Comments

1
I have a friend who commutes via Uber. It does allow her to bypass owning a car, but it still adds up when you're taking two trips a day. It may still be cheaper than the average cost of owning a car, but basically, it's an option because she makes good enough money to do it.

It's not an answer for low wage earners, their answer lies only in expanded public transportation, for better or worse.
2
The cost of the taxi is the problem here. Uber in Seattle starts at $2.14 + $0.30/minute or $1.63/mile with a minimum of $6. Which is cheaper than a traditional taxi at $2.50 + $0.50/minute or $2.70/mile. But, still a big expense compared to public transportation.

This isn't something a low wage worker is going to use to commute. And even for trips to the grocery store or other routine errands it's pretty expensive.

I was car-less for the first thirty five years of my life and can count one hand the number of times I took taxis outside of trips to New York or San Francisco. I arranged all of my trips using public transportation if I wasn't bumming a ride with someone.
3
speeding tickets as the cost of ownership? uh, no. i've been driving for 25 years, i've probably driven close to 500,000 miles in that time, and i've gotten one ticket.
4
Charles says that "...car ownership will gradually return to its older status as a luxury for the rich rather than a necessity for plebeians."

Great news! Now roads will be available for drivers who really belong there. There have been far too many people who drive a car who really can't afford it. Like a boat, if you have to ask the cost of car ownership you can't afford it.

No, Charles, the earth is a bounteous place with clever technology and if we manage intelligently, ALL people will live extremely well. It won't be a Cadillacs-with-fins but there is plenty of opportunity to make a much better world. But your attitude, along with zero-sum gamers like Sawant, is one of the things which hold us back by trying to manage a limited stock (e.g. housing) through rent control rather than by building more.
5
The decline of the automobile is inevitable not because Americans are becoming greener but poorer. As this century progresses—a century that's witnessing levels of inequality that have not existed since the 19th century—car ownership will gradually return to its older status as a luxury for the rich rather than a necessity for plebeians.

This is the dirty little secret behind all of the "Sharing Economy" hoo-ha. Consumers can no longer afford these things; just as it took bogus and artificially subsidized NIN(j)A mortgages to hide the erosion of accessible home ownership, so is 'car sharing' hiding the fact that a growing chunk of Americans can no longer afford private personal transportation. It's going to spread to all large fixed asset classes.

It would be nice if this were the result of rising costs of housing and automobiles...if the unsustainability of our housing and car transportation models were driving the cost curve off into infinity and oblivion...but it's not. It's the result of plummeting income.
6
Oh, completely forgot to say it: you are 100% correct Charles.
7
Final thought: much as I love Kruggles, @1&2 are completely correct: this will not replace as an equivalent, fungible substitute, private ownership for the masses.
8
Cars could become a luxury for the rich when/if we get to the crisis point where we have not facilitated developing and mainstreaming alternative energy power for cars and the easy to reach fossil fuel reserves get to such a scarce level that 99 % Main Street Americans can't afford to fill up.
9
Hired cars by app will never be available to the majority of people who need transportation the most. Not everyone has a smartphone; in fact, about a hundred million people don't have one.

This kind of thinking is just part of a bigger picture of continually turning over the public good to private interests.
10
The majority of car trips inside the city involve moving a small number of people a few miles. For every one of these trips, a bicycle is more sensible, more economical and healthier than any kind of car or transit network.
11
I was without a car for ten years, and cabs were never an option for anything other than trips to the airport or dire emergencies. Assuming you're not commuting into downtown with its insane monthly parking rates, using TNCs for every ride is going to be more expensive than owning your own car (unless you're some sort of hermit).
12

Maybe Picketty covers this (guess I'll have to read it), but it seems like despite all the touted increases in Productivity from 1970 to now, a lot of the very basic necessities and desires have grown out of reach. Our ability to produce them has not improved at all, or has worsened with less value for more money.

These include:

Real Estate and Housing
Travel and Transportation
Education
Family Building & Child Raising
Relief from Chronic Illnessesss, Limb Loss, Degenerative Diseases (Heart, Lung, other cancers)

Almost no real progress and certainly no increased productivity (or else houses would cost $50K, travel would be nearly free as well as college, etc etc) has occurred.

Why is it that technology has had no impact on these critical life functions and services?
13
Fuck these ride sharing apps. If you need a ride, go to the side of the road and stick out your thumb. Most I've ever paid was a roach and a hand job, and that got me all the way to Fresno.
14
@10 - that's been my experience...and in addition to the health benefits, it was almost always the fastest option (which is why I used it). Public Transportation was almost never even equivalent to private transportation (except when I lived in Manhattan during peak traffic). Four miles seems to be the switchover, with exceptions for large/heavy cargo.

@12 - Yes.

@8 - no doubt but by then there's a good chance we have an alternate energy form of motorized personal transportation. Scooters leap to mind before we even give up hydrocarbons.
15
Obviously, unless your life is unusally walk/bikeable, going everywhere in an uber is going to add up quickly. Still, $750+ a month savings from cars is huge, and can cover a lot of rides.

But remember that we in Seattle have one of the highest rates of public transit use in the country for commuting into downtown (We're one of only five cities where a minority of downtown commuters use a non-shared car). Most of those commuters still own cars, but use them for most of their non-commuting trips. It's often these trips, that don't track what public transit is good at providing, that are the necessity that necessitates car ownership, even though it's wildly inefficient. This is where Uber et al (along with Car2Go and Zipcar) can really be a gamechanger. Your biggest transportation need is covered by a $100 or so dollar a month bus pass (often employer-subsidized). Uber and the like fill in the gaps for the 20-30% of trips that can't be made conveniently by transit.

