Sidecar
One of the things that many city planners, transportation experts, and municipalities are trying to figure out is how to successfully shift people away from driving towards alternative modes of transportation, such as biking and transit. Now, this is no easy task. There are a myriad of factors that influence a person’s decision to drive or not drive–or if they should even own a car in the first place. Though, land use and density are, in my opinion, probably the biggest.
But of all the solutions thrown around, mobile apps are typically not within the playbook. However a recent New York Times article is making the argument that it should be, because car-sharing services and apps like Uber seem to be indeed having an affect on people’s decision to own a car. And that’s because in some cities it’s actually cheaper to use Uber every day (than to own a car) and because taxi use has been shown to correlate with other (non-driving) forms of mobility.
Paradoxically, some experts say, the increased use of ride-sharing services could also spawn renewed interest in and funding for public transportation, because people generally use taxis in conjunction with many other forms of transportation.
In other words, if Uber and its ride-sharing competitors succeed, it wouldn’t be a stretch to see many small and midsize cities become transportation nirvanas on the order of Manhattan — places where forgoing car ownership isn’t just an outré lifestyle choice, but the preferred way to live.
And to be honest, I don’t think this is all that far stretched. More and more I find myself wondering why I even own a car. It’s not appreciating sitting downstairs in my garage and, given the frequency in which I use it, I would definitely be better off financially if I simply used an app like Uber or Hailo more often. About the only thing those apps aren’t great for are trips to Home Depot and snowboard trips to the mountain.
Earlier this week I wrote a “Tech Tuesday” post talking about Uber’s new Smart Routes functionality, which it is currently testing out in San Francisco. At the end of the post I ended by saying that it’s not just the taxi industry that should be thinking about Uber, it’s also public transit authorities.
And that’s because many people in cities rely on multi-modal forms of transportation (I know I do) and in my mind it is clear that Uber is trending away from just “Everyone’s Private Driver” to a service that is starting to look and feel a lot like urban mass transit.
Then today my good friend Evgeny sent me a post called, “Public Transit Should Be Uber’s New Best Friend.” And it’s one of the best pieces I’ve read on Uber and its impact on urban mobility. I highly recommend you give it a read, particularly if you’re in the city building arena.
The article does a deep dive into how New Yorkers commute. Here’s how they broke it down.
It then talks about what it will take for a company like Uber to make a meaningful dent in car ownership (which is one of the company’s goals) and how the truly big opportunity for Uber is to go more mass market and tap into the public transit market – either by interfacing with or by building its own version of it.
Here’s their concluding paragraph:
But there’s a much wider potential audience if Uber can also reach middle-class customers who want to save money. Perhaps in the distant (or even the not-so-distant) future, Uber can build its own version of “public” transit, making rides so cheap that they cost less than the $4 or $5 that Americans now pay, on average, to make a trip in their personal cars. In the meantime, it might have more success among “car-cutting” customers who can use Uber along with public transit. That might mean Uber’s growth is concentrated more in cities like New York, San Francisco and Chicago — and in Europe and Asia — that already have reasonably strong public transit networks.
It’s definitely worth a full read. Thanks again for sending this over Evgeny.
Last week I wrote (yet another) post about Uber where I argued that leading cities will be the ones that engage with the sharing/rental economy (as opposed to try and outright ban it) and that Uber is going to continue to impact current beliefs around vehicle ownership.
As to be expected, some people agreed with me and some people didn’t:
@GladstoneHotel @RebuildHamilton with all due respect, I think @donnelly_b has @uber wrong. They’re not eliminating private car ownership…
— Martin Kuplens-Ewart (@mkuplens)
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
But I also discovered following that post that there are groups, and hopefully cities, who are working to adapt to the changing realities brought about by disruptive innovation.
One of those groups is The National League of Cities – which I truthfully don’t know that much about. But they have created something called “The Sharing Economy Advisory Network.”
“Cities across the country have been struggling to respond to the rapid emergence of the Sharing Economy,” said Clarence Anthony, National League of Cities executive director. He continued, “Cities are looking for ways to update and improve their current regulatory framework to ensure that regulations like safety and health protect residents, while at the same time supporting the growth of new businesses. It is imperative for cities to learn how this industry operates and discover ways to engage in order to support these new modes of doing business and to create jobs.”
It sounds like the right kind of initiative and I wish them lots of success. I hope it’s effective and I hope that Toronto will look at how it too can properly manage these economic changes. This is going to take both the private and public sectors working together.
Image: Sidecar
One of the things that many city planners, transportation experts, and municipalities are trying to figure out is how to successfully shift people away from driving towards alternative modes of transportation, such as biking and transit. Now, this is no easy task. There are a myriad of factors that influence a person’s decision to drive or not drive–or if they should even own a car in the first place. Though, land use and density are, in my opinion, probably the biggest.
But of all the solutions thrown around, mobile apps are typically not within the playbook. However a recent New York Times article is making the argument that it should be, because car-sharing services and apps like Uber seem to be indeed having an affect on people’s decision to own a car. And that’s because in some cities it’s actually cheaper to use Uber every day (than to own a car) and because taxi use has been shown to correlate with other (non-driving) forms of mobility.
Paradoxically, some experts say, the increased use of ride-sharing services could also spawn renewed interest in and funding for public transportation, because people generally use taxis in conjunction with many other forms of transportation.
In other words, if Uber and its ride-sharing competitors succeed, it wouldn’t be a stretch to see many small and midsize cities become transportation nirvanas on the order of Manhattan — places where forgoing car ownership isn’t just an outré lifestyle choice, but the preferred way to live.
And to be honest, I don’t think this is all that far stretched. More and more I find myself wondering why I even own a car. It’s not appreciating sitting downstairs in my garage and, given the frequency in which I use it, I would definitely be better off financially if I simply used an app like Uber or Hailo more often. About the only thing those apps aren’t great for are trips to Home Depot and snowboard trips to the mountain.
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