Uber or Lyft or ? in City X?

August 28, 2024 2:25 PM

Is anyone aware of a website or other resource where you can reliably learn which hired ride options work best in a place? (Especially if that place is Minneapolis/St. Paul?)

This would be useful to me as I travel, but right now I'm specifically trying to choose one service to set up for my elderly parent who lives in Minneapolis/St. Paul MN and doesn't have a smart phone. So they'll be using the equivalent of 1-833-USE-UBER to request or schedule rides, or possibly a laptop. This will probably be challenging, and I don't want to make it more complicated by setting up more than one service.

Is there a place where you can find out the best hired ride option anywhere?

If there isn't, would Twin Cities folks let me know what's best there?

Thank you!

posted by Scarf Joint to Travel & Transportation (8 answers total)

Both work fine here (after a brief threat to leave due to wage issues that has been resolved).
posted by mcgsa at 2:39 PM on August 28, 2024

Both Uber and Lyft are pretty active here in the Twin Cities. I’ve had better luck with Lyft availability than Uber in the suburbs, but better luck with Uber than Lyft in the early mornings. They’ve both been good compared to other cities I’ve spent time in.
posted by JannaK at 2:46 PM on August 28, 2024

(Is there a reason you wouldn't have them call a local taxi?)
posted by bluedaisy at 3:10 PM on August 28, 2024

Response by poster: bluedaisy, that's what they do now, but like everywhere the Ubers and Lyfts prevail, local taxi service has been decimated and has become quite unreliable. I think that's awful, but I also don't want my parent to freeze on the front steps waiting for a yellow cab. Thus the question.
posted by Scarf Joint at 3:14 PM on August 28, 2024 [1 favorite]

I use Lyft but my impression is that both work fine in the Twin Cities.
posted by shadygrove at 4:47 PM on August 28, 2024

In my experience, from an availability point of view, I've never seen Lyfts outnumber Ubers anywhere. Sometimes they're roughly level-pegged, sometimes Uber is clearly dominant. Pricing, of course, can be a different story.
posted by kickingtheground at 6:22 PM on August 28, 2024

You could ask on the local subreddit, although you might not get any consensus.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 6:34 PM on August 28, 2024

And to be clear, I'm a Twin Citian who doesn't drive and uses Lyft a fair bit. Works fine here. I use Uber less but it works fine too.
posted by shadygrove at 8:38 PM on August 28, 2024