By Shauna Muckle, Tampa Bay Times
TAMPA, Fla. — None of Andrew Boisen’s initial options for commuting from his Florida home in Tarpon Springs to Pinellas Technical College looked pretty.
Boisen has a disability that prevents him from driving a car. He could hop on the county’s fixed-route bus system — but the ride would require 30 minutes of walking and a bus transfer, lasting two hours if everything went seamlessly.
He could wake his mom up at 6 a.m. for the 30-minute drive. Or he could pay at least $30 each way for an Uber or Lyft.
For most car-free Pinellas County residents, other options are scarce. But Boisen’s disability, epilepsy, gave him another opportunity: registering for the county’s paratransit system, which allows him to hail rides from his home to school or work for just $4.50 each way. The transit agency covers the rest.
Before 2016, paratransit — a door-to-door service required by the Americans with Disabilities Act for people who can’t use a regular bus route independently — had one limitation. Riders had to hail rides a day in advance, limiting their ability to access spontaneous events or change plans.
But Pinellas County was one of the first transit agencies to coordinate with Uber and Lyft on a new program: mobility on-demand. The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority contracts with rideshare companies to service immediate trips that paratransit otherwise wouldn’t accommodate.
“Traditionally, paratransit programs have been next-day services,” said Jen Shepherd, global head of Uber transit, which coordinates partnerships with local agencies. “Now it’s a same-day service.”
But a proposed rule from the Federal Transit Administration, drafted weeks before President Donald Trump took office, could threaten those partnerships, which have since expanded to more than 80 cities, from New York City to Phoenix.
The rule would require rideshare companies to drug test their drivers if they are to partner with transit agencies.
For Uber, which relies on more than 7 million gig workers in the United States, requiring drug tests would diminish driver supply and raise prices, Shepherd said. Uber wouldn’t ask that of its drivers when the company already screens workers for impaired driving and violent offenses yearly, she said.
“Conceptually, it’s a good idea,” said Gloria Lepik-Corrigan, a wheelchair user and disability advocate who occasionally uses mobility on-demand services in Pinellas. “Don’t we all wish that every Uber and Lyft driver was not on drugs?”
But the policy isn’t worth it if it’s used to pare back paratransit options, Lepik-Corrigan said. Instead, she advises riders who feel unsafe to say “no thank you” and request a different driver.
Rideshare companies have safety records that mimic or are better than those of traditional paratransit services, Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority CEO Brad Miller said.
In 2023, more than three million Uber trips were conducted via transit agency partnerships, averaging more than 8,000 riders per day, according to the company. In August, more than 16,000 disabled riders in Pinellas scheduled paratransit services through rideshare companies.
Without Uber as a paratransit option, “I would basically have to schedule my life 24 to 72 hours in advance,” Boisen said. “If something pops up or I have to cancel it, there’s nothing I could do.”
Pinellas’ transit agency wants the partnership to stay in place, as well. Contracting with rideshare companies is less expensive than manning a traditional paratransit van, Miller said. If the partnership is canceled, the transit agency estimates it would have to spend at least $1 million more on paratransit services.
When the rideshare partnership was implemented, “customers, especially people with disabilities loved the increased mobility that Uber and Lyft offered them,” Miller wrote in a letter to the federal government opposing the rule. “Now customers were choosing to ride to lunch with a friend, or the movies or to a baseball game.”
Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority does not currently contract with rideshare companies. But a conservative board member, Commissioner Josh Wostal, suggested last year that the bus service should offer more subsidized rideshare services.
The Pinellas transit authority also contracts with rideshare companies to provide late-night rides for workers whose job begins or ends between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. for $3 each way. The Tampa Bay Times reported in 2017 that Tampa Bay’s bus services already connect workers to fewer jobs than most metro areas of a similar size in the U.S. — making point-to-point services a critical lifeline.
The federal government ended public comment on its proposed rule in mid-February. It’s not clear when the rule may advance. Some members of Pinellas’ transit agency board have suggested the new administration may dismiss the proposed rule.
But until the rule’s fate is clear, Uber and transit agencies around the country are rallying to preserve these partnerships that plug gaps in service, Shepherd said.
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