I avoided using the transportation services of Uber for several years given the labor and privacy practices of the company. Earlier this summer, however, I decided to use it for the first time. I was in downtown LA for a conference and was trying to meet with a friend who lives miles away in Playa del Rey. He suggested I “should uber” in order to transport in the city instead of using taxicabs or buses. Comparing the price of a cab, Uber was indeed cheaper, and compared to the several buses I would have to take, it was also faster. Hence, I downloaded the app, registered, and got my first Uber ride. I continued to use the service for three more times, especially for rides to and from an airport, in different cities. I got distracted by the price and convenience of using the Uber app, finding a driver fast and anywhere, and stopped thinking that by using the service I was given away my privacy and supporting the labor practices of the so called “platform economy.”
However, it took me a fourth ride to realize I should not continue using Uber. This realization occurred after a very long ride in NYC that ended with a late arrival to the airport and missing a flight. I was trying to go to NYC La Guardia airport from the upper west side in Manhattan. It was a sunny summer afternoon and the traffic was busy. As usual, when requesting the service, there were many Uber drivers around me and the platform matched me with a driver that arrived very fast. I got into the confortable and spacious car. The driver, Joshua, already knew my destination so he asked me at what time was my flight. I told him I gotta be in the airport at 4:30. He looked at me through the rear-mirror and said, “I am gonna try to make it but I am not sure if we will arrive on time.” I looked at my watch and it showed 3:15. I thought one hour should be enough but aparently not. Apparently I have forgotten how bad the traffic could be in Manhattan in the afternoon and how long a ride to the airport could be in NYC.
Joshua told me “it took me one hour and a half to get to La Guardia yesterday, I doubt we can make it but we can try.” He suggested that instead of driving through Manhattan we could take the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and the Highways. He argued that if we drove through Manhattan and Queens it will take us longer and would get stock in traffic. I listened to him while waiting in a traffic jam, and thought that if the traffic was indeed as bad as he said, I would loose my flight. He spoke based on his experience last day and was making a suggestion. I believed him. I looked at the google traffic maps on my phone and indeed the traffic through Manhattan looked bad. Taking the tunnel and doing a belt way of Manhattan and Brooklyn seemed like an option. I hesitated. But then I told him we could proceed as he suggested.
The Uber driver took me through a very long ride. And in the middle of it, after crossing the tunnel and entering Brooklyn, I started to realize that perhaps Joshua did not really know about the traffic in NYC. He knew very little indeed. The traffic was also heavy in the route he proposed, and even worst, it was a longer trajectory. “Once we take the Belt Highway it will be 20 minutes, ” he said. “The traffic will be faster” he added. Multitudes of cars, however, continued to make the traffic very slow during all our ride. We were moving perhaps more than if we were stock in a traffic jam in a street or an avenue in Manhattan, but we were making a very long journey. I decided to trust the Uber driver but his knowledge was not as sharp. He was friendly indeed, and we talked a lot during the ride. I stop worrying about my flight and tried to enjoy the view of the ocean, the bridges, the ships. It was a beautiful day outside. And I wished I had taken a taxi cab driver who knew more about NYC streets, shortcuts, and turns. I arrived to La Guardia at 4:50pm after an Uber ride of 32.86 miles (approximately 20 miles more than the other routes that crossed Manhattan). It was too late for check-in and my flight seat was already given to someone else.
There are many reasons for not using the Uber service. Richard Stallman has clearly outlined 16 of them in one of his political commentary posts. I discovered one more in my fourth Uber ride. Uber drivers have little knowledge of urban routes and shortcuts. Because these drivers are usually newbies in the practice of navigating cities, they do not have advanced knowledge of urban circulation. Especially in big cities with chaotic traffic and surprises, Uber drivers seem to lack the know-how that taxi drivers with years of experiencing can have. That sort of know-how, is also absent from automated maps generated by google or apple maps. Knowing the turns, shortcuts and work-around of a complex traffic system is a human advantage that taxi drivers still have when they drive in megalopolis. Although the taxi cab system has also many problems, I think it also has some advantages. Besides the institutional regulation of labor practices and the protection user’s privacy, there is also an advantage related to the longer experience of the service providers. Taxi drivers hands-on knowledge, practical and experiential, is still missing from automated apps and online platforms.
