I recently was reading an article from the Washington post titled, Uber and lyft are losing money. At some point, we’ll pay for it.  The article went on to cite IPO documents filed by Lyft for 2018 that showed around 900 million dollars in loses.  The author, Megan McArdle, goes on to point out how we, the consumers will eventually pay for this through the inevitable price increases once cheap investment runs out to fund these services at a lose.   The implication is some how that people are currently under paying for ride sharing services.  I have moonlighted as a ride share driver as I assume most younger people have.  So I both agree that the price of service is low compared to pay that driver gets, but on the other hand my education in architecture/design forces me to see how these services only perpetuate the problems created by over reliance on the automobile and its negative impact on urban centers.

You could probably go into any city  in America today and find at least one part of town with the following characteristics: walk-able streets,  buildings that face the street creating an urban edge, local entrepreneurial economy.  These historic areas typically are experiencing a revived second breath on the backs hipster coffee shops and record shops.  I currently work in one of these places on Magnolia st. in Fort Worth’s Fair mount historic district.  I even have a desk near a window that over looks the ultimate millennial hangout,  a coffee shop/coworker space.  I watch as people spill in and out all day.  I see Uber drivers shuttling people all day.

Of course I see how using ride-sharing apps are better than each person driving there cars and the amount of parking needed for that.  Still i cant help but see the irony of replacing your car with a car.  The only reason why a business like Uber  exist is to address fractured and disconnected “cities” that have no walk ability and little public transportation, and the little public transportation they do have is stigmatized as something for poor people.  I used cities with quotes because often times they more resemble monuments to the automobile than the people who inhabit them

So when I see a Uber car I don’t see one less car on the road, I see a company that has figured out how to get people to pay for bad urban design.