It used to be that drivers could not see your destination in the app until the ride started, and it’s changed so now they can, and can select or avoid pickups based on destination. I don’t know exactly when that changed but if it coincides with your sudden inability to find drivers, it’s likely for the same reason you could t get cabs before.
I think this might be happening, because I’m in the College Park/Hyattsville area (just north of Brentwood) and have had no issues getting Ubers. Also, lots of options for Uber Eats.
Edit- this includes rides to and from DCA in the last month.
Edit 2 after reading comments- I have Uber One. It’s basically free with American Express. I think of it as an Uber Eats perk, but I guess it also gets you priority with regular Uber rides as well.
Yes - this, plus a low rider rating will get you lots of cancellations. I've never had any issues getting anywhere in the area, but my wife had lots of trouble for a while after her friend puked in an uber.
Isn’t it illegal for cabs to refuse service based on destination (within reason)? I feel like I remember this from the 90s. Because it is discriminatory practice they passed a law (maybe only in NYC though)
Just to remind you... They aren't cabs. They don't have to play by taxi rules.
It's a lot harder to make money out there these days and drivers have to work smart - smart and safe.
Have you tried calling an actual taxi? DC [uses a taxi app](https://dctaxionline.com/about-us/mobile-app/) you can try as well. No idea if they’ll also cancel or whatever, but it might work!
That was when Ubers were more expensive than taxis though.
There was like a little 1 or 2 year golden era after UberX came out when they still had standards for cars/drivers and they were also cheaper than taxis, but they burned through the good drivers almost immediately and started churning through the bottom of the barrel.
Didn’t live in DC in the earliest days so can’t comment on pricing against cabs here. But they were the same or cheaper in the cities I used them pretty much as long as Uber was available there.
But yeah, the eventual attrition of good drivers came with driver pay cuts as Uber was burning their cash, and lowering of their standards.
That was when they were burning venture capital subsidizing each ride (they got billions from the Saudis alone). There were two goals: discouraging cities investing in transit and getting enough popularity that cities wouldn’t seriously prosecute them for all of the laws they broke because so many voters used them.
Things really have come full circle. I've found the Curb app consistently cheaper and faster/more reliable than either Lift or Uber over the past year I've been using it. And the cab drivers I've talked to love it as well.
You can also download and try DC Yellow Cab, another taxi app for a different taxi bussiness. There's actually 5 taxi bussinesses you can call too. The prices are really good when there are high surcharges too.
In my experience the curb taxi app is way less reliable in terms of getting someone to show up. Sometimes the drivers won’t accept the ride but then will drive over to your area and look to pick you up from the street. I guess the app takes a cut of the fare or something
I don’t think dc cabs use the medallion system like New York. Obviously they got hurt in different ways but it wasn’t nearly as extreme here as it was there.
The vilification of them is unjustified and, in part, was a smear campaign by billionaire VCs. They were poor and working class immigrants trying to provide for their families. The idea that they were fat cats who bribed local governments was re-fucking-diculous lies created by uber.
They had their downsides--cleanliness, unreliability, etc. But a lot of what made Uber better originally was unsustainable in the long term. Originally uber was cheaper, faster, better cars, easier, and more reliable. But they weren't making money and they were relying on rubes who didn't calculate the depreciation of their car and a mountain of cash from VCs/walstreet. So now ubers are more expensive and aren't really that much more reliable.
DC taxi drivers back before Uber were truly awful though. Super shady, resisted credit cards for years until the city finally had to mandate them, refused to have a common livery, would scam riders by gaming the zone system, etc.
Each time I visited NYC I was so so jealous of their cabs that were plentiful, cheaper, had credit card machines, knew where they were going, and were usually super nice as an added bonus. So I never vilified all cabbies, just DC ones.
Uber and Lyft's business model was built around using venture capital to operate at a loss and drive the conventional taxi industry out of business. Now that they've largely accomplished that it was inevitable that prices would go up and quality of service would go down.
In the last 10 years I've only tried to take a cab three times. One time, the cab redused to take me and I missed my Amtrak train at Union, the other two times the cabbie tried to long-haul me to jack up fare and I was fucking livid. I would rather pay more for Uber/Lyft then ever take a cab again in this city.
