ride-sharing

Lyft and Uber's battle over San Francisco's bike share system will have implications across the country.

From rapes and abductions to rising traffic congestion and fatalities, it's starting to become clear why the government gets involved with for-hire drivers.

Not a day goes by without a raft of stories about "new mobility" providers -- ride-hailing companies like Uber or car-share services like Car2Go that have tapped into recent technological advances to provide new ways to get around.

Which cities are making it easy to catch the next bus without a long wait, hail a ride with an app, or hop on bike-share? According to a new ranking from the Frontier Group and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Austin is leading the pack when it comes to embracing technological innovation that helps people get around without being tethered to a car.

Washington’s Capital Bikeshare is one of the biggest and most well-established bike-share systems in the nation. Its annual fee of just $75 buys you unlimited free half-hour trips. The system now has 2,500 bicycles at 300 stations in the District and the nearby suburbs.

Welcome to the dog days of summer! Before skipping town, Congress passed a transportation funding patch so they wouldn't have to deal with the real problem of the unsustainable way our nation builds and pays for infrastructure. I give the briefest possible rundown of where we are now before Jeff and I launch into discussions about the issues of the day: zoning and ride-share.

Uber and Lyft have set out to upend the taxi industry in American cities. But are they the traffic-busting "ride-sharing" services they're often portrayed to be? Not really: Using an app to hail a driver and take you where you’re going isn't fundamentally different than any traditional for-hire vehicle service.

Companies like Uber and Lyft make any car owner a potential paid chauffeur, and their services are increasingly widespread in American cities.

You think the conflict between Uber and regular taxi drivers -- and cities like Seattle -- is bad? Check out how new taxi apps in China are upending the transportation system and central economic planning. Meanwhile, in Houston, a flea market has brought revitalization without gentrification to a depressed area near the airport, and now an urban design firm is bringing in pop-up infrastructure like mobile libraries and grocery stores, along with sidewalks and bikeways. And Californians are proving that the culture shift away from the automobile and toward other modes of transportation is happening -- maybe even faster than we'd thought.