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Is it it that hard to drive around Austin that you'd need this in your life?
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May 9, 2016 22:56
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BetterToRuleInHell posted:Is it it that hard to drive around Austin that you'd need this in your life? The reasons are many and really if people are going to make glib comments without even lazily looking into the reasons Uber and Lyft were so needed here, maybe they should just save their breath and their efforts typing their precious thoughts up. The fact is services like these drop the instances of DUI, they add to a woefully inadequate public transportation and cab system, and for a city as known for drinking and partying as we are, it was an integral part of life here. This pissing match, as usual, gets us all nowhere and just covers everyone in piss. But go on, show us how witty you are in criticizing us stupid Austinites.
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May 9, 2016 23:18
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VH4Ever posted:The reasons are many and really if people are going to make glib comments without even lazily looking into the reasons Uber and Lyft were so needed here, maybe they should just save their breath and their efforts typing their precious thoughts up. The fact is services like these drop the instances of DUI, they add to a woefully inadequate public transportation and cab system, and for a city as known for drinking and partying as we are, it was an integral part of life here. This pissing match, as usual, gets us all nowhere and just covers everyone in piss. What about an rear end in a top hat Austinite criticizing stupid Austinites? Is that still cool? Because I'm glad that I helped poo poo in the VC punchbowl, and I'm enjoying the techbros not understanding that we see them as Martians showing up here attempting to terraform the city.
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May 9, 2016 23:23
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I'm glad all these people saying we need Uber because CapMetro is poo poo are going to start advocating for better public transport now!
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May 9, 2016 23:26
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VH4Ever posted:they add to a woefully inadequate public transportation and cab system This is the real issue, I think. Why is the cab system inadequate if there's such huge demand for cabs? Why has the cab system not grown to accommodate this demand? If the answer is "Uber and Lyft hijacked that growth," won't the obvious solution implement itself in the form of the existing cab companies that are willing to follow local rules expanding?
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May 9, 2016 23:27
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citybeatnik posted:What about an rear end in a top hat Austinite criticizing stupid Austinites? Is that still cool? Can someone please tell me what the gently caress this metaphor about Martians terraforming the city means? Maybe I'm just too dumb and it's flying over my head but can you humour me anyway and explain what the gently caress that means? litany of gulps posted:This is the real issue, I think. Why is the cab system inadequate if there's such huge demand for cabs? Why has the cab system not grown to accommodate this demand? If the answer is "Uber and Lyft hijacked that growth," won't the obvious solution implement itself in the form of the existing cab companies that are willing to follow local rules expanding? So they can't compete without the city council weighing in and basically enforcing their lovely business model with their lobbying dollars? Have you ever taken a cab in an average city, especially one with a lot of bars and places people gather on Friday night? Have you taken an Uber or Lyft in the same city? Compare and contrast and you tell me why cabs are being left in droves for Uber/Lyft. VH4Ever fucked around with this message at 23:31 on May 9, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 23:27
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VH4Ever posted:Can someone please tell me what the gently caress this metaphor about Martians terraforming the city means? Maybe I'm just too dumb and it's flying over my head but can you humour me anyway and explain what the gently caress that means? How long have you lived in Austin?
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May 9, 2016 23:30
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litany of gulps posted:How long have you lived in Austin? Hah. OK, I caught myself. Not long, and the second I thought about it I got it. Touche. Not sure how Uber/Lyft fit in though.
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May 9, 2016 23:31
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e_angst posted:A friend who has been in Austin since the 80s compared this to the big watershed fights in the 90s, when we managed to fight Freeeport Mcmoran off and started the Save Our Springs coalition started. He'll probably also tell you that Freeport-McMoran sued SOS into oblivion. All they had to do is keep filing lawsuits and eventually they found a sympathetic judge. SOS is now a shell of its former self. BetterToRuleInHell posted:Is it it that hard to drive around Austin that you'd need this in your life? Roads can't keep up with traffic. When you get where you want to go there's no parking. U/L did provide a great service, they just couldn't compromise.
