With customer demand for Via, the ride-share service program of Jersey City, increasing, Mayor Steven Fulop stated that he plans on expanding the service. On Facebook, Jersey City’s Mayor shared a report that details Via’s better-than-anticipated increase in demand. Via has offered workers, visitors, and residents the option to travel in the US city for even $2 per ride. Set up in February last year, the program aims to simplify city-wide mobility for people who live in Jersey City’s so-called ‘transit deserts’. For your information, those are areas without much access to mass transit.
Over 340,000 Via rides have already been completed since the service’s launch. From February to May 2021, it helped to complete about 124,000 trips, with a little less than 10,000 one-of-a-kind riders. The greater demand has played a part in a 31% increase in Via wait times to around 17 minutes on average.
Last September, Jersey City had a similar wait time increase, which made the Via program’s fleet increase to 26 automobiles. Since then, the area has recorded three one-day peaks for ridership in November and December 2020 as well as March this year.
In the Facebook post, Jersey City’s Mayor disclosed plans to utilize the idea of adding more automobiles to tackle the greater demand for Via.
The report suggests that New Jersey’s Journal Square Transportation Center and Downtown’s Newport Centre have been Via riders’ go-to destinations. In the New Jersey hub, people can get the state-owned PATH train or a bus. Downtown is home to over half of the ten best Via destinations.
Jersey City set up the program following resident complaints regarding bus ride experiences in the area. The mayor announced it in September two years ago. Then, he said that when NJ Transit kept neglecting Jersey City’s public transport systems, and with no assistance from New Jersey, the city was making its own solutions that would satisfy residents’ needs. He described it as a way to achieve Jersey City’s goal to get cars away from normal roads, while making mobility for the city’s neighborhoods without enough connectivity options to its other parts.
