Moving passengers around crowded cities using cars was never going to work, writes awalkerinLA
Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images In Super Pumped, the Showtime series about Uber, founder Travis Kalanick makes the case for his company’s existence with a single word: Horseshit. “There were piles of it all along the streets of this fine city,” Kalanick tells San Francisco mayor Ed Lee, “until the horse and carriage got replaced by the streetcar.
Yesterday, a memo from current Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi read like a page from a Super Pumped script — right down to an all-caps “GO GET IT!” The horseshit has caught up with the company, which has yet to turn a profit despite grand promises. “It’s clear that the market is experiencing a seismic shift and we need to react accordingly,” the memo reads. “We will absolutely have to do more with less.
But just because Uber hasn’t made money doesn’t mean it hasn’t made an impact. Tens of billions of dollars — a great deal of it coming directly from Saudi oil interests — has been funneled directly into closed-door City Hall meetings where Uber has delivered variations on the horseshit speech to nudge American urban policy away from investments in public transit.
Trying to ignore that geometry, or perhaps distract from it, has led to multiple Uber pivots over the years, from lofty visions of flying-car skyports to a deadly detour into self-driving SUVs. But along the way, Uber seems to have forgotten how its original promise might have actually helped solve urban transportation problems. With gas prices high, ride sharing can help people save money, reduce emissions, and tackle traffic congestion all at the same time.
In Super Pumped, when Kalanick faces too much heat from shareholders or regulators, he retreats into the city to strategize. He sits on the curb — public space that is now deeply contested, in part because of him — his head in his hands, surrounded by all the better ways to get around San Francisco: a MUNI bus sails past him, vintage trolleybuses rattle down Market Street, the Civic Center BART station glows like a lightbulb over his head.
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