What is the popularity of Uber and Lyft in Seattle? The number of users kept secret until recently gives us a hint

Everyday in the Seattle area, Uber and Lyft offer more outings than:

• Light Transit Light Rail Transit (77,576 weekday trips).
• The population of Bellingham (89.045).
• The number of votes determining the 2016 presidential election (77,744 in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania).

The two giants delivered an average of more than 91,000 trips per day in the second quarter of this year, according to information on the number of passengers of companies filed by the city, which were made public for the first time.

Although this is only a fraction of the daily commutes in the Seattle area, Uber and Lyft trips are heavily concentrated in the densest neighborhoods of the city, where nearly 40,000 journeys start each day with postal codes covering downtown, Belltown, South Lake Union and Capitol Hill. They almost certainly contribute to the worsening of congestion.

And Uber and Lyft have grown extraordinarily fast – the number of passengers is more than five times greater than it was in early 2015, the first full quarter where companies reported data to the city .

Uber and Lyft, known as Transmission System Companies (STNs), have apparently replaced taxis in the city's transportation system. It's a bit like saying that air travel has replaced airship travel. He did not replace so much as obliterated. At their peak, before the arrival of Uber and Lyft, Seattle taxis provided just over 5.2 million trips in 2012. Uber and Lyft are on the cusp of providing more than 31 millions of trips this year.

"As Seattle continues to grow, we know that TNCs are making congestion worse," said Dawn Schellenberg, spokesperson for the Seattle Department of Transportation.

Schellenberg cited a recent report from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority that states that TNCs account for 25% of all vehicle delays in this city. This study also revealed that TNCs were responsible for more than half of the increase in traffic congestion in San Francisco between 2010 and 2016.

Boston, one of the few cities where travel data is publicly available, recorded about 96,000 TNC trips per day in 2017. This figure is not directly comparable to that of Seattle because it only pertains to Boston, while the data here covers all of King's statistics. County. But Boston's data is not broken down by company. They therefore also include the Uber and Lyft minor competitors.

Uber, Lyft do they undermine public transport?

Unlike almost every other major city in the country, Seattle has seen an increase in the number of transit users, a result of significant local investment in bus and tram services, along with the increase in the number of transit users. explosion of the use of Uber and Lyft.

"I think that the rapid growth of TNCs threatens, at least partially, to undermine this, as in other cities," said Bruce Schaller, transit consultant and former deputy commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation, who studies TNCs. & # 39; impact on cities. "The traveler is up for grabs right now."

A study conducted in 2017 in seven US cities, including Seattle, found that people who use Uber and Lyft are less likely to use public transit and that 49 to 61 percent of all travel by TNCs would have been in transit, on foot, by bike or not at all. if a porter service was not available.

Uber estimates that transnational corporations account for only about 1.5% of travel in the Seattle area and that other factors are much more important in the worsening of Seattle's traffic: a growing population, a booming economy, and people who drive alone.

"The growth in the number of carpools and the corresponding growth in the number of transit users show that people are choosing to move differently in cities when they have more options," said Uber spokesman Nathan Hambley. Hambley also pointed out that the number of passengers is increasing sharply in the north and south neighborhoods of Seattle, where access to public transit is perhaps more difficult, although the number of passengers in these areas remains a fraction of what it's downtown.

Businesses provide a lot of benefits, from helping seniors to get to the doctor or helping bar patrons get home safely, said Jonathan Hopkins, Executive Director of Commute Seattle, an organization nonprofit funded by the city.

"It's not a good or bad thing in itself, it's just when and where these trips are made and what would otherwise happen without them," Hopkins said.

In 2015, the city had prepared a report to city council on the initial number of users and on how the city and county should handle the growing number of Ubers and Lyfts .

Uber and Lyft filed a lawsuit to keep their data secret and the report was never made public. The report bears the words "Do not distribute" and "The eyes of the lawyer only", and the data, the word "Confidential". The companies ceded power in September, following a Supreme Court ruling that was unfavorable to them this year.

The city has provided traffic information, with dozens of spreadsheets containing data on each trip made by Seattle-registered drivers in the Seattle Times as a result of an application for registration. public.

Lyft did not respond to requests for comment. However, Todd Kelsay, general manager of the company in the Pacific Northwest, told a court that the company had abandoned any legal challenge. According to her, the publication of data on the number of passengers could chase Lyft Seattle. According to Kelsay, publishing data on the number of users could "result in a reduction in the number of jobs, economic development and investments in the local community".

The data was published in September. Lyft has not, so far, left the Seattle market.

Number of passengers greater than the first estimate

Even in 2015, before the use of TNC multiplied by five in three years, the city wrote in its report that "goodwill" is significantly larger than originally expected.

"Traditional efforts to license, regulate and enforce this industry are being redefined," the report concluded. "New approaches and infrastructure are needed to ensure proper regulation of this area."

Since then, the city has installed a new computer system to automate the licensing process for TNCs. It also checks that drivers are licensed and that cars are compliant.

More significant proposals to limit the impact on business traffic – places of care in the city center or limitation of the number of drivers – have never been put forward.

Don MacKenzie, an engineering professor at the University of Washington's Sustainable Transportation Lab, used rough calculations to determine if Uber and Lyft represent about 4.5 percent of the total number of miles driven in Seattle.

"They probably contribute to congestion, but another way of thinking is that 95.5% of the traffic is caused by cars, public transit and trucks," MacKenzie said.

Yonah Freemark, a doctoral student in urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who writes regularly about American public transit systems, pointed out the sheer number of daily trips made by the population – about 3.5 million people for work, in the metropolitan area of ​​Seattle. includes all counties of King, Pierce and Snohomish.

"Then add up all the trips people make – to the store, the shows, and so on. – and 91,000 people are starting to feel like a jolt, "said Freemark, who runs The Transport Politic. "So it's very important to know where and when these trips are organized to know how far they impact the city."

Here, the vast majority of these trips take place in Seattle and most of them take place in the city center, where things are most bumpy.

Uber and Lyft data cover all TNC drivers operating in the city of Seattle. These drivers sometimes work in suburbs outside the city, as in the east of the east.

According to the most recent data, about three-quarters of trips started in Seattle for both companies. And more than half of them come from the busiest neighborhoods: Downtown, Belltown, South Lake Union and Capitol Hill.