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Comment by klochner | Hacker News Reader

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klochner·

i love them.

They could easily take half the cars off the road and transform downtown.

They're more convenient and a fraction of the cost of an uber, and they're fun to ride.

People should not be riding them on the sidewalks, i'm expecting that to change quickly.

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I'm a fan too. I think we'd see fewer people take Uber/Lyft's for short drives (less than 2 miles), but commute traffic will stay the same due to "induced demand." Any reduction in the number of cars on the road will be met by more people willing to do a "super commute" from outside the city. Right now the traffic into cities is dependent on the jobs (and their pay) available downtown, and people's willingness to commute from afar. If the number of jobs increase, or highway capacity increases (along with added housing in the suburbs), more people will take to the roads and the roads will still be clogged. Only if a lot of mass transit is added to distant suburbs and no growth in suburban housing would the amount of traffic decrease. Anyways, vehicular traffic could still be reduced during non-peak hours which is a great thing.

This could be fixed if SF voted to build more bike lanes to replace existing regular lanes. Removing a small number of regular lanes would nip the induced demand issue fairly quickly.

> a fraction of the cost of an uber

They are indeed fun to ride but with the Uber's subsidized price, Uber still ends up being cheaper for a commute within the city. Especially with pool.

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