Uber, Lyft Finally Admit They’re Making Traffic Congestion Worse In Cities

Uber and Lyft tapped transportation consultancy Fehr & Peers to examine their combined vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in six cities in September 2018, and compare that number to the total VMT in each area for the same month. “The results show that while they are vastly out-stripped by personal and commercial vehicles, Uber and Lyft are still responsible for significant shares of VMT in those cities,” reports The Verge. From the report: The analysis looks at Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC. The results are presented on two levels: the regional area, including the surrounding towns and suburbs, and the “core” county of each region that contains the main part of the city with the densest concentration of jobs. The findings show that Uber and Lyft account for just 1-3 percent of VMT in the broader metropolitan areas of each city. But those numbers spike when zooming in on the core county of each city. In San Francisco County, for example, Uber and Lyft make up as much as 13.4 percent of all vehicle miles. In Boston, it’s 8 percent; in Washington, DC, it’s 7.2 percent. These figures suggest that Uber and Lyft are hitting some cities harder than previously thought. An independent study commissioned by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority looked at 2017 traffic patterns in the county and concluded that TNCs generated about 6.5 percent of the total VMT on weekdays, and 10 percent on weekends. (TNC, which stands for transportation network company, is an industry term used to describe ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft.) The findings from Fehr & Peers show totals “nearly twice that previous estimate,” said Gregory Erhardt, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Kentucky who has researched Uber and Lyft’s effects on public transit ridership. “This difference may be due to the continued increase in TNC use over the intervening two years.”