For 50 years, thanks to the stupidity of the federal government and the Big Public Transit lobby and its religious adherents, DC's Metro and its ilk in every major city have been protected from competition from private-owned bus companies. Universities and hospitals and hotels - desperate for transport - were permitted to start their own shuttle bus services because Big Transit was universally awful in every way. But the rest of the public was trapped/screwed or forced to use hideous monopoly taxis. Big Public Transit has been failing and losing riders for half a century. It's what government monopolies always do. The idea that Metro and its inept privileged cousins are sacred and deserve to be protected from the rise of Uber/Lyft and other alternative modes of transport is pathetic. The case is closed and the jury - the urban public - has ruled in favor of Uber/Lyft et al. They are excellent - and superior - answers to the rigid, inflexible and scant "service" offered by governments, who are more interested in providing jobs for over-paid, over-compensated union drivers and managers and giving contracts to prized contractors for tunnels to nowhere (see Pittsburgh) than serving the parts of the public that are poor and carless.
Steigerwald is a former journalist at the LA Times and two Pittsburgh dailies. His books include “Dogging Steinbeck” (2013) and “30 Days a Black Man” (2017).