Originally published in the S.F. Examiner on August 7, 2019.

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” Bob Dylan once sang. While most of us are able to figure things out with our eyes and brains, the powers that be seem incapable of making or accepting empirical observations. Especially when it comes to Uber and Lyft.

On Monday, the two companies released the findings of a jointly funded analysis by an independent transportation firm detailing the impact of their services on traffic in six US cities, including San Francisco. News that Uber and Lyft are responsible for a significant amount of congestion was met with a resounding, “Duh!”

You don’t need an independent transportation firm to know that Uber and Lyft are mucking up traffic.

Anyone who’s ever tried to get around San Francisco has witnessed the consequences of Uber’s and Lyft’s concerted efforts to flood the streets with cars. While idling in gridlock, trying in vain to get through an intersection, you just have to look at the cars around you to notice most have Uber and/or Lyft decals.

Of course, despite the recent findings, Uber’s head of global policy immediately shirked responsibility by arguing that private cars still make up most of the congestion.

Sure, if you’re only looking at figures. But it doesn’t take a statistician to figure out that an influx of 6,000 vehicles for hire on any given day will have an extensive impact on traffic.

Read the rest here.

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