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| © Photo:Gene J. Puskar (AP) Lyft announced the expanded program last week |
By Ryan Felton, Jalopnik
Lyft has been trying to push car owners across the U.S. to leave their vehicles parked for a month,
offering up to $550 in return that can be used on an array of so-called
mobility options—public transit, bike-sharing platforms, and the like. A
week in to its expanded effort, the ride-hailing company says it found 150,000 people in 35 cities willing to give it a go. There’s some caveats, though.
For
one thing, not all those who signed up will be picked to participate.
And Lyft’s working on an honor system of sorts; if you get picked and
decide to drive anyway, Lyft can’t really do anything to stop you.
But Lyft’s chief strategy officer, Raj Kapoor, told Automotive News
he believes the response it received indicates that more and more
people are interested in changing their main mode of transportation
(even if it means paying them to do so).
“Young people care about
access to cars, not ownership, and their identity is not tied to a car
as much as it used to be,” Kapoor told the news outlet.
Of course, this is coming from the company that proclaimed the death of all car ownership by 2025,
so I can see why you’d take a grain of salt with the response to a
program that provides free money to participants in return for not
driving (and even still they could drive with impunity).
Still,
driving is integral to some of the 35 cities Lyft picked for the effort,
like Atlanta, for instance. So, if anything, maybe it’s a sign that all
of these mobility options will have a place in society going forward.
Maybe.
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