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May 9, 2016 23:33
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VH4Ever posted:Can someone please tell me what the gently caress this metaphor about Martians terraforming the city means? Maybe I'm just too dumb and it's flying over my head but can you humour me anyway and explain what the gently caress that means? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlKL_EpnSp8 litany of gulps posted:This is the real issue, I think. Why is the cab system inadequate if there's such huge demand for cabs? Why has the cab system not grown to accommodate this demand? If the answer is "Uber and Lyft hijacked that growth," won't the obvious solution implement itself in the form of the existing cab companies that are willing to follow local rules expanding? The cab situation basically boils down to "it's more profitable to ferry people to and from the airport or around the downtown area than it is to drive out to the other parts of the city", so they're picking and choosing their fares. Part of this could be solved by 1) putting in a spur from the metro out to the loving airport and 2) having the loving metro actually run regularly and not shut down once it starts to get dark. It's not inadequate, it's just that it's more expensive because it can be on account that you don't have someone basically committing insurance fraud driving around for pocket-change while lining the pockets of a company that keeps acting like it's a start-up when it's really a monopoly. Or you could own a car like a functional adult. Or designate a DD if you're out and about with a group of friends. And pay THEM to drive you around. Badger of Basra posted:I'm glad all these people saying we need Uber because CapMetro is poo poo are going to start advocating for better public transport now! If I understand properly, part of the city planning ideas behind the lovely parking downtown is to make people not want to/be able to drive downtown and thus increase demand for public transportation. *EDIT* VH4Ever posted:Hah. OK, I caught myself. Not long, and the second I thought about it I got it. Touche. Not sure how Uber/Lyft fit in though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2pGBv9Ly6A citybeatnik fucked around with this message at 23:37 on May 9, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 23:34
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I love Uber & Lyft ... as a consumer. But they badly misread Austin and seem to have treated it as "Austin!" in the imagination of Silicon Valley types who fly in once or twice a year to attend conferences. When in fact the city is undergoing an identity crisis with powerful local constituencies deeply uneasy about the changes the boom as wrought. I no longer live in Austin fwiw.
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May 9, 2016 23:37
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Sir Tonk posted:Go back to Dallas, heathen! But but but I flew to Dallas!
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May 9, 2016 23:37
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citybeatnik posted:If I understand properly, part of the city planning ideas behind the lovely parking downtown is to make people not want to/be able to drive downtown and thus increase demand for public transportation. That's correct but if you're going to do that you need to make it so people can use public transportation to get out of downtown at night, not just get into downtown during the early evening.
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May 9, 2016 23:37
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VH4Ever posted:Hah. OK, I caught myself. Not long, and the second I thought about it I got it. Touche. Not sure how Uber/Lyft fit in though. Hello, Martian. Even if I used Uber every day and didn't think it was a horribly exploitative company that externalizes costs and abuses its employees, I'd vote against prop 1 because I think it's morally abhorrent for a company to try to leverage historical low turnout and spend the kind of cash they did to overturn the will of citizens. Also, let's not forget we didn't vote to kick Uber out, they did that themselves to try to teach us a lesson. gently caress that.
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May 9, 2016 23:37
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citybeatnik posted:Or you could own a car like a functional adult. Or designate a DD if you're out and about with a group of friends. And pay THEM to drive you around. Why does everyone assume regular users of Uber and Lyft don't own cars "like functional adults?" I own a car and I've used Uber more than once. Sometimes I would Uber to the airport from work when I was flying out of town on a work night, or to and from a shop when my car was being worked on and I couldn't wait for the courtesy shuttle. Or uh, the very real problem of just telling people to get DDs doesn't make it so, just like telling teenagers not to gently caress won't make it so. People will be idiots and drive drunk, and now even more of them will. That could affect my life, or yours, no matter how much you and folks like you want to ignore that. But please, keep accusing all Uber users of being entitled millennials without cars, it's so helpful to the issue at hand. VH4Ever fucked around with this message at 23:44 on May 9, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 23:41