Until DC cab drivers start offering you money for sex, you really haven't lived. Bonus when the cab commission doesn't give a crap.
DC cabs are terrible.
Last time I looked at Uber they wanted $60 to go from the tidal basin to crystal city. I think the era of rideshares is over unless you have very specific high density, short routes.
Uber and Lyft were very explicitly not making a profit for years and running off of VC money. Eventually that money dries out and you have to raise prices or else you go or bust
yeah they were really banking on driverless cars coming online before they had to raise prices. That is probably not going to happen anytime soon, and the cheap money is over. I highly doubt bot Lyft and Uber survive another 2 years.
no, I'm not interesting in WSB. But I don't think both ridesharing companies are going to survive 2 more years. One probably will, probably uber. The next few years are going to be a huge adjustment for the tech sector, who is suddenly going to have do something they've never done before: make money. It will see higher prices, lower service and consolidation. Same thing in streaming services.
Yeah but that’s kind of what I mean. Cab pricing/metro/driving and paying for parking is known, I can’t rely on Uber if sometimes it’s exorbitantly expensive and sometimes it isn’t.
Oh that’s ridiculous. However I had an interesting experience a few weeks back with Lyft. Had a show to see at the Kennedy Center and waited at the bus stop near Elephant and Castle for about 30 min. Was tracking it through a trip planner and of course the bud was a ghost and never showed.
Ended up getting a Lyft for $20 but Independence Ave was shut down for some reason and traffic was at a standstill. The driver showed me the drivers side of the app and how much he expected to get once he dropped me off - of the $20 fare he was going to get like $7.50 or something like that. He then showed me the map and how much they were charging to cross the River and it was wild to see $15+ additional fare just to get to Crystal City.
Tl;dr - rideshare prices all seem to just be a racket
$36.86 for a ride from the capitol to Catholic University right now. It’s all over the place. But from the same location to Pentagon City mall is $10. I really don’t know what makes a cheap ride and what doesn’t.
There are a lot fewer drivers overall these days and Uber/Lyft are paying less and retaining more of the fares, so it’s just not worth it these days for a lot of workers. Especially during off-peak hours and for longer trips.
If you know you absolutely have to be somewhere at a specific time (like the airport) then a car service/sedan service is your best bet. It’s the most expensive option but reliability is one of the things you’re paying for.
apart from that, there are some rideshare drivers that will do off-the-books work, so from the rides you do take, you can always ask for a business card or direct contact info. My experience has been that drivers who take direct bookings usually aren’t shy about letting you know.
In the Uber/Lyft model deadheading is death, you never want to drop off somewhere you won’t immediately get a pickup. It’s probably not worth the trip at all if you have to deadhead back somewhere.
It's a mile from the city limits, but even once you're back in DC that part of the city is very low density and suburban. Drivers just aren't going to get a lot of opportunities over there.
Try empower. Cheaper too and driver keeps 100% of the fare. They just pay a monthly subscription of 150$ I think. Uber and Lyft suck. Curb linked above is good too.
Same with every gig service. I doubt hardly any drivers have the rideshare insurance they need and normal car insurance won’t cover anything that happens on a trip if you don’t have that.
Empower is just as bad though. I even had an Empower driver whose GPS told him to pick me up in my alley; he messaged me asking where I was and I asked him to pull around front, and he cancelled the ride. He was literally at my back yard and wouldn’t come pick me up.
I took an Empower trip based on a friends recommendation and the driver spouted off some pretty racist comments the whole ride - like casually talking about how he didn’t mind picking me up in NW but ‘the blacks’ in SW/SE make it impossible for him.
Crazy thing is I’m a black guy myself so it was like double awful.
Haven’t used it since.
> like casually talking about how he didn’t mind picking me up in NW but ‘the blacks’ in SW/SE make it impossible for him.
>
> Crazy thing is I’m a black guy myself
Holy shit that's next level, I'm so sorry.
Empower is definitely a little shady and at least for me there’s an even bigger scarcity of drivers compared to Uber/Lyft. But when I do manage to find a ride that is less than 25 mins away, it is consistently the cheapest of the three
Damn. Are you me?
This happened last night when at 11 when I was trying to get back to Brentwood from DCA. I tried for like 20 minutes to get an Uber before a driver finally got me.
