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Lyft And LADOT Want You To Stop Driving Your Car For 30 Days In Exchange For Free Rides
(Photo by Steve Boland/Flickr CC)
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Rideshare company Lyft is partnering with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation to launch a pilot program where Angelenos go 30 days without using their car in exchange for $677 in transportation credit. That includes money toward Lyft's carpool service, a month-long regional transit pass and electric car sharing.
The "Ditch Your Car" challenge functions like a sweepstakes, and hopeful winners can enter starting Wednesday. In L.A., 100 entrants will be drawn at random to participate -- and like any sweepstakes, there are rules.
More than 35 other U.S. cities are taking part in the challenge, but their participants are capped at 50. So, why does L.A. have double the participants? We have a theory, and according to Allen Narcisse, general manage for Lyft Southern California, the city is a "unique market" and Lyft customized the program "to match the needs of the residents around here."
Narcisse said his company knows they can't solve L.A.'s transit problems on their own, but the partnership with LADOT and other regional transit helps promote "a full menu of mobility options for Los Angeles residents."
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(Photo by Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images for Lyft)
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Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti hyped the challenge in a press release, saying it "will help people experience new ways to travel our city streets, and better understand how we can all play a part in building a more sustainable future."
So how will Lyft verify that participants have actually stopped using their own cars for the 30-day period? There's nothing in the official sweepstakes rules covering that, but as Narcisse explained it, it'll basically be an honor system.
"We believe that most people who volunteer to be part of this challenge are doing it because they believe that together we can have a positive impact by making this lifestyle change toward a multimodal future," he said. "Our community cares about the future and we think they'll take this challenge to heart."
Any honorable Angelenos who want to enter can do so here.
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