Uber and Lyft Want to Replace Public Buses
Pinellas Park, Florida, isnāt the kind of place where you'd expect to gain insight about the future of mass transit. The suburb of Tampa is as car-crazy as your average stretch of Floridian sprawlāthe local landmarks include the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum and a drag racing stripāand anyone who can avoid the bus does. But recently the agency responsible for the areaās public transportation began a novel experiment: It stopped running two bus lines and started paying for a portion of Uber rides instead.
In Uberās early days, it said it wanted to be āeveryoneās private driver.ā Now the company and its main U.S. competitor, Lyft, are playing around with the idea of becoming the bus driver, too. Uber has partnered with a handful of local public transportation agencies to strike deals like the one in Pinellas Park, which it expanded earlier this month. Later this month Lyft plans to launch a partnership with Centennial, Colorado, its first deal where a local government will subsidize its rides. The company also said it has helped a dozen transit agencies apply for federal grants that would pay for a portion of Lyft fares in situations where its drivers would effectively become part of the public transportation system.