The City of Gainesville is expecting to receive nine of its 15 WeGo rideshare vehicles by Dec. 1, with public operation beginning on Dec. 14.
In a Thursday Gainesville City Council work session, Phillippa Moss, Gainesville Community Service Center Director, said the nine vehicles have been ordered and are currently on their way to Atlanta.
WeGo by Via was first decided as the vendor for the new transportation service in July. Passengers of the vehicles will be able to book a ride using the free WeGo app, which works similarly to Uber and Lyft. Upon requesting a ride, the vehicle will go directly to the rider, or a nearby area, according to the City of Gainesville’s website.
“It’s really nice to get the reaction where people go ‘Wow! The government’s trying to do something innovative and efficient, and new and modern,’” said City Manager Bryan Lackey at the Thursday Work Session.
During the work session, the City Council also approved the addition of a request for an FY2022 Section 5307 Grant to the agenda of the next City Council Meeting on Nov. 17. The 5307 application first goes to the Department of Transportation and is then forwarded to the Federal Transit Administration. These funds are currently used to fund five Gainesville Connection vehicles and seven Dial-A-Ride vehicles.
If approved, the 5307 Grant would help fund 15 WeGo vehicles and three Gainesville Connection vehicles starting in July of 2021.
“We’ll have more vehicles but we hope that the cost of operating these will be much less expensive because these vehicles are smaller, need regular gas and should be far more efficient,” Moss said.
The WeGo vehicles are set to operate exclusively in the City of Gainesville from December 2020 to June 2021. After this point, WeGo will expand into the remaining parts of Hall County, according to the City of Gainesville’s website. Hall County’s Dial-A-Ride service will also eventually be phased out during fiscal year 2022 in favor of the new WeGo service.
