The power of digital connectivity is disrupting old
patterns of life midway into the second decade of the 21st century.
Individuals are in touch with the whole world with their increasingly smarter
devices. The future of urban mobility doesn’t look much like the past. Uber
is making waves. Today plus ça
change, plus ça s’accelère!
Here’s an early sign of upheaval in urban mobility. Taxi drivers
fear their livelihoods are being undermined. They see Uber growing by leaps and
bounds. Some are counter-attacking,
comparing Uber drivers and their cyberlord to infamous Chicago mobster Al
Capone! Boston’s Carriage News has called taxi owners and drivers to
mobilize against Uber founder Travis
Kalanick’s “arrogance and contempt” for common people. Uber is not just a
bully: it’s a “$40 billion bully” operating “outside the law”!
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| Taxis. Taxis. Uber-where! |
Such words don’t come lightly! Taxi
interests are worried: taxi medallion prices are falling.
Long-Term Impacts
Beyond these immediate knee-jerk
reactions, forward thinking may make taxi folks happy. John and Jane are getting
car-free. That’s getting easier with Uber as another mobility option. If more
people are car-free, there will be more demand for taxi trips. Taxi
folks should welcome car-free life styles that Uber can bring, as transit
operators and fans do.
Car-free voters will push for better mass
and extensions into under-served areas. Violà
-- la grande ouverture for podcars. It’s enough to catch investor interest
in Berlin, London and Paris as well as Asia. Smart new mobility models
are getting serious attention because of identifiable new project where people
live comfortably sans voiture.
The highest density of moneyed digital
innovation is in California Silicon Valley.
No coincidence that PCC9 -- the 9th annual Podcar
City conference -- is there. Mark your calendars -- Nov 2-4, 2015 -- somewhere
in a cyber-cloud near San Jose!
