No, Ride-Sharing Is Not the Death of Public Transportation

One of the most notable outcomes of the recent BART strike was a surge of interest in ride-sharing services. Sidecar lifted its cut of transactions to encourage wider use, and Lyft (uh) lyfted theirs, too. Both emerged as winners, according to Bloomberg, with Sidecar showing a 40 percent spike in business. Uber, meanwhile, reportedly put 50 percent more cars on the road to meet demand.

That's great for those companies, but even before the strike ended, the situation left some observers wondering how great it was for public transit writ large. Kevin Roose worried in New York Magazine that "when policy-makers begin to see these services as legitimate replacements for public infrastructure, their incentives to make public services better will disappear." Denny Zane, the director of transit advocate Move LA, also reportedly feared that ride-sharing could starve transit's customer base.