TECH WARS | Have You Noticed? Taxis+Uber+Lyft=More Congestion!

Midtown Manhattan traffic averages 4.7 mph,
down from 6.5 mph five years ago. 

Back in 2015, on this blog site, I said that Uber's putting more cars on the road  seemed to be creating more congestion in New York City, 

My friend and co-thinker David Hochman instantly chimed in to say that he had the same perception.

We got some pushback on this idea. We decided to wait for data.

If you saw the same thing, guess what? We were all seeing straight. A few weeks ago, a study concluded that Uber and Lyft are indeed creating more congestion, more trips, more miles. 

Objectively, midtown traffic speed is measured at an average of 4.7 miles per hour, down from 6.5 miles per hour five years ago. Support has grown for rules or charges to discourage cars from coming into the most congested parts of New York City. One approach is a Pigou Tax such as has been introduced for sugary soda and cigarettes.

Sure, part of the congestion problem has been growth of the New York economy. But consider that this effect has been offset by the decline of brick-and-mortar retail stores. These stores have lost out to Amazon and other on-line vendors. Consider also this:

• The lobby of my building in Chelsea is right now being torn apart to make room for packages. Residents are having to walk through the basement entrance.
• Why? Because when the building was erected in the 1960s there was no space allocated for packages and the cabinet space that was added a decade later wasn't sufficient. 
• Now the storage space is being expanded ten-fold.
• Some buildings in Manhattan just a few years old are already overwhelmed with the packages.

These package deliveries require more trucks and they are one source of greater traffic. But the biggest culprit may simply be the number of vehicles on NYC streets that are available for hire:

• The number is now up to 103,000, double the 47,000 figure for 2013, says the Taxi and Limousine Commission. 
• Of these vehicles, 68,000 are affiliated with ride-hailing app companies, including 65,000 with Uber alone. 
• Yellow taxis are capped by city law at just under 13,600, with the idea of limiting congestion. The City's intent has been circumvented. (Full disclosure: I've served as an expert witness for an association of taxi-medallion owners and an association of Airbnb owners.)

New York City now has many more police on traffic duty and is taking another look at congestion-pricing plans that were advocated by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. A plan of this type is being used successfully in London. (A similar plan for Paris met with more opposition.)

New York City seems to be facing a conflict between new technology attractive to many consumers, and the people whose livelihoods and assets are being disrupted:

• taxi owners, 
• drivers, 
• other drivers facing longer delays, and 
• businesses affected by the congestion of heavily trafficked streets. 

The same disruptions are taking place for retail stores, housing renters and others disrupted by the wonders of new technology. The inconveniences have knock-on effects for owners of commercial and residential property.

This conflict is not new. If you come back to this blogsite in the next few weeks, you will find more posts under this hashtag (#TechWars). You will see how the conflicts have played out in many industries where technology has changed. This may serve as a guide to what we may expect during the coming years. The general theme is that the introduction of new technology requires a period during which the technology is tested and during which natural enemies emerge.

For example, using engines on ships was fought by sailors. Railways and cars and tractors were resisted by breeders and outfitters of horses. Photography was resisted by artists. These days, Uber is fought by cities and taxi owners, and by competitors. Yet Uber has a database that could be enormously helpful in planning for new transportation initiatives.

Invention is only half the battle. Getting the technology accepted where it replaces existing industries is the other half. Marconi spent his life battling the wired-telegraph companies, and the telegraph companies were largely successful in slowing down the introduction of wireless telegraphy. Where Marconi's invention succeeded was in a whole new area that he had not foreseen, namely broadcasting.

The period during which new technologies are tested against old ones can be called one of symbiosis. Sometimes the new technology never completely replaces the old one. Gas never completely replaced wood and coal as fuel. Electricity never completely replaced gas. You may be interested in some of the implications of all this... Stay tuned.

Postscript 1 (January 2, 2018): The Wall Street Journal predicts that a plan for congestion charges will be included in Gov. Andrew Cuomo's State of the State speech.

Postscript 2 (January 14, 2018) The New York Times reviews the growing number of private transportation options for commuters.

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