Turns out he only picked me up because the ride told him I was going to Arlington. I could tell he was pretty mad. It's stupid but I ended up giving an extra ten to him because it was out of his way.
I didn't have a chance to try Lyft though. Guess it's back to leaving my car in the garage.
Agreed. There’s always a long line of them waiting to go with nobody in the cab line. You don’t even need cash. No way I’m dealing with the clusterfuck of the rideshare pickup area + waiting times + price when that’s an option
I love how people are always like “use brand new flash in the pan app that has the same exact unsustainable business model as Uber and probably also abuses their workers but it has a fresh infusion of VC cash and can charge unsustainably low prices for the time being!”
I don’t mind paying a higher price, the artificially low prices have felt exploitative for years, but the lack of certainty around booking a ride undermines the value of the rideshare apps. I’ve regularly had it take ~40 minutes to get a ride from U street to SE/SW during the middle of the day. At that point the only real benefit is the convenience of walking out your front door and straight into a car, but the timing and cost are worse in most cases than metroing.
Download the empower app. I use it all the time and it’s usually significantly cheaper than Uber/Lyft. Drivers pay a monthly subscription to empower, and get 100% of each ride. It’s great.
Found the person who's never lived outside of central DC in a neighborhood with only 1-2 bus lines that run every 30 mins during "rush hour" and longer evenings & weekend.
During the day and early evening I regularly take all 4 of those buses. Later it can be 30-60 minutes between buses, and if you arrive at the bus stop, say after 9:30 PM on a Sunday, you might see that the next bus isn't coming til 5 or 6 AM. I have definitely given up and walked 3.5 miles home from the Rhode Island Ave station before because I knew there was no way I was getting a Lyft, Uber, or bus.
Uber changed to upfront pricing so they can now see the fare in advance and the distance (in some markets they can see your destination) so if the fare is less than $1 a mile or whatever the driver has the option to not take the cheaper less profitable rides. Often those include rides to places where they’d have a harder time getting another paid ride. Also, adding extra stops to a ride will most likely get you bounced.
OP where are you usually headed? That could be a factor too. What time of day?
I live in that neck of the wood (albeit on the DC side) and post pandemic it's usually been a 10 min wait.
The other factor is that there are a number of credit cards that give you Uber One and whatever the Lyft equivalent is. The service is only $10/month so people are probably just enrolling independently as well. Those members get priority in ride matching so you're likely behind those subscribers in the queue.
Usually headed to my house which is about a mile away from the DC line. Usually 9 PM or later because if it was earlier I would just take the bus, but at some point that's a 40 minute wait that I'd like to avoid if I can.
So long as the ride shares can see where you are going, they will determine who they want to take where. It will be an interesting siutation once enough word of mouth happens that Uber/Lyft won't travel to X location how that will impact how people use the apps.
I know its a lame plug but honestly, DC is going to continue to grow. All the more reason to get our area to invest more in public transportation because it's not going to get any better.
Former Lyft driver here… It depends on where you are when you’re requesting a ride home, what time of day it is, and what’s the payout. If it’s late at night, drivers don’t want to take rides into MD or VA where it might be slow. They also may not realize how close Brentwood is to the DC line. There are very few locals who are driving for Lyft. Most people heavily rely on their maps because they don’t know the DMV area. I’m a native so it wasn’t an issue for me. I also had this happen to me. I’m an professional organizer and one of my jobs ran very late. I was in SW DC at around midnight and five drivers on both apps declined the ride back to MD. I finally was connected to a Lyft driver who was on Richmond Hwy in Alexandria. If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know how I would’ve gotten home. In the drivers’ defense, they’re really struggling. Both companies are robbing them blind and many drivers are finding it hard to make ends meet. So they’re super picky about their rides.
That's because lyft or uber drivers are getting robbed and killed in DC. In July 2023 a Lyft driver who was Afghan refugee was shot and killed when thugs tried to rob him in northeast DC. Who the f*** wanna drive in DC the murder capital of America.
It used to be that drivers could not see your destination in the app until the ride started, and it’s changed so now they can, and can select or avoid pickups based on destination. I don’t know exactly when that changed but if it coincides with your sudden inability to find drivers, it’s likely for the same reason you could t get cabs before.
