CityLab Daily: ‘Uber Was Supposed To Be Our Public Transit’

All is fare: What happens when a city tries to replace public transit with Uber? In 2017, the Toronto exurb of Innisfil, Ontario, took a chance on subsidizing rides instead of running a traditional bus service, offering riders a flat fare or discounts through the ride-hailing app. The plan worked, perhaps a little too well, at least at increasing ridership. To keep up with demand, the “Innisfil Transit” plan has raised fares and added a 30-ride monthly cap to the system. For traditional public transit, raising transit fares when ridership is growing is backwards logic—rides are supposed to get cheaper and more frequent as more people ride. But the cost of providing backseat rides doesn’t scale like a publicly funded bus.

City officials still say the choice is more cost-effective than running a traditional bus system. But Innisfil may be a good example of the risks of using ride-hailing apps as a quick fix for mobility service gaps. “I would never get on a bus in Toronto and hear the driver say, ‘Sorry, but you’ve hit your cap,’” said one resident frustrated by the changes. “Uber was supposed to be our bus.” CityLab’s Laura Bliss has the story: When A Town Takes Uber Instead of Public Transit