Also, the availability of TNCs takes some of the risk out of transit use. I taught an 8:00 AM class a while back a 1 hour transit journey from my home. If I caught the 6:45 bus, I'd make it on time over 90% of the time. But those rare occasions where I'd miss the transfer were too costly, and cabs too unreliable to make sure I'd never be late. So, I lost some much needed sleep and caught the 6:15 bus every day. If I'd been a car owner I would have been sorely tempted to drive (I could have safely left at 7:00 or maybe later by car). If I were in that situation now, I would confidently sleep in a bit and take the 6:45 bus, knowing I had a backup for the last leg.

I know a couple people who've given up their cars because these new options have made it possible, using TNCs and zipcar for the most transit-inconvenient and as a backup for transit failure. They've saved considerable money because of it.

Even the best public transit systems in the world are going to render many trips inconvenient to accomplish by transit. TNCs and transit, contra Fnarf, are natural allies: they reduce the costs associated with total reliance on public transit, making partial reliance more possible, and reducing the need for wasteful money-wasting individual car ownership.
16
I cannot fathom writing anything about mass transportation without mentioning the critical need for mass transit infrastructure and referring to car sharing as a transitional stop gap measure, yet Krugman and The Economist have managed to do it (which should not surprise anybody as far as the latter is concerned).
17
Good Morning Charles,
Indeed, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I believe and I think I've mentioned this on SLOG before, that the car will be essentially obsolete within 100 years.

I've also mentioned that I don't own an automobile. Never have. That's because I grew up in the close western suburbs (Berwyn/Oak Park) of Chicago, a great city with fixed-rail public rapid transit that operates all year in all weather. I discovered this as a teen and it helped my perspective. That public transit BTW, has been around since BEFORE the invention/rise of the automobile. Like, NYC, London, Paris etc., Chicago has had public transit before the automobile. I think it enables those cities to adapt back, if you will to it.

In general, for cities with 50,000-100,000 in population fixed-rail transit should be established. Over 100,000, it must be, even if it is just streetcars installed. I believe America is slowly moving into that direction.

18
@3 - Keep Right Except To Pass
19
@5

Um hmm.

When all these desperately poor people give up their $500 phones, $250 per month bills for cable, internet and cell phones, trips to bars or clubs every weekend etc etc etc I'll weep salt tears at their immobility.

Until then, I've always owned a car, since I was 16. But I make good car decisions, like my wife's Focus and my Ranger. Very well built, reasonable fuel economy, built in the US and they'll easily go 250,000 miles. Even with the cost of insurance, purchase price, maintenance and gas the per mile cost is around $1. We couldn't have half the convenience and cost with the bus.

Maybe if we lost our minds and moved into a dense urban core our car costs would rise. But nothing in the world makes me want to live anywhere near the likes of Scmuck Mudede.
20
@13

For the win!

But I'm guessing you're still in Fresno...
21
Love Krugman, but this is a dumb idea. If no one owns a car anymore, then who's driving for Uber? Do you really think the rich are going to use their luxury cars to cart the rest of us around all day?
22
car ownership will gradually return to its older status as a luxury for the rich rather than a necessity for plebeians.

Here I rather disagree. Without effective mass transit nearly everyone will have to own a car. TNCs & taxis are expensive. The plebians will keep their costs low by simply buying cheap second-hand cars, avoiding tabs and insurance as much as possible, and deferring maintenance. So we'll have increasing percentages of dangerously ill-maintained and uninsured cars cruising the roads.

We might see an increase of 'illegal', word-of-mouth "dollar vans", like various communities have in NYC. But even with those, we'll still see more risky cars.

If this was a third-world country like Guatemala, where most people don't ever expect to own cars, sure private drivers would fill the transit needs for the many, especially outside the big cities. But the USofA has fierce, if illogical, senses of intertwined independence and car-ownership (as SB @19 handily demonstrates. (The racism is a coincidental correlation)), and our cities are structured to favor vehicles over walking. So as things decline car-ownership will likely remain a point of personal status & pride.

Bicycles are great, but most people aren't (yet?) prepared to use them to haul groceries or other bulky cargo home. Maybe someday, when the bicycle revolution is more complete...
23
@19 One point I'd like to make off of your straw man is that, in the 21st century, mobile phones and internet access are pretty much necessities, as more and more basic social and economic interactions are taking place online, and constant availability by-phone is increasingly expected by everyone from your employer to your children's school. It's about time to stop placing those two items in the "discretionary" category, and treat them as necessities, at least for living in this society (this is why things like municipal broadband are important ideas that we should pursue). I would sacrifice my car long before I would give up my phone or internet access.
24
No thanks.....I will keep all 4 of my cars.

25
@22, Where is the racism you speak of in 19's post?
26
@13, if that's not a movie line it sure as hell ought to be.
27
@20: But I'm guessing you're still in Fresno...

Why would one ever want to leave?
28
@19: Ah yes, it's the old reliable tactic of "I can imagine poor people being extravagant and wasteful big spenders, therefore I don't need to feel sorry for poor people because clearly some of them deserve to be poor, since what I can imagine clearly relates directly to reality." Welfare queens blah blah.
29
It's just nice having a ride in a pinch. That's the thing public transport can't replace for someone giving up their car. I agree that a bicycle can work for most trips. The bus or light rail can work for others, and TNCs can fill in the gaps. It's not a bad thing.

I'll be interested to see how the wealthy intend to pay for the roads and bridges once everyone else is priced out of driving.
30
remember that this service is new and they're still facing ht eproblem of enticing a bunch of drivers to participate and navigating political uncertainties. prices will come down

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