Uber or Lyft in Vancouver?

[Cali Viajera]

We will be in Vancouver in July. Have either of these ride sharing companies come to Vancouver yet?

[martincath]

Both. Lyft opened with extremely limited service areas, but seems to have gained enough drivers to offer service across the city now. Uber has more people, serving the whole city on opening day - but both are still tiny compared to cab companies, withe press reports of trial trips suffering major wait times (as in, it would be faster to walk on trips < a couple of miles, or take transit on anything longer!)

 

If you're flying in, the fixed fare zones and walkup queue means a cab will be faster, not much pricier, and always be exactly what you expect to pay regardless of demand. Even a minimal Surge uptick will drive prices higher than cabs ($36 to the pier, $32 to almost all downtown hotels, prices CAD).

 

From the pier and elsewhere are metered, and while the per kilometer/time block fees are lower with Uber/Lyft, they both charge a couple of bucks more than initial flag fall on a cab - so any trips of less than a couple of miles will end up being pretty much a wash across the board (and the downtown core is very small, so hotel to tourist site to resto to pier type trips you won't ever save much). Concerns in a lot of cities about crappy cabs aren't relevant here - all the local fleets are relatively new and kept in good condition.

 

By all means try your apps - but unless they show a driver within ~5 mins, any daytime urban trip will be faster in a cab and costs will be very similar except on long trips.

 

[scottbee]

15 hours ago, Cali Viajera said:

We will be in Vancouver in July. Have either of these ride sharing companies come to Vancouver yet?

 

For the main parts of the city, yes.  If you're just looking at airport to downtown, the skytrain ($9/ea), or a taxi ($36 flat rate) are other options.  Personally I'd lean toward Skytrain as it'll be faster at any point during the day, as the surface streets are pretty jammed from dawn til dusk.

 

[Cali Viajera]

Thank-you both for your insight😀

[em-sk]

On 2/15/2020 at 12:00 PM, Cali Viajera said:

Thank-you both for your insight😀

 

Uber has the largest service region.  Basically pickup and drop off in all of Vancouver proper and the airport.  They still do not go pickup but will drop off in suburbs but that is comming.

 

I travel for business regularly and world usually park at the airport or use cars2go. Cars2go decided to shutdown operations in North America.  I have now switched to uber for the airport trips.   Did two trips from East Vancouver (about a block away from the Vancouver/Burnaby boundary) to the airport and two trips home.   The system works well and they have progressively been adding more drivers.    

 

For a trip that is a bit longer than downtown Vancouver, my cost is around $24-25 CDN on Uber.   At the airport there are two pickup locations (one on the domestic side and the other on international/US arrivals.  Just outside the arrival door curbside.  

 

I find uber more convenient than the taxis.  

Edited February 16, 2020 by em-sk

[Urban trekker]

LYFT has announced that it is now serving all of Metro Vancouver.

Cheers!

Dennis

[em-sk]

On 3/2/2020 at 3:34 PM, Urban trekker said:

LYFT has announced that it is now serving all of Metro Vancouver.

Cheers!

Dennis

 

Uber has also expanded to nearly all the suburbs.  Good to see both of them growing in Metro Vancouver.