It's New Year's Eve, and tonight after all the clocks flip over to 12:01 a.m. every taxi in San Francisco will turn into a pumpkin. A pumpkin that does not want to take your credit card. Luckily for those of us left out in the street desperately flailing our arms trying to hail a cab, San Francisco has wholly embraced this ride sharing thing: between Uber's black sedans, Lyft's mustachioed rides, or SideCar's incognito fleet New Year's revelers in the city ought to be able to find a safe ride home — although it could cost you.
Lyft: The pink-mustached fleet seems to have the most reasonably priced NYE option. Lyft drivers will be available until 3 a.m. tonight to take you home safe. Unlike SideCar and Uber, however — they won't be raising their suggested donations. Instead, in an act of unrivaled generosity and PR goodwill, Lyft will be matching your donations to drivers. Riders pay the same, drivers make twice as much and it is a win-win situation for everybody. That said, Lyft is expecting higher demand and longer wait times, so the lower price depends on how much drunken patience you have remaining.
Uber: In the past Uber's surge pricing has caused fares to skyrocket when demand for rides is high. Surge pricing at 1.5 times the normal rate might sting a little bit, but is usually worth the extra cost if you've got a full car worth of people to split the cost with you. On the other hand, 3x surge pricing is definitely not going to feel good when you wakeup tomorrow morning.
To avoid any unexpected charges, this year Uber has updated their app to include a fare estimator so you can see just how much this ride will cost you to get to your destination before you book. If there's surge pricing, you'll be asked to double-check and confirm that the multiplied rate is, in fact, OK with your limited budget. The real fun part though is the new sobriety check. When surge pricing gets really high — say three times or more — you'll have to type in that rate to literally triple check it. No excuses when you check your credit card statement come January.
While we're on the subject of Uber: We should note the fleet's SUVs can fit six riders, which solves the always annoying "can you fit five?" problem and is especially handy when you're headed from the pre-party to the real party. Just make sure your friends know to pitch in since the charge will all go to your credit card. In our experience the Uber Taxi option is less helpful at times when regular cabbies are already in high demand, since they tend to turn off Uber and look for fares the old fashioned way.
SideCar: Like Uber, SideCar is expecting more riders and more demand on New Year's Eve. On the bright side, their drivers — who don't have shifts and only drive when they feel like it — has responded by volunteering to work tonight. The company feels they've got enough drivers to handle demand, but as a means of incentivizing those volunteer drivers they will be doubling the suggested donation for every ride between 5 p.m. and 5 a.m. tonight. Since the donations are set by the rider you could always give less, of course. But don't blame us if you get looks for being stingy on an already spendy night out.
