Uber and Lyft are omnipresent in my daily life.
I turn on my phone in the morning and there’s a notification that I still owe a driver a tip and a rating. I listen to music that name-drops the companies in lyrics. At most airports in the United States, there are ride-hailing ads convincing people of a convenient way to get home.
Like so many other people across the country, I use ride-hailing services like Uber or Lyft. I'll call a car when I'm going out with friends or when I'm traveling and public transportation isn't available. Sometimes I'll call one when public transportation isn't running and calling a car feels like my only option.
In a nutshell, ride-hailing companies exacerbate climate change and perpetuate a car-dependent landscape. A growing mountain of evidence, stories, and data is making us more aware of how problematic these companies are.
- Both Uber and Lyft have admitted they’re making traffic worse in our largest and busiest cities, including the District of Columbia, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle.
- Despite Uber and Lyft’s claims that they’re getting rid of the need for personal vehicles, ride-hailing actually generates 70 percent more pollution than the trips it displaces (this is largely due to “dead-heading,” or driving without a passenger in tow).
- When Uber and Lyft enter a new market, transit ridership inevitably suffers.
- And it’s no secret that Uber and Lyft treat their drivers poorly while company executives make billions of dollars off the back of their labor.
Of course, this may not stop most people -- including me -- from hailing a Lyft or Uber the next time they need one, and that’s OK. But that doesn’t mean we need to give these companies a pass on their social and environmental impacts.
As consumers, we have the power to ensure that the creators and owners behind the products and services we use in our daily lives take climate change seriously. Together, we can make positive change.
We don’t have to stop using ride-hailing services. We do, however, have a big opportunity to urge Uber and Lyft to be better.
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Car drivers advocated for seat belts and safer roads. Consumer advocates made the household products we use every day, from the toaster to the hair straightener, safer. Climate advocates have retired coal plants and blocked pipelines. Nothing is stopping us, as consumers of Uber and Lyft, as people that care about climate, from asking for the same kind of change from the ride-hailing industry, especially when climate change is an issue that affects all of us.
So, what can we do?
We need to urge ride-hailing companies to make bolder plans to go electric and hold them accountable to their sustainability promises. Every ride-hailing user should have the opportunity to request an electric vehicle. Many ride-hailing service drivers already drive hybrids because it helps their profit margins. Lyft and Uber should double down on their efforts by making zero-emission vehicles more accessible to drivers and more available to riders.
Lyft made its largest debut of electric vehicles in Denver a few months ago, offering 200 electric vehicles to drivers through its Express Drive rental program. This can only be the start. Lyft and Uber should introduce more electric vehicles to more of their rental fleets across more cities, which will save drivers money on fuel and provide riders with the opportunity to choose electric to get around.
We must work with elected officials and regulators to make our cities more resilient to climate change in general. Uber and Lyft can’t make the switch to zero-emission vehicles if the electric-charging infrastructure doesn’t exist to support them. So far, utilities and others have invested or committed to about $2 billion in electric vehicle charging infrastructure in the US, across red, blue, and purple states! But analysis shows that we need more -- upwards of $6 billion -- in additional charging infrastructure investment by 2025 to be on track to meet our climate goals.
Additionally, mass transit systems will continue to lose ground to ride-hailing companies if we don’t invest to make them faster, more frequent, and reliable. Clean, affordable, reliable transit is essential for everyone that lives in our communities.
Our urban land use policy has to be pro-density. Dense developments support transit, walking, and biking and are proven to be the best way to fight climate change at the municipal level. If we want to win the fight against climate change, we have to move our city ordinances and state statutes away from car dependency toward a human-centered landscape. Density is the first step.
We should be honest about our role in exacerbating these problems, free of shame or guilt but emboldened with the power to ask for change in a constantly changing world with new technology. Convenience is seductive. Even though Uber and Lyft are just over 10 years old, it’s hard to imagine a world without the ease of their services. At the same time, we can and must acknowledge that they are contributing to a polluting, car-dependent culture that puts all of our futures at risk.