![]() ![]() These trends only became apparent in the last year and a half, as TNC ridership tripled between June 2015 (the end of the period that City Hall examined in its December 2015 for-hire-vehicle transportation study) and the fall of 2016.The estimated 7 percent net addition to vehicle mileage caused by TNC’s in Manhattan, western Queens, and western Brooklyn is the same magnitude as the decrease in vehicular travel that was expected from the 2007 Bloomberg congestion pricing proposal.In a marked reversal from the transit-oriented growth that lasted from 1990 to 2014, growth in for-hire vehicle use (TNC’s, yellows, greens, and all car services combined) is outstripping growth in transit ridership, making it the city’s leading source of growth in non-auto travel.In his new report, Schaller set out to determine not just how fast Uber and the TNC sector have grown, but which modes they are displacing. Before serving as a top deputy to transportation commissioners Janette Sadik-Khan and Polly Trottenberg, Schaller's career included stints at MTA NYC Transit and the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission, and his annual NY Taxicab Fact Books made him the go-to expert on for-hire vehicles. Schaller is highly regarded in transportation circles, and his report - "Unsustainable? - The Growth of App-Based Ride Services and Traffic, Travel and the Future of New York City" - will be widely read and carefully studied. Nevertheless, he identifies growth in use of TNC's as a prime cause of the 11 percent slowing of traffic in the Manhattan CBD from 2013 to 2016 noted in the mayor’s management report last September. Most of the upsurge is occurring outside the city’s Central Business District (Manhattan below 60th Street), Schaller reports. But by 2016, net growth in travel by Uber and other TNC’s far outstripped growth in those modes (see above). In 2013, the last year before Uber’s presence was felt, use of subways, buses, and bicycles grew substantially (see below). To head off a downward spiral of increasing traffic and declining transit use, it's incumbent on Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio to prioritize projects with wide-ranging impacts on the transportation system: subway signal upgrades, citywide off-board fare collection for buses, a comprehensive expansion of bus lanes and transit priority at intersections, and road pricing that factors in the impacts of TNC's. This trend marks a troubling inflection point - for the first time in many years, car-based services, not transit, account for most growth in travel. The new ride services, known as transportation network companies, or TNC's, last year caused a net increase of 600 million vehicle miles traveled in the five boroughs - a 3 to 4 percent jump in citywide traffic, Schaller found. ![]() Uber, Lyft, and other app-based ride services are unequivocally worsening gridlock in the Manhattan core as well as northern Manhattan and the western parts of Queens and Brooklyn, according to a report released today by transportation analyst Bruce Schaller. The controversy over Uber's impact on Manhattan traffic has been settled. ![]()
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