Conn’s Pilot Project – It Just Won’t Lyft Off

It is the service we all know and love: the Lyft pass. Conn has advertised these passes relentlessly since their introduction to the College in 2020. At first glance, they sound intriguing: a reputable company providing college students with four free rides a month to explore their city. If only it were that simple. The Lyft program allows each Conn student four monthly rides, each discounted by $15. There are two different passes; one is available from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day of the week to Waterford and Groton, and the other is available on Sundays at the same times but to different locations in New London. The passes help make traveling around the College’s neighborhood cheaper for students, but they have many flaws, leaving the program unsatisfactory in meeting student expectations.

The issues first arise with the program’s pricing. Lyft rides fluctuate in price depending on the availability of drivers and traffic. The program only allows for a $15 discount, which can assume the total cost of a ride at certain times, but during more on-peak Lyft hours, it might make no more than a dent. Because of this fluctuation, the discount can sometimes be insignificant, even for relatively short drives. 

The problems don’t end when you get a discounted ride because then you face choosing a destination. The passes have a list of specific locations where each ride can go. Some helpful options include nearby malls, the train station, and many religious centers. The concern is what isn’t included: locations like pharmacies, museums, restaurants, and grocery stores. Identifying these desired locations could prove challenging from a technical perspective, requiring significant changes to the online system. However, having a limited selection restrains students’ connection with the environment off campus. Having an exclusive number of options for students to travel to perpetuates a facade that there isn’t anything going on in New London and the city isn’t worth your time or money. With the list already limited, having different passes for different days of the week adds another frustrating wrinkle. The Sunday pass includes churches, the New London Mall, the Social Security Administration, and Ocean Beach. The question it leaves students with is, why only on Sunday? Why specifically the New London Mall on Sunday and no other day? Why the Beach? The Social Security Administration is slightly more puzzling because, according to their hours of operation, they aren’t open on Sundays. This location is relatively close to Walgreens and CVS, which slightly makes up for not having a direct stop at the pharmacies, but that means Lyft passes can only pick up prescriptions on Sundays. These inconsistencies make planning excursions and errands frustrating with a seemingly simple solution of creating a universal pass for all of New London, Waterford, and Groton.

The number of rides could also be seen as an issue. Four isn’t quite enough, but the College has a solution. As per the Connecticut College website, “You can maximize the number of rides per month by sharing rides with friends.” However, as with every step of the Lyft pass experience, this also has a caveat. The pass only works for ‘standard rides,’ meaning you can share it with friends, but only three friends—no more than that. Lyfts aren’t the easiest to come by in this area of Connecticut, so planning a trip off campus with a medium to large group forces people to split up for a possibly long period, or money must be pitched in to pay for a larger car, again making the program pointless.

The Lyft system isn’t a complete failure. It is the foundation for a project that could build a robust, beneficial relationship between New London, Connecticut College, and its students. However, with the school’s policy against first-year students bringing their cars to campus and as parking has become further strained with the growing student body, the demand for an alternative to personal vehicles is rising. New London’s public transportation is spotty and inconvenient, with most of the South Area Transit District (SEAT) bus system running buses once every one or two hours per route and often no weekend service. An easy-to-use service developing Conn’s link with the City of New London would be desirable to all Conn students and is right within reach but a few oversights are holding it back. Making a certain number of rides within a radius or several townships free would solve the issue of inconsistent pricing. Expanding the operational area to that radius or the number of townships instead of specific destinations would further unite the College to its neighborhood, and changing the type of rides the passes pertain to would incentivize more students to go out more often and explore our community.