Uber and Lyft in the Nation's Capital

A few weeks ago I shared the New York Times' take on ride-sharing services, and today I've come across the Washington Post's take. There are a few facts I found interesting: first, as noted in the NYT piece, the services do seem to add trips: there is less use of Metro than there used to be, and increasing tax revenue from the services shows more trips there. Importantly, the increase in trips is more than the decrease in Metro riders, so there are just more vehicles on the street than there used to be. Second, though, this tax revenue can be an important part of paying for Metro and other public transit: right now taxes are at just 1% of the cost of a trip, and putting them up to even 5% ($1 on a $20 Uber trip) would make a large dent in the budget shortfall facing Metro.