Baton Rouge Transportation

[ehyfield]

Who is "Uber" excited about Uber coming to Baton Rouge?

[itsjustme3]

How long before a uber driver is carjacked, robed or worse?

[Antrell Williams]

I think it will rely largely on downtown and LSU activity. Will be interesting to see how they pan out here.

[garrett_225]

Uber does just fine in dangerous places like Baltimore and DC. I think the drivers will mostly survive little Baton Rouge. 

[itsjustme3]

Uber does just fine in dangerous places like Baltimore and DC. I think the drivers will mostly survive little Baton Rouge.

I said how long.

[ehyfield]

Indefinitely.?.?

Edited July 1, 2014 by ehyfield

[garrett_225]

I said how long.

 

I know what you said...

 

I said something else. 

[ehyfield]

And NOW word comes from the taxi people that they are trying to better serve the downtown area by designating taxi waiting lots.

[all2neat]

Competition is good.

[Antrell Williams]

And NOW word comes from the taxi people that they are trying to better serve the downtown area by designating taxi waiting lots.

Hopefully this encourages more use of taxi's while people are out on the weekends.

[itsjustme3]

Hopefully this encourages more use of taxi's while people are out on the weekends.

And how is that going to happen? Do you know how easy it is to call a taxi? A "waiting lot" isn't going to increase demand.

[Mr. Burnham]

If we are talking about Uber coming to the city...it was certainly a WTF moment for me. I just can not see a city like BR with as much sprawl and small general business attraction having the demand for this. 

[ehyfield]

I'm waiting for the follow up article that says the city finally designated taxis a waiting lot...underneath the I-110 fly over. Good luck connecting with the market there.

[dan326]

I have a thought this might be a "marketing" move,  to make the city more impressive to visitors,  like officials and  people in the film industry. 

[garrett_225]

If we are talking about Uber coming to the city...it was certainly a WTF moment for me. I just can not see a city like BR with as much sprawl and small general business attraction having the demand for this. 

 

It will be very popular among younger people who spend time downtown, near campus, on Government Street, near Perkins Road Overpass, and a little further down Perkins by the Bulldog. These are places where there are bars and other things that attract the younger crowd, where home is usually not more than a 5 minute ride away. The far for Uber will rarely exceed $10 in these cases and it will save the hassle of finding parking and worrying about sobriety/whether or not one of the regular cabs will actually show up to bring them home. 

Edited July 10, 2014 by garrett_225

[itsjustme3]

If we are talking about Uber coming to the city...it was certainly a WTF moment for me. I just can not see a city like BR with as much sprawl and small general business attraction having the demand for this.

^ this

[garrett_225]

^ this

 

Uber has already set up shop in sprawling areas like Raleigh-Durham, Orange County, CA, the Inland Empire, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, OK, Lexington, KY...the list goes on. 

 

This isn't something that's limited to the urban cores of DC, San Francisco, NYC, Baltimore, etc...

Edited July 10, 2014 by garrett_225

[itsjustme3]

Setting up shop doesn't mean successful. It's not a company that makes anything. It's a car service.

Edited July 10, 2014 by itsjustme3

[garrett_225]

Setting up shop doesn't mean successful. It's not a company that makes anything. It's a car service.

 

Right. Because the only businesses that make decent profit are those that manufacture things.

[itsjustme3]

Right. Because the only businesses that make decent profit are those that manufacture things.

It's a car reservation app company. Let's not get too carried away.

[all2neat]

I can't imagine their overhead is very high.

[garrett_225]

It's a car reservation app company. Let's not get too carried away.

 

One that's forcing the competition to reconsider the way it operates. 

 

If they lose, they lose. The important thing is that the consumer stands to gain from the increased competition. 

Edited July 13, 2014 by garrett_225

[richyb83]

https://brgov.com/dept/planning/pdf/Nicholson-Corridor-Plan.pdf

 

BR gets $1.8M federal grant to begin planning Nicholson corridor streetcar
 

A federal grant program will contribute $1.8 million to Baton Rouge for the planning and design phase of a 3-mile streetcar line on Nicholson Drive that would connect the LSU campus with downtown. The Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program—coincidentally abbreviated as the TIGER program, but with no affiliation to LSU—doled out $600 million in grants nationwide. Engineer Mike Bruce, with whom the city often consults on transportation issues, tells Daily Report this afternoon he doesn't yet have a timeline on the streetcar project, but hopes the grant will speed up the process. "There are no guarantees, but that's the hope," Bruce says. When Baton Rouge applied for the grant earlier this year, Bruce told Daily Report the TIGER grant program is highly competitive, with only about 5% of applying projects receiving funding. In the $600 million awarded by the Department of Transportation through the program this year, just 72 projects are included. Plans for the first phase of River District, a multi-use development to be built along the Nicholson corridor, are set to be complete by the end of the year. Check out a draft of the city-parish's Nicholson corridor plan. —Kelly Connelly

 

http://www.businessreport.com/article/20140909/BUSINESSREPORT0112/140909814

[ehyfield]

Nicholson Drive is the best corridor to put this on, no doubt. I hope they pick something attractive and permanent. With good planning and management this will boom. However, one problem I see when I look at the horizontal section pictures is the rail only being in one lane. Does this mean that they want to run one "car" at a time between I-10 overpass and LSU? I can see this being problematic.

[itsjustme3]

Nicholson Drive is the best corridor to put this on, no doubt. I hope they pick something attractive and permanent. With good planning and management this will boom. However, one problem I see when I look at the horizontal section pictures is the rail only being in one lane. Does this mean that they want to run one "car" at a time between I-10 overpass and LSU? I can see this being problematic.

Don't be silly. That would require planners to plan ahead.