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| A lack of late-evening bus service necessitated a 4 mile walk across the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge from Charleston, SC to my hotel in Mount Pleasant. My Lyft ride to Charleston's train station the next night also crossed this bridge. (Photo by me) |
This week has not been a good one for Uber and Lyft. Data revealed that their shared-ride services are increasing traffic congestion and making it more difficult to get around dense urban areas, proving that I'm not just imagining the chaos I've seen them inflict on city streets.
But sometimes I have little choice but to use a ride-hailing app, mainly when work or family obligations take me to extremely auto-dependent places. One such location I traveled to last year was Charleston,
South Carolina, for a cousin's baptism.
As usual for such locations, I experienced plenty of “it’s so
bad, it’s funny” transportation moments, such as a 3.5-mile midday walk to my
relatives’ suburban residence from the nearest bus stop, followed up by a
4-mile walk that night – necessitated by a lack of late-evening bus service and featuring a sidewalk-less stretch of high grass filled
with biting insects – over the long Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge leading back
to my hotel.
These experiences were a bit of a letdown, given that the Lyft
driver who picked me up at the city’s Amtrak station when I arrived had told me
that Charleston was voted the "number one" city in the world (lesson: don't use Travel & Leisure magazine to choose my destinations!) before
launching into a list of questionable statistics about the city that I didn’t ask
to hear. The most memorable of these bizarre statistics: a supposed “six-to-one” female-to-male
ratio that, he explained, encouraged the local women to stay in “great shape”
so they can “score a boyfriend.”
Despite these odd events I had a great time with
my relatives, and all too soon it was time for me to head back to DC. I was to catch
an overnight train back to Union Station, from which I could walk to my office
on Monday morning. With viable transit lacking, ride hailing was the only transportation option available for the 10-mile trip to the train station.
***
The Lyft ride to the station started out pretty normally: the driver missed the turn to
the street I was waiting on, made a couple U-turns, came back to pick me up,
and we were on our way.
But things quickly turned surreal when, a few minutes into the trip, she began telling me her
recent life story. To say the least, life has not dealt her a good hand
recently:
- Two of her relatives were struck and killed by a drunk driver several weeks earlier, causing her to fly from her home in the Tampa, FL area to Charleston to help her family out
- Soon after she left Florida, Hurricane Irma hit and destroyed all of her property
- After the hurricane, her bank account was frozen due to an issue at her bank, so she is driving for Lyft in hopes of making enough money to pay off her insurance deductibles stemming from the storm damage
- Despite working long hours daily, her earnings from ride hailing are meager. As she put it, “Lyft sucks.”
As a passenger, it was difficult to think of a proper
response for this situation; all I could do was suggest she stay strong and
reassure her that everything would turn out okay.
Otherwise, it was a pretty normal app-hailed ride – as we
approached the train station, the driver missed a turn. Then, the app
inexplicably instructed her to get on a freeway and head to central Charleston
(the station was in outlying North Charleston). Fortunately, we were
able to find the station on Google Maps, and soon we arrived.
The ride was over, but as Amtrak's Silver Meteor rolled through the early
fall night, I continued to reflect on it. The main question nagging me: was her
story true?
I wanted to believe her, because I want to believe people are inherently
good. But there were a couple of holes in her story that continued to give me
pause, making me whether it was an element of some sort of scam.
For instance, Hurricane Irma didn’t hit Tampa directly. The driver said that damage from the storm had something to do
with her bank account being frozen but did not explain this clearly. And why
would she feel compelled to tell a random stranger she had only met a couple minutes prior
about such tragic, emotional personal events?
***
Regardless of whether or not her story was true, one thing she
said is certain: Lyft sucks.
If she was telling the truth, it is yet another
example of ride-hailing companies taking advantage of people desperate to
get back on their feet, misleading their drivers into thinking they can make a
living wage when in reality they care little about them. If she was not telling
the truth and is trying to scam riders, Lyft’s applicant screening process and background
check failed once again.
This was not my first questionable experience with a
ride-hailing app, but it reinforced my view of the industry. Rather than tolerating purported “disruptions”
intended to benefit only a few individuals, we should systematically encourage
innovation and use new technology to enhance our transportation systems in a manner
that maximizes public benefit.
And as part of this enhancement, we have to ensure that the men and women
who operate and maintain our transportation systems are not exploited.
***
I tipped my Charleston Lyft driver the same amount (around 15%) that I would
tip any other ride-hailing driver, but was left wondering whether or not I am a
bad person for questioning her story. Am I?
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