Transportation
Why Transit Agencies Are Finally Embracing Uber
Increasingly, public transit is viewing mobility startups as partners, not competition.
It didn’t look like they were here to make friends.
When ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft burst onto the scene, they were talking about disrupting the decades-old mobility networks that preceded them. Their targets fell squarely on taxis, but public transit felt the heat too: would people stop hopping on buses if they could summon a ride with a tap of the finger? The success of these startups, not to mention car-sharing and bike-sharing, had transit observers wondering if we would soon see the death of public transportation.