Learn today, plan for tomorrow.
Sign up for news and offers from Planetizen Courses, the online learning platform for planners.
King County Metro Looks to the App to Solve the First Mile Problem
An app is helping to bring transit riders from their home to the nearest park-and-ride in King County, Washington.
A new app may offer an alternative to getting transit riders from their home to the local park-and-ride facility. Matt Spaw of Crosscut writes that King County Metro is partnering with the carpooling app iCarpool as part of its TripPool program, which will allow riders to locate shared van pools near them and hitch a ride to the park-and-ride.
For the program, Metro will provide vans to volunteer drivers. At any time, riders can log in to the iCarpool app and see rides near them. The rider makes their way to the pickup spot, where they will be picked up by the driver. The rider pays through the app and is charged 26 cents per mile.
In addition to providing the marked van, Metro also pays for gas, maintenance and insurance. Unlike with Uber, the driver makes no profit.
Spaw writes that the TripPool program will be tested in Mercer Island and southeast King County. Mercer Island’s park-and-ride facility, in particular, has been suffering from an overflow of users and not enough parking spaces to accommodate them. The TripPool program is scheduled to launch late this year, or in early 2016.
Full Story:
Published on Wednesday, December 2, 2015 in
Topics
- Good Luck Buying a Small, Affordable Car in the United States
- Legal Challenge Brings Down the Plano Tomorrow Comprehensive Plan
- Rescuing Shared Bikes (and E-Scooters) During a Pandemic
- Walkability Plan, Including Parking Reform, Adopted in Houston
- A 10-Minute Walk to a Park for Your Health and Well-Being
- Not Just New York: Reports of an Urban Exodus From Houston
- Cities: Skylines as an Urban Planning Tool
- Lincoln Yards, Chicago's Controversial $6 Billion Mega-Project, Set to Break Ground
- Inclusionary Zoning Adopted in L.A. County
- Can Planners Advance Environmental Justice When Rebuilding Existing Locally Unwanted Land Uses?
- Criticism of San Jose's Plan to Add New Billboards to the City
- The Day after Plano Tomorrow
- Investment in Public Transit Could Reduce the Need for Police Traffic Enforcement
- Manhattan Residents Don't Want Empty Hotels to House the Vulnerable During the Pandemic
- Mobility-as-a-Service Still Searching for a Market Foothold
- Bogotá Commits to the Bicycle
- Transitioning from Tourism to Tech: San Diego's Path to Recovery
- After Decades of Failure, 1,000-Plus Homes Coming to the Balboa Reservoir in San Francisco
- Los Angeles City Planning Hires First Chief Equity Officer
- The Two Conflicting Sides of the Federal Approach to the Pandemic