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Wikkheiser posted:I love Uber & Lyft ... as a consumer. I think that's a valid critique of it, speaking as an Austin native. You're seeing the hippies fight against the techies - why the gently caress should I support something that lines the pockets of a corporation, let alone one that spent over eight million on an issue? They should have spent that money on something better, like bribing politicians as God intended. Badger of Basra posted:That's correct but if you're going to do that you need to make it so people can use public transportation to get out of downtown at night, not just get into downtown during the early evening. Oh I'm with you on that. Austin has a real NIMBY problem, but, again, I don't see why the solution to that is to fellate some outside company that's enforcing the gig-economy. *EDIT* VH4Ever posted:Why does everyone assume regular users of Uber and Lyft don't own cars "like functional adults?" I own a car and I've used Uber more than once. Sometimes I would Uber to the airport from work when I was flying out of town on a work night, or to and from a shop when my car was being worked on and I couldn't wait for the courtesy shuttle. Or uh, the very real problem of just telling people to get DDs doesn't make it so, just like telling teenagers not to gently caress won't make it so. People will be idiots and drive drunk, and now even more of them will. That could affect my life, or yours, no matter how much you and folks like you want to ignore than. But please, keep accusing all Uber users of being entitled millennials without cars, it's so helpful to the issue at hand. Speaking as an entitled millennial, you're part of the problem.  (But, seriously, proper public transportation to and from areas would also help cut down on drunk driving, but DWIs are also big business for the state. I could go in to more detail on that if you'd like.) citybeatnik fucked around with this message at 23:46 on May 9, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 23:41
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citybeatnik posted:I think that's a valid critique of it, speaking as an Austin native. You're seeing the hippies fight against the techies - why the gently caress should I support something that lines the pockets of a corporation, let alone one that spent over eight million on an issue? They should have spent that money on something better, like bribing politicians as God intended. How do you immediately peg me as an entitled millennial? You don't even know me. I'm way too cynical to be confused with a Millennial. I just have a low tolerance for repeated bullshit in politics. citybeatnik posted:(But, seriously, proper public transportation to and from areas would also help cut down on drunk driving, but DWIs are also big business for the state. I could go in to more detail on that if you'd like.) I'm interested, even though I can say I am very, very familiar with "law enforcement as business" both from my years spent coming here as a visitor which stretched on for almost 10 years before I finally moved here, friends I made here, and frankly, my experience in southern California policy which isn't very different in that way. But I'll admit y'all here (Texas) have perfected that model. VH4Ever fucked around with this message at 23:54 on May 9, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 23:52
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 I don't live in Austin. I just wanted to know about the situation there.
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May 9, 2016 23:55
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VH4Ever posted:How do you immediately peg me as an entitled millennial? You don't even know me. I'm way too cynical to be confused with a Millennial. I just have a low tolerance for repeated bullshit in politics. Oh, I can't say for certain whether you're an entitled Millennial or just a prick; I was speaking about myself being one. And Texas might start giving a real poo poo about drunk driving if they weren't able to rake in a poo poo-ton of extra money every year for all the people with one on their record paying out the rear end in a top hat to be able to drive again. It's quite an inventive system.
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May 9, 2016 23:56
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BetterToRuleInHell posted:
I may have been a bit too vehement with my response. Let's put it this way: the reason Austinites hate Californians is because they brought their traffic problems with them. citybeatnik posted:Oh, I can't say for certain whether you're an entitled Millennial or just a prick; I was speaking about myself being one. Oh, that's cute. See, I told you Texas perfected "LEO as business," and I didn't even know about THAT when I said it. Wow. Legal graft is just out in the open here, it's odd for a relative newcomer like me to get used to. Yeah, I'm a prick on the right day. That might be today.
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May 9, 2016 23:57
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BetterToRuleInHell posted:
Yeah it is pretty bad to drive around the city, particularly downtown or East/West. We'[re terrible at passing bonds for more roads and prefer the time-honored tradition of building tollroads and selling them at a discount to foreign-held companies for a short term boost to the balance sheet so we can keep up the myth of us being a successful state VH4Ever posted:I may have been a bit too vehement with my response. Let's put it this way: the reason Austinites hate Californians is because they brought their traffic problems with them. We hate them because they're trying to turn Austin in to California or at least Silicon Valley. Traffic is only part of the problem. That and the city is terrible with regards to public planning and can't seem to convince people that paying for something now that'll pay off a decade or two down the line is a good idea.
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May 9, 2016 23:58
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VH4Ever posted:I may have been a bit too vehement with my response. Let's put it this way: the reason Austinites hate Californians is because they brought their traffic problems with them. Traffic in Austin has always been terrible. Everyone in Texas hates the Californians for a variety of reasons. The biggest issue is the illusion that Californians carry with them that California was somehow better than Texas, which is impossible. The fact that you're a refugee from that failed state speaks volumes about that theory.
