Guest Commentator: Eleise Richards, Community Strategist New Jersey & Pennsylvania, Lyft @Lyft
How will improving vulnerable and underserved communities’ access to transportation support an inclusive recovery?
Access to basic needs — food, healthcare, employment, and reliable transportation — is essential to one’s livelihood. Yet, the destructive impacts of COVID-19 and other systemic inequities have laid bare the longstanding disadvantages faced by under-resourced Black communities in accessing these necessities. As we think about ways in which we can uniquely meet their needs across the nation, we recognize that reliable transportation is one of the biggest drivers of social and economic mobility. Transportation costs are the second largest expense for most American households and at Lyft, we have a unique opportunity to break down the barriers that create unequal access to affordable and efficient transportation.
Together, through our LyftUp Access Alliance chaired by Lyft Board Member Valerie Jarrett, we will provide access to 1.5 million rides to help Black communities reach a powerful network of essential resources and services. This will open doors of social and economic mobility for Black people to help meet the challenges we face in this moment of crisis. The LyftUp Access Alliance brings together partners like the National Urban League, NAACP, and Black Women’s Roundtable to connect under-resourced communities to transportation in order to access essential services, jobs, healthcare, and food.
It is a fact that transportation is key to having basic needs met like feeding your family, getting to work, obtaining a job, medical care, education, voting, etc. All people require the ability to get from point A to point B, and under-resourced Black communities have disproportionately low access, caused in large part by systemic racism. At Lyft we are working to ensure everyone has access to reliable, affordable transportation, and the reality is that nearly 4.5 million Americans are without it. Through LyftUp, we continue to partner with leading nonprofits to help provide free and discounted rides to individuals and families who lack affordable, reliable transportation to help them rebound and recover in these times.
Through Recharge & Recover PHL, the Chamber is working with our members to make Greater Philadelphia the healthiest and most livable community in the Northeast.
This objective is part of five aspirations of Recharge & Recover PHL with the aim to support not only Greater Philadelphia’s recovery but to also provide a means to differentiate our region for decades to come.
