The Mayor’s Office has announced a new pilot program to assist those not living near the bus lines and without reliable personal transportation with up to a week’s worth of free rides using the ride-share service Lyft.
According to Mayor Garnett Johnson, the program is a public-private partnership that includes the Biden Administration, Lyft, Indeed, the CSRA Community Foundation and the United Way.
In May, the Biden-Harris Administration named Augusta as one of five Workforce Hubs across the nation, and First Lady Jill Biden visited Augusta in July to promote the Workforce program as part of the administration’s larger Investing In America agenda.
Johnson says that the free rides are for those lacking a ride to their job, job interview, school or workforce training. The rides are available over a 20-mile radius of the person’s home and the person must live in Richmond County.
“My Administration is working collectively to ensure that jobseekers and the gainfully employed living in Augusta-Richmond County have access to transportation. We must work together to dismantle barriers that prevent people from succeeding,” Johnson said.
Rides can be requested by dialing 211 and receiving a special code, Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
According to Johnson, the program locally is part of a larger effort to ease transportation for those in need, including the elderly who need travel assistance. While the Lyft program is only for working individuals, Johnson says more announcements are on the horizon.
“This is just the beginning. We are currently studying how we can use micro-transit to help people without the city having to send out an empty bus to pick up just one person,” Johnson said.
Recently, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Raphael Warnock (D-GA) arranged for a $300,000 federal grant for the city to compile a micro-transit study.
According to Johnson, the Lyft program is a “test phase” and will continue through the end of December this year.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
