Ride sharing increases traffic

Ride sharing was marketed as urban salvation. Fewer cars, less congestion, optimized routes, shared rides. The mathematics seemed obvious: more people in fewer vehicles equals reduced traffic.

The reality inverted every promise.

── The efficiency theater

Studies consistently show ride sharing increases vehicle miles traveled by 13-47% in major cities. Each ride-share trip generates approximately 2.8 miles of additional driving compared to the transportation mode it replaced.

This isn’t a bug. It’s the system working exactly as designed.

The “sharing” in ride sharing was always marketing fiction. Most rides carry single passengers. The economic incentives ensure this outcome: shared rides reduce per-mile revenue for drivers and per-ride profit margins for platforms.

True sharing would destroy the business model.

── Value extraction disguised as value creation

Ride sharing companies positioned themselves as solving urban transportation problems. But their actual value proposition was different: extracting profit from existing transportation infrastructure while externalizing the costs.

They didn’t reduce traffic. They monetized it.

Every idle moment in a driver’s day becomes economically productive through platform mediation. Previously, someone driving to work contributed one car-trip to traffic. Now that same person drives to work, then drives around seeking ride requests, generating multiple additional trips.

The platform captures value from this multiplication of vehicle activity while cities absorb the costs: increased congestion, road wear, emissions, parking pressure.

── The substitution myth

Ride sharing was supposed to replace car ownership and public transit use. Research shows it primarily replaced walking, cycling, and public transportation—the most efficient mobility modes.

In dense urban areas, ride sharing draws people away from mass transit rather than private cars. This substitution pattern worsens rather than improves traffic conditions.

Meanwhile, ride sharing has minimal impact on car ownership rates. People still buy cars for reliability and status. They simply add ride sharing as an additional transportation option, increasing total mobility consumption.

── Induced demand at scale

Ride sharing creates transportation demand that wouldn’t otherwise exist. The convenience of on-demand mobility generates new trips that people wouldn’t take using previous transportation modes.

This isn’t accidental. The platforms optimize for trip frequency, not transportation efficiency. Their algorithms encourage more rides, longer routes, and reduced ride sharing to maximize revenue extraction.

The apps are designed to make transportation consumption frictionless and habitual. Every interface element pushes users toward taking more trips, not better trips.

── Regulatory capture through innovation rhetoric

City governments embraced ride sharing because it promised technological solutions to urban problems without requiring public investment. The “innovation” narrative provided political cover for avoiding actual transportation infrastructure improvements.

Rather than building better public transit, bike lanes, or walkable neighborhoods, cities allowed private companies to claim they were solving urban mobility through market mechanisms.

The platforms actively lobbied against transportation improvements that would reduce demand for their services. They positioned themselves as pro-innovation while opposing actual urban efficiency improvements.

── The optimization paradox

Ride sharing platforms claim algorithmic optimization creates transportation efficiency. But they optimize for corporate profit extraction, not system-wide efficiency.

True transportation optimization would minimize total vehicle miles traveled. Platform optimization maximizes revenue per mile traveled and total miles traveled. These objectives are fundamentally opposed.

The algorithms route drivers to maximize platform utilization rates and surge pricing opportunities. They intentionally create scarcity and increase wait times to justify higher prices. They prefer longer routes that generate more revenue over shorter routes that reduce traffic.

── Environmental externality shifting

Ride sharing companies marketed their services as environmentally beneficial through increased vehicle utilization. But they simply shifted environmental costs from vehicle manufacturing to vehicle operation.

Instead of many privately-owned vehicles sitting idle, ride sharing creates fewer vehicles driving constantly. The total environmental impact increases through higher mileage per vehicle and shortened vehicle lifecycles.

The platforms also accelerated the transition to larger vehicles. Drivers prefer SUVs and larger cars that can accommodate more passengers and cargo. This vehicle size inflation further worsens traffic and environmental impacts.

── Labor arbitrage as infrastructure

Ride sharing’s core innovation was labor cost reduction through independent contractor classification. This arbitrage allowed platforms to offer transportation services below the true cost of provision by externalizing driver vehicle costs, insurance, and benefits.

The below-market pricing artificially increased demand and created the illusion of transportation efficiency. But the true costs remained—they were simply shifted from the platforms to drivers, cities, and society.

When factoring in driver vehicle depreciation, maintenance, insurance, and opportunity costs, ride sharing often costs more than taxi services while providing lower driver wages. The platforms captured the arbitrage value while externalizing the costs.

── The network effect trap

Cities became dependent on ride sharing platforms through network effects. Once the platforms achieved market dominance, they gained pricing power and reduced service quality while maintaining market position.

Drivers and passengers became locked into platform ecosystems. Cities lost the ability to regulate transportation services effectively because platform removal would create mobility gaps for residents who had abandoned other transportation modes.

The platforms used this dependency to extract regulatory concessions and resist oversight. They positioned themselves as essential urban infrastructure while remaining private profit-extraction entities.

── Systemic value destruction

Ride sharing represents systemic value destruction disguised as innovation. It degraded urban transportation systems while extracting profit from the degradation.

Traffic congestion is not a bug to be fixed—it’s a resource to be monetized. The platforms benefit from transportation scarcity and urban mobility problems. Solving these problems would reduce their market opportunity.

This creates perverse incentives where transportation “solutions” are designed to perpetuate transportation problems while extracting profit from them.

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The ride sharing phenomenon reveals how technological solutionism serves capital extraction rather than problem solving. When private platforms promise to solve public problems, examine who benefits from perpetuating those problems.

Real transportation efficiency would threaten ride sharing business models. Their success depends on maintaining urban mobility dysfunction while monetizing it.

This is the axiological inversion at the heart of platform capitalism: problems become products, inefficiency becomes revenue, and systemic dysfunction becomes competitive advantage.