Aiming to compete directly with Uber and Lyft, Oregon’s Lane County Transit District (LTD) has started an app-based bus service in Cottage Grove, which is 22 miles south of Eugene. LTD says that it is making transportation “affordable” because it charges only $1 for the door-to-door service, whereas Uber and Lyft would charge far more.
Called the Connector, the bus service costs riders just $1 to and from anywhere within the Cottage Grove city limits. LTD actually contracts out the service to South Lane Wheels, which is run by the city of Cottage Grove and which already was providing such a service for $3 a ride for up to three miles and roughly a dollar a mile beyond that. Cottage Grove is small enough that no trips within the city limits are three miles long, but South Lane Wheels, unlike the Connector, will go outside the city limits.
According to the city of Cottage Grove’s profile in the National Transit Database, fares collected by South Lane Wheels cover less than 6 percent of its costs. That means the average ride cost taxpayers more than $32 in 2017. Now LTD is adding its own subsidies to those rides. Continue reading