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May 10, 2016 00:00
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I'm sympathetic to a lot of Uber's arguments about reducing drunk driving and the convenience of their service, but these rules aren't even all that much. The city is already cutting them so much slack by accepting their on-the-face-of-it preposterous contention that Uber isn't a cab company. As far as competitive fairness goes, the city could be setting their rates and making them buy medallions.
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May 10, 2016 00:02
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You do realize the vote wasn't to kick uber out? And that they left on their own? And that uber, a massively unprofitable company, claimed that finger printing would make It too expensive, even tho the company burns money pretty much all day every day everywhere? Uber is a lovely company ran by lovely people that get pissy when they don't get their way. Being mad that a city didn't cave to company demands is stupid. People are enjoying it because seeing dumb rear end tech companies get all pissy when people fail to recognize their ~genius~ or whatever dumb is funny.
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May 10, 2016 00:03
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They operate a lot like DraftKings/FanDuel where they're just going "No, see we aren't this thing that we very clearly are, so we don't have to follow any of the rules."
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May 10, 2016 00:06
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EwokEntourage posted:You do realize the vote wasn't to kick uber out? And that they left on their own? And that uber, a massively unprofitable company, claimed that finger printing would make It too expensive, even tho the company burns money pretty much all day every day everywhere? Basically this. Which has made the twitter reaction to it all even funnier. VH4Ever posted:Oh, that's cute. See, I told you Texas perfected "LEO as business," and I didn't even know about THAT when I said it. Wow. Legal graft is just out in the open here, it's odd for a relative newcomer like me to get used to. We're the state that birthed LBJ; we're perfectly fine with a little political corruption. It's just the way poo poo works. It's when you start bringing in yankee corporate corruption that we break out the whiskey and the revolvers.
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May 10, 2016 00:10
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citybeatnik posted:I think that's a valid critique of it, speaking as an Austin native. You're seeing the hippies fight against the techies - why the gently caress should I support something that lines the pockets of a corporation, let alone one that spent over eight million on an issue? They should have spent that money on something better, like bribing politicians as God intended. I have some friends who were involved in the NO campaign. The actual issues mattered the most. Also political affinities and coalition-building play a role in things like this (where you take a position because an ally takes it, because you want your ally to back you up later). But Austin is partly a victim of its own success at marketing itself, where now things feel too big, with too much money in certain hands, and it's distorted the local economy. Uber for these voters represents bigness and passive-aggressive, entitled, Californian arrogance. What about SXSW they say. While ignoring that the city has been taking efforts to ratchet back the festival. Austinites are also on a short fuse and constantly must put up with annoyances. Uber decided to annoy them ... a lot.
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May 10, 2016 00:14
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Wikkheiser posted:Yeah I don't want to reduce it to that, but I suspect it played a role in turning the vote out for NO. We were wondering earlier ... if Uber had done nothing they probably would have won! They had to actively lose to do as badly as they did. SXSW is another issue entirely, since it's been moved from being primarily an arts & entertainment festival to a tech/software dominated one. Which has led to an explosion of techbros and yuppies moving in, making things more difficult for the natives as well as the artists/entertainers. I can see us being a victim of our own success though - Dell moving here sort of started the snowball rolling down the hill. But we're -still- a small college town infrastructure-wise. That and, again, the tech-libertarian mindset of Silicon Valley running headfirst in to whatever the gently caress word you'd use to describe our zeitgeist... are we Yippies?
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May 10, 2016 00:20
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Related to that -- and I think a lot of companies want to hitch themselves to the Austin brand because it carries a cache. This is another annoyance Austinites have to put up with, because they see PepsiCo, or whoever, trying to sell the idea of Austin to visitors every year. And a lot of locals roll their eyes at things like that. That might be a reason Uber spent so much. It's not that Austin is all that lucrative of a market -- others are far bigger. It's that Austin is a city with a cache that Uber wants to take advantage of. To have Austin (of all places) reject Uber is infuriating, and the reaction from tech and VC types has been amazing to watch. It's all smiles until you say no, and out comes this condescension about why Austin failed to live up to "itself" whatever that means. You can see that this is exploitation.