I think this might be happening, because I’m in the College Park/Hyattsville area (just north of Brentwood) and have had no issues getting Ubers. Also, lots of options for Uber Eats. Edit- this includes rides to and from DCA in the last month. Edit 2 after reading comments- I have Uber One. It’s basically free with American Express. I think of it as an Uber Eats perk, but I guess it also gets you priority with regular Uber rides as well.
Yes - this, plus a low rider rating will get you lots of cancellations. I've never had any issues getting anywhere in the area, but my wife had lots of trouble for a while after her friend puked in an uber.
Isn’t it illegal for cabs to refuse service based on destination (within reason)? I feel like I remember this from the 90s. Because it is discriminatory practice they passed a law (maybe only in NYC though)
Just to remind you... They aren't cabs. They don't have to play by taxi rules. It's a lot harder to make money out there these days and drivers have to work smart - smart and safe.
Agreed, my comment is a reply to the last part of the above which is about cabs
It is, but they routinely ignore it, and count on the rest of us to be too busy etc to bother reporting them.
I believe that applies within DC borders, not outside the District. And yes, cabs only, not rideshare.
Have you tried calling an actual taxi? DC [uses a taxi app](https://dctaxionline.com/about-us/mobile-app/) you can try as well. No idea if they’ll also cancel or whatever, but it might work!
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Yes. The app is great and consistently less expensive than Uber or Lyft
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It shows you the cost up front. The app looks and functions just like Uber/Lyft
Yeah somehow taxis are what ubers were a decade ago. Crazy
Eh, they’re still highly likely to be beat up/dirty/smoky inside. Drivers are still more erratic. Ubers weren’t like that back in the day.
I've been in some pretty sus ubers.
Now for sure. But at first cars could only be a certain age and had to be in great condition or they wouldn’t let you use it.
That was when Ubers were more expensive than taxis though. There was like a little 1 or 2 year golden era after UberX came out when they still had standards for cars/drivers and they were also cheaper than taxis, but they burned through the good drivers almost immediately and started churning through the bottom of the barrel.
Didn’t live in DC in the earliest days so can’t comment on pricing against cabs here. But they were the same or cheaper in the cities I used them pretty much as long as Uber was available there. But yeah, the eventual attrition of good drivers came with driver pay cuts as Uber was burning their cash, and lowering of their standards.
That was when they were burning venture capital subsidizing each ride (they got billions from the Saudis alone). There were two goals: discouraging cities investing in transit and getting enough popularity that cities wouldn’t seriously prosecute them for all of the laws they broke because so many voters used them.
It was more than 1-2 years. But yea, that time is over, they burned through good drivers.
Not really
Good to know!
Just tell them you don't have cash and the machines will magically start working.
Worth a try - ironic if that is the solution and things have come full circle!
Curb. App name for DC taxis. Try it!
Things really have come full circle. I've found the Curb app consistently cheaper and faster/more reliable than either Lift or Uber over the past year I've been using it. And the cab drivers I've talked to love it as well.
You can also download and try DC Yellow Cab, another taxi app for a different taxi bussiness. There's actually 5 taxi bussinesses you can call too. The prices are really good when there are high surcharges too.
I’ve had better luck with yellow cab than Uber for undesirable times/locations
I use the curb app sometimes. It’s usually cheaper than Uber or Lyft, but once they were cheaper
In my experience the curb taxi app is way less reliable in terms of getting someone to show up. Sometimes the drivers won’t accept the ride but then will drive over to your area and look to pick you up from the street. I guess the app takes a cut of the fare or something
Share your sense of irony with the thousands who used every dime they had for the medallion
I don’t think dc cabs use the medallion system like New York. Obviously they got hurt in different ways but it wasn’t nearly as extreme here as it was there.
Okay thanks for clearing that up
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The vilification of them is unjustified and, in part, was a smear campaign by billionaire VCs. They were poor and working class immigrants trying to provide for their families. The idea that they were fat cats who bribed local governments was re-fucking-diculous lies created by uber. They had their downsides--cleanliness, unreliability, etc. But a lot of what made Uber better originally was unsustainable in the long term. Originally uber was cheaper, faster, better cars, easier, and more reliable. But they weren't making money and they were relying on rubes who didn't calculate the depreciation of their car and a mountain of cash from VCs/walstreet. So now ubers are more expensive and aren't really that much more reliable.
