Welcome back from spring break everyone! Hope everyone enjoyed their time. Over this break, I spent my time on the far west coast city of Los Angeles. One of the best parts of the city that I surprisingly became enamored with was not just the sunshine and delicious food, but also my entertaining Uber Rides.
LA is notorious for traffic and having spread out city locations that demand driving as opposed to walking on foot. Journeying there with no car, I was worried that getting around would be expensive, time consuming, and difficult. However, once learning about their proficient and reliable Uber system present in LA that enabled me to see the many sights and meet the many people I did in my travels.
Uber is an affordable taxi service in major metropolitan areas that allow accepted people to become drivers in their own cars. An app then connects those drivers to riders based on locations and they transport them to their desired locations. However, for a limited time while I was in LA, Uber introduced a new program called UberPool. “With UberPool, you share a ride—and split the cost—with another person who just happens to be requesting a ride along a similar route.” Once you select your destination, you are matched with a rider requesting a nearby location to your destination. You can Uber Pool with up to 4 people, 2 per party.
Using UberPool was a sustainable and vital tool to helping me travel around the city. It is firstly economical, because the ride is shared between two parties, thus cutting the cost in half as the fare is split between those parties. I traveled across the city for as little as $5! Secondly, it is environmentally friendly. By carpooling with others headed in the same direction, we helped reduce the carbon footprint we would have otherwise left if we had driven alone. Lastly, the trips were socially rewarding! I met an artist struggling to make in Hollywood, a businesswoman from Beverly Hills, a teenager trying to make ends meet by driving an Uber, and a Stanford graduate in Philosophy who helped me form new ideas. This unique and eccletic set of people became a rich source of laughter, information, advice, and perspectives – components that made my trip rich and thought provoking. I never would have met them however if I didn’t choose the ride-sharing option with Uber. Being green in LA left me with more positivity than I would’ve imagined.
When has being green led you to great experiences?
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Written by Julie Elliot, Class of 2015
Interesting, sounds like uberPOOL is the same thing as uberPOP. Just looked it up the other day after seeing Uber just launched in Estonia & it was their only service; but apparently it’s just like an UberX – but you can all split the fare with strangers/pick up other people instead of just the party you’re with. Been taking imaginary rides in Estonia and uberPOP seems super reasonable.
Great idea though on Uber’s behalf. I know in a number of places, they use this business model to get around private taxi laws…since it’s not a “taxi” it’s just carpooling and in these places i guess the “uber driver doesn’t make any money, they just split the costs with eachother”. Sneaky.