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May 10, 2016 00:26
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EwokEntourage posted:You do realize the vote wasn't to kick uber out? And that they left on their own? And that uber, a massively unprofitable company, claimed that finger printing would make It too expensive, even tho the company burns money pretty much all day every day everywhere? https://twitter.com/jacksmithiv/status/635925087640793088
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May 10, 2016 00:29
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Wikkheiser posted:this condescension about why Austin failed to live up to "itself" if i heard these words spoken aloud irl i would flip my poo poo
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May 10, 2016 00:31
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citybeatnik posted:That and the city is terrible with regards to public planning and can't seem to convince people that paying for something now that'll pay off a decade or two down the line is a good idea. I remember as a child, my father would take me to school in the morning. He would always listen to some talk radio show. It was something local, but I have no idea how to even begin searching for what it would be called. It was basically (to me) two crotchety old men arguing about poo poo I didn't understand. The only thing I clearly remember them discussing, probably because they talked about it CONSTANTLY, was expansion of the public transportation system using light rail trains. This would have been 15-20 years ago.
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May 10, 2016 00:35
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citybeatnik posted:We hate them because they're trying to turn Austin in to California or at least Silicon Valley. Traffic is only part of the problem. Yeah that too is an odd change from "pass a school bond every year" mortgaged to hell California. Funny going from one extreme to the other. Out here if a public resource doesn't somehow generate profit, no one wants to do it. Absurd. litany of gulps posted:Traffic in Austin has always been terrible. Everyone in Texas hates the Californians for a variety of reasons. The biggest issue is the illusion that Californians carry with them that California was somehow better than Texas, which is impossible. The fact that you're a refugee from that failed state speaks volumes about that theory. Yeah, I am a refugee, and I don't want this place to become NorCal anymore than the native Austinites do. I hated going to "Silicon Valley" for business every time I did, overpriced, crowded and horrible traffic. And you're right, but it sure seems like San Antonio is catching up in the "horrible traffic" department with all the growth they've seen recently. VH4Ever fucked around with this message at 00:47 on May 10, 2016 |
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May 10, 2016 00:37
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Aliquid posted:if i heard these words spoken aloud irl i would flip my poo poo https://twitter.com/malachi_boyuls/status/729126847124930560 https://twitter.com/MattMackowiak/status/729126921389252612 https://twitter.com/evanbaehr/status/729136390122840064 
BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 00:45 on May 10, 2016 |
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May 10, 2016 00:38
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So the planned March to Bring Back Uber and Lyft is a hilarious, disorganized clusterfuck. They've changed the date of the march twice in the last 8 hours, changed the time from 4PM to 10AM 2 hours ago, & still haven't reached a consensus on where everybody will meet up.
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May 10, 2016 00:39
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PostNouveau posted:They operate a lot like DraftKings/FanDuel where they're just going "No, see we aren't this thing that we very clearly are, so we don't have to follow any of the rules." Another similarity is that they hosed themselves with overly aggressive ad campaigns that turned public opinion against them.
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May 10, 2016 00:41
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VH4Ever posted:Yeah, I am a refugee, and I don't want this place to become NorCal anymore than the native Austinites do. I hated going to "Silicon Valley" for business every time I did, overprices, crowded and horrible traffic. And you're right, but it sure seems like San Antonio is catching up in the "horrible traffic" department with all the growth they've seen recently. I think the native view here is "you'd have been shocked to see it ten years ago" - even just five years. No poo poo there's traffic, the growth is astounding. Austin and San Antonio are rapidly becoming one continuous entity. The rural is now the suburban. Much has changed, and it has changed quickly.
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May 10, 2016 00:42
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Austin is being a stuck up bitch and friend zoning all the good guy tech companies.
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May 10, 2016 00:44
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MariusLecter posted:Austin is being a stuck up bitch and friend zoning all the good guy tech companies. #NotAllTechCompanies
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May 10, 2016 00:46
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litany of gulps posted:I think the native view here is "you'd have been shocked to see it ten years ago" - even just five years. No poo poo there's traffic, the growth is astounding. Austin and San Antonio are rapidly becoming one continuous entity. The rural is now the suburban. Much has changed, and it has changed quickly. Yeah I hadn't made the I-35 corridor trip between the two in about 5 years before I moved here so in 2014 I did and wow, when did Kyle and Buda become full fledged cities? Stuff like that, right? Another bit of writing on the wall: The cities of Kyle, San Marcos, Buda, Austin and San Antonio have been having meetings to devise a regional authority of some kind to start that process of becoming one big megalopolis, so that does seem to be how things are evolving.
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May 10, 2016 00:46
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