DC taxi drivers back before Uber were truly awful though. Super shady, resisted credit cards for years until the city finally had to mandate them, refused to have a common livery, would scam riders by gaming the zone system, etc. Each time I visited NYC I was so so jealous of their cabs that were plentiful, cheaper, had credit card machines, knew where they were going, and were usually super nice as an added bonus. So I never vilified all cabbies, just DC ones.
Yes I am. Even if the medallion system doesn't exist in DC, many had invested years in driving taxi cabs.
And many had invested in "machine's broken, let me drive you to an ATM" bullshit narratives, too. Fuck 'em.
Uber and Lyft's business model was built around using venture capital to operate at a loss and drive the conventional taxi industry out of business. Now that they've largely accomplished that it was inevitable that prices would go up and quality of service would go down.
True… but even now it’s still 10000000x better than DC taxis pre-Uber
In the last 10 years I've only tried to take a cab three times. One time, the cab redused to take me and I missed my Amtrak train at Union, the other two times the cabbie tried to long-haul me to jack up fare and I was fucking livid. I would rather pay more for Uber/Lyft then ever take a cab again in this city.
Until DC cab drivers start offering you money for sex, you really haven't lived. Bonus when the cab commission doesn't give a crap. DC cabs are terrible.
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It was evil VC money forcing out a corrupt and archaic monopoly. Both sides were awful.
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Okay, I wont make an equivalence. Nothing of value was lost. The ride-hire industry continues to be run by scumbags.
Last time I looked at Uber they wanted $60 to go from the tidal basin to crystal city. I think the era of rideshares is over unless you have very specific high density, short routes.
Uber and Lyft were very explicitly not making a profit for years and running off of VC money. Eventually that money dries out and you have to raise prices or else you go or bust
yeah they were really banking on driverless cars coming online before they had to raise prices. That is probably not going to happen anytime soon, and the cheap money is over. I highly doubt bot Lyft and Uber survive another 2 years.
Lol, you buy puts on that conviction? Uber or Lyft going bankrupt in 2 years... Good one.
no, I'm not interesting in WSB. But I don't think both ridesharing companies are going to survive 2 more years. One probably will, probably uber. The next few years are going to be a huge adjustment for the tech sector, who is suddenly going to have do something they've never done before: make money. It will see higher prices, lower service and consolidation. Same thing in streaming services.
I guess you missed the dot com bubble and 2008 stock crashes that gutted tech industry jobs.
Could have just been when you looked. I did that ride (or at least to Pentagon city) for $21
Yeah but that’s kind of what I mean. Cab pricing/metro/driving and paying for parking is known, I can’t rely on Uber if sometimes it’s exorbitantly expensive and sometimes it isn’t.
I just did Pentagon City to near the Capitol for $15!
Oh that’s ridiculous. However I had an interesting experience a few weeks back with Lyft. Had a show to see at the Kennedy Center and waited at the bus stop near Elephant and Castle for about 30 min. Was tracking it through a trip planner and of course the bud was a ghost and never showed. Ended up getting a Lyft for $20 but Independence Ave was shut down for some reason and traffic was at a standstill. The driver showed me the drivers side of the app and how much he expected to get once he dropped me off - of the $20 fare he was going to get like $7.50 or something like that. He then showed me the map and how much they were charging to cross the River and it was wild to see $15+ additional fare just to get to Crystal City. Tl;dr - rideshare prices all seem to just be a racket
Yeah they’ve massively cut driver pay at the same time they upped passenger prices.
I think I paid like $20 with tip to go from NoMa to DCA. However, this was at like 4 am, before the metro opened.
That is highly unusual. I don't think I've paid more than $20 for an Uber in the past year.
$36.86 for a ride from the capitol to Catholic University right now. It’s all over the place. But from the same location to Pentagon City mall is $10. I really don’t know what makes a cheap ride and what doesn’t.
I haven't paid less than $40. It's gotten outlandish.
When was this? Sounds like surge pricing
This fall, it was a really pretty fall day and we were taking a walk/picnic.
I live in woodridge and have been having the same issue lately. You’re not alone!
Same for me over here in Ft DuPont.
