The downsides of ride-hailing services like Lyft and Uber are well-documented. Studies show that in addition to decimating the taxi industry, they’ve increased traffic congestion and cannibalized transit use. The City Council was wise when it voted last November to pass a new fee on ride-hailing trips, with the additional money going to fund CTA infrastructure.
Old-school car share can be handy for stocking up on groceries or picking up furniture from Craigslist, or as a convenient way to rent a vehicle for a day trip. But it’s not practical for, say, hauling music gear to a gig, since you’d be charged for the hours you’re hanging out at the club. Nor does it work as a first- or last-mile solution to or from a train station during the wee hours or in nasty weather, when the bus, Divvy bike share, or walking may not be practical or appealing.
Chicago Department of Transportation spokesman Mike Claffey says it’s worth exploring whether point-to-point can take personal cars off the road here, and the new ordinance would require the vendor to share trip data with the City Council to help gauge its impact on congestion, air quality, and parking. Claffey says that in addition to paying the city a yet-to-be-determined fee for the use of curbside space, the point-to-point vendor would be required to hash out a system for paying standard meter rates to parking concessionaire Chicago Parking Meters. Because the cost to the point-to-point vendor would be more expensive than in other cities, the ordinance would cut the vendor some slack by reducing the city’s usual convenience fee added to electronic payments.
But wouldn’t a new travel option benefit Lincoln Park’s many car-free residents? “People who don’t own cars in my community are very well served by public transportation,” Smith responds.
