If you’re stuck downtown after midnight, you may still be able to get home for a bus fare, starting Monday.
That’s when VIA Metropolitan Transit plans to launch a six-month pilot program of its “VIA Link after midnight” service. From Mondays through Fridays VIA Link users can get rides into or out of downtown between midnight and 4 a.m., when buses generally aren’t running.
Riders will be able to be picked up from bus stops within the downtown area and get dropped off at another stop within Loop 410, or vice-versa, for $1.30.
The program is meant to help the multitude of bar, restaurant, hotel and retail workers with late-night shifts.
Curtis Koleber, VIA’s vice-president of transportation, said some workers who get off late currently trek to their bus stop, only to wait hours for buses to start again.
“We have no idea how many people are going to use it, he told KSAT. ”This has never been done, and we’re hoping it’s used. And we will increase capacity, add vehicles if it’s more popular.”
If it would take 20 minutes or longer for a VIA Link vehicle to pick up a rider, the riders would have the option to take an Uber or Lyft instead. They would get a $15 credit, plus their regular fare, to use toward that ride.
If the total cost of the ride exceeds that, VIA says users could choose to pay the remaining difference, take a shorter trip, or wait for the next VIA Link vehicle.
VIA has about $603,000 for the program in its budget, Koleber said, and they have $50,000 from Uber to be used for rideshare credits.
Because it only has six months to use those credits, Koleber said VIA would start the program using Uber as the rideshare option, though Lyft would eventually also be added.
Riders would get the $15 credit on their rideshare option, no matter company which they use.
>> READ: VIA to test drive late-night VIA Link, rideshare service for downtown workers
VIA is starting the program with “basically” 10 VIA Link vehicles and two wheelchair accessible vehicles, Koleber said.
With no idea how many people will use the service, he told KSAT he’ll measure success by whether the rideshare “overflow” option is being used a lot “and we have to think about how can we better support this program because there’s so many people using it.”
It would be up to the VIA Board of Trustees whether to continue or expand the pilot program, he said, and what future versions might look like would depend on the data.
“Do we go beyond 410? Can we go within the 410 and not always have a destination downtown?” he said. “We have to see like a heat map of where it’s being used the most, and that would help us. And feedback from customers would help as well.”
Though the program wasn’t designed with bar-hoppers in mind, anyone will be able to use it.
Jason Cisneros, a student at Palo Alto Community College, said he’d like to get downtown more for nightlife but the buses stop too early.
The new service sounded “interesting,” he told KSAT, but “it would be a little bit better for us on the weekends rather than the weekdays.”
While Cisneros though only the Friday morning service might help him in that situation, he said he’d try it and see how it works.
VIA says customers can book rides by using the VIA Link app or calling 210-655-LINK (5465).
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