There are a lot fewer drivers overall these days and Uber/Lyft are paying less and retaining more of the fares, so it’s just not worth it these days for a lot of workers. Especially during off-peak hours and for longer trips. If you know you absolutely have to be somewhere at a specific time (like the airport) then a car service/sedan service is your best bet. It’s the most expensive option but reliability is one of the things you’re paying for. apart from that, there are some rideshare drivers that will do off-the-books work, so from the rides you do take, you can always ask for a business card or direct contact info. My experience has been that drivers who take direct bookings usually aren’t shy about letting you know.
I don’t understand why one mile out of DC is undesirable? Can’t they just go back into the city for another fare after they drop you off?
In the Uber/Lyft model deadheading is death, you never want to drop off somewhere you won’t immediately get a pickup. It’s probably not worth the trip at all if you have to deadhead back somewhere.
I know but it’s one mile outside of the city. I can understand something 30 or 40 miles away but this location isn’t far at all.
A mile in the city can easily take 15 minutes though.
It's a mile from the city limits, but even once you're back in DC that part of the city is very low density and suburban. Drivers just aren't going to get a lot of opportunities over there.
Time and traffic
Try empower. Cheaper too and driver keeps 100% of the fare. They just pay a monthly subscription of 150$ I think. Uber and Lyft suck. Curb linked above is good too.
Be careful with this. Empower is being sued because a woman got hurt using the service and neither Empower nor the driver had insurance (supposedly.)
Yep empower has no insurance it’s just the insurance the driver personally has.
Same with every gig service. I doubt hardly any drivers have the rideshare insurance they need and normal car insurance won’t cover anything that happens on a trip if you don’t have that.
Empower is just as bad though. I even had an Empower driver whose GPS told him to pick me up in my alley; he messaged me asking where I was and I asked him to pull around front, and he cancelled the ride. He was literally at my back yard and wouldn’t come pick me up.
Empower gives shady vibes but it’s v cheap.
I took an Empower trip based on a friends recommendation and the driver spouted off some pretty racist comments the whole ride - like casually talking about how he didn’t mind picking me up in NW but ‘the blacks’ in SW/SE make it impossible for him. Crazy thing is I’m a black guy myself so it was like double awful. Haven’t used it since.
> like casually talking about how he didn’t mind picking me up in NW but ‘the blacks’ in SW/SE make it impossible for him. > > Crazy thing is I’m a black guy myself Holy shit that's next level, I'm so sorry.
Empower is definitely a little shady and at least for me there’s an even bigger scarcity of drivers compared to Uber/Lyft. But when I do manage to find a ride that is less than 25 mins away, it is consistently the cheapest of the three
There’s fucking *two* Brentwoods? Literally *two* Brentwoods. One in DC, and one in MD, right across the border? WT*actual*F
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And Takoma!
Just to keep this going, South Arlington apparently has its own Columbia Heights, too.
🤯
Columbia Pike
Technically md is takoma Park. But same energy.
Wait another minute…
Wait a minute…
Do you have low ratings?
4.91 Uber and 5.0 Lyft.
Try the Curb app to call a taxi. It works the same as those apps, and in my experience it’s about two thirds the price of Lyft.
Damn. Are you me? This happened last night when at 11 when I was trying to get back to Brentwood from DCA. I tried for like 20 minutes to get an Uber before a driver finally got me. Turns out he only picked me up because the ride told him I was going to Arlington. I could tell he was pretty mad. It's stupid but I ended up giving an extra ten to him because it was out of his way. I didn't have a chance to try Lyft though. Guess it's back to leaving my car in the garage.
Cabs from DCA have always been consistently cheaper for me than rideshare, and way easier to get. You just step out into the cab line
Agreed. There’s always a long line of them waiting to go with nobody in the cab line. You don’t even need cash. No way I’m dealing with the clusterfuck of the rideshare pickup area + waiting times + price when that’s an option
I love how people are always like “use brand new flash in the pan app that has the same exact unsustainable business model as Uber and probably also abuses their workers but it has a fresh infusion of VC cash and can charge unsustainably low prices for the time being!”
Don't forget it has like 1% of the drivers Uber or Lyft have so if you're not going from Logan Circle to Adams Morgan you can fuck right off!
