The City of Rochester has launched its Van Share program in partnership with RTS and vRide, Incorporated.
The pilot program will help get Rochester residents to jobs around the region that aren’t convenient to bus lines. The city is subsidizing the program for the test period, and riders will pay $75 per month for the service.
A van pool is a group of up to a dozen people who agree to share rides to-and-from work. The van makes one trip per day each way, and the driver is a volunteer who is also part of the group going to work. The program provides the van, insurance, gas and maintenance. Each route is tailored to the riders, and it takes them door-to-door.
The city hopes this will address a problem caused by jobs moving out of the city into the suburbs, causing a “geographic mismatch” between the workers and the employers. If the pilot works well, RTS is planning a much larger van pool network to cover areas where its buses don’t go.