Suffolk, Lyft, Team Up For Free Rides To Vaccination Sites

HAUPPAUGE, NY — Suffolk County and rideshare company Lyft on Wednesday announced a partnership to provide free rides to county vaccination sites for certain groups of people.

People aged 60 or older, veterans and driving-impaired residents can contact Suffolk 311 to arrange for pick-up and drop off at a county-run vaccination site, Executive Steve Bellone announced. The program is slated to start on June 1.

"We know that Long Island is not easy to navigate without a car," Bellone told reporters. "One of the biggest barriers to vaccination and to the people who we need to still have vaccinated may be transportation."

Staff will be able to request a ride using Lyft’s Concierge platform, which allows organizations to request rides on behalf of people regardless of whether they have access to a smartphone or a bank account.

The county has vaccine sites at the H. Lee Dennison Building in Hauppauge, as well as the Suffolk County Community College campuses in Selden, Riverhead and Brentwood.

The Lyft partnership is part of the county’s "Take Your Shot" campaign, which is meant to encourage residents to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

In Suffolk, roughly 766,000 people — nearly 65 percent of the county's residents — have been vaccinated, Bellone said. That number is getting closer to the 75 to 85 percent that Bellone said experts have been calling for.

"We have seen promising progress as more of our economy continues to open up," Bellone said. "But if we fully want to return to normalcy, we need our residents to be committed to getting vaccinated. We're getting closer and closer. We're not there yet. We need to push this over the finish line. Our goal is to eliminate any hesitancy, obstacles or barriers needed to getting vaccinated by providing people with the facts and providing the assistance they may need."