St. Lucie County Microtransit

About the Program

Category: Transportation (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

Lenora Copeland relies on a public bus to get to work across town each day. She lives in a sprawling, low-density section of Port St. Lucie with few bus stops, meaning she had to walk nearly two miles to get to the closest stop until the county entered the growing world of on-demand mobility.“I was always so hot and tired when I got on the bus,” said Copeland, who doesn’t have a car and can’t afford to take Lyft or Uber every day. “The bus works great but getting to it was a problem.”High demand for bus service in southwest St. Lucie County prompted county transit officials to launch an on-demand, curb-to-curb rideshare service in December 2019, allowing people to book free Uber-like trips within the 10-square-mile service area. Roughly a year later, the fare-free microtransit service has reaped big results, providing 5,771 trips to stores, jobs and parks and allowing many riders to expand their journeys even farther with drop-offs at public bus stops.Riders can schedule immediate, advance or recurring trips with ease online or via smart phone app or phone call, and the average wait time for pick-up is only 18 minutes. For Copeland’s family, the results have been dramatic. “It’s changed our whole lives,” she beams.