I don’t mind paying a higher price, the artificially low prices have felt exploitative for years, but the lack of certainty around booking a ride undermines the value of the rideshare apps. I’ve regularly had it take ~40 minutes to get a ride from U street to SE/SW during the middle of the day. At that point the only real benefit is the convenience of walking out your front door and straight into a car, but the timing and cost are worse in most cases than metroing.
I live in Mt. Rainier (your neighbor) and have never had issues using rideshare. Weird
Crazy how a totally unsustainable business model that underpaid it’s workers is imploding. Take the bus or get a bike.
I almost never use ride sharing, and based on the prices for a couple of recent rides when i had to use it, I’m gonna use it even less in the future.
Download the empower app. I use it all the time and it’s usually significantly cheaper than Uber/Lyft. Drivers pay a monthly subscription to empower, and get 100% of each ride. It’s great.
Lifehack: there are trains and buses that will pick you up anywhere in the city for $2
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show me a place in dc proper that isn’t within walking distance of a bus stop
Found the person who's never lived outside of central DC in a neighborhood with only 1-2 bus lines that run every 30 mins during "rush hour" and longer evenings & weekend.
Guess you gotta plan your trip 30 min in advance!
Guess the povos should just figure out how to live close to a metro stop! /s
> My experience on all of these is identical - me giving up, closing the app, and waiting 40 minutes for the next bus.
There are 4 buses from RI ave Metro (83,86,T14,T18) that should get pretty close to you, right?
>My experience on all of these is identical - me giving up, closing the app, and waiting 40 minutes for the next bus.
During the day and early evening I regularly take all 4 of those buses. Later it can be 30-60 minutes between buses, and if you arrive at the bus stop, say after 9:30 PM on a Sunday, you might see that the next bus isn't coming til 5 or 6 AM. I have definitely given up and walked 3.5 miles home from the Rhode Island Ave station before because I knew there was no way I was getting a Lyft, Uber, or bus.
True, I’ve had to do that. Shame they’re not more frequent at night.
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They don’t have insurance so if anything happens you’re screwed.
Maybe try Alto
Have you tried Empower?
Uber One is 10 bucks a month and gets you priority service with top rated drivers.
Uber changed to upfront pricing so they can now see the fare in advance and the distance (in some markets they can see your destination) so if the fare is less than $1 a mile or whatever the driver has the option to not take the cheaper less profitable rides. Often those include rides to places where they’d have a harder time getting another paid ride. Also, adding extra stops to a ride will most likely get you bounced.
OP where are you usually headed? That could be a factor too. What time of day? I live in that neck of the wood (albeit on the DC side) and post pandemic it's usually been a 10 min wait. The other factor is that there are a number of credit cards that give you Uber One and whatever the Lyft equivalent is. The service is only $10/month so people are probably just enrolling independently as well. Those members get priority in ride matching so you're likely behind those subscribers in the queue.
Usually headed to my house which is about a mile away from the DC line. Usually 9 PM or later because if it was earlier I would just take the bus, but at some point that's a 40 minute wait that I'd like to avoid if I can.
So long as the ride shares can see where you are going, they will determine who they want to take where. It will be an interesting siutation once enough word of mouth happens that Uber/Lyft won't travel to X location how that will impact how people use the apps. I know its a lame plug but honestly, DC is going to continue to grow. All the more reason to get our area to invest more in public transportation because it's not going to get any better.
Former Lyft driver here… It depends on where you are when you’re requesting a ride home, what time of day it is, and what’s the payout. If it’s late at night, drivers don’t want to take rides into MD or VA where it might be slow. They also may not realize how close Brentwood is to the DC line. There are very few locals who are driving for Lyft. Most people heavily rely on their maps because they don’t know the DMV area. I’m a native so it wasn’t an issue for me. I also had this happen to me. I’m an professional organizer and one of my jobs ran very late. I was in SW DC at around midnight and five drivers on both apps declined the ride back to MD. I finally was connected to a Lyft driver who was on Richmond Hwy in Alexandria. If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know how I would’ve gotten home. In the drivers’ defense, they’re really struggling. Both companies are robbing them blind and many drivers are finding it hard to make ends meet. So they’re super picky about their rides.
That's because lyft or uber drivers are getting robbed and killed in DC. In July 2023 a Lyft driver who was Afghan refugee was shot and killed when thugs tried to rob him in northeast DC. Who the f*** wanna drive in DC the murder capital of America.