Ridehailing appears to be on shakier foundation than transit coming out of the pandemic. As commuting patterns slowly return to normal, ridehailing appears to have continued its pattern of swiping riders from transit in many parts of the country. However, in the Seattle region, ridehailing has been slow to recover
On Tuesday, GrubHub sent New York restaurants into a tailspin with a free lunch promotion. Between 11am and 2pm, the food delivery app offered $15 off any order made from restaurants around the city. Grubhub’s platform crashed as it was receiving 6,000 orders a minute. Restaurants saw queues
It is no secret that working as a ridehailing driver is a precarious business in which the benefits of flexibility can be outweighed by a lack of employee protections and benefits. Even so, it may come as a surprise to many readers that Seattle ridehailing drivers earn on average only
Social distancing and hygiene best practices will be incorporated into operations, but driver welfare remains a concern. Starting June 22th, Via to Transit, King County Metro’s on-demand shuttle service will resume its service to Rainier Beach, Othello, and Tukwila International Boulevard light rail stations. The service resumption occurs one
A new survey suggests that telecommuting was already on the rise in Seattle even before fears over COVID-19 prompted the recent spike in remote work as people across the region are being encouraged to work from home to help slow down transmission of the virus. While COVID-19 is a new
As someone who walks around Seattle on a regular basis, it is hard not to notice that a startling share of the cars whizzing down the street share a familiar look. The ubiquity of the Toyota Prius with a glowing dash is hard to miss. While our city has been
Longtime Streetsblog USA editor Angie Schmitt was in Seattle last week to talk about the pedestrian safety crisis. Schmitt stepped down from her Streetsblog position in September to finish a book on the subject due out in August 2020. She and Anna Zivarts, director of Rooted in Rights, led a
Mayor Jenny Durkan’s plan to tax Uber and Lyft rides in Seattle lacks a coherent understanding of the problem posed by the explosion of ride-hailing trips. The two primary problems posed are the companies’ exploitation of their drivers and their outsized impact on transit and congestion in our major
Yesterday Mayor Jenny Durkan revealed her plan to increase Seattle’s ridehailing fee by 51 cents per ride and direct the first five years of proceeds toward two immediate needs. One is plugging a hole in the Center City Connector streetcar project budget; the Mayor says $56 million will do
Uber has been in the news lately for offering cities a smidgen of their data on traffic patterns. Like so many things with Uber, the company insists what it’s doing is truly and utterly revolutionary. Traffic data management seems to be another scheme in Uber’s overarching plot to