Next month, Gwinnett will ask voters to approve a countywide rideshare system. But to succeed, it’ll need to reach all residents—including Spanish speakers.
I might’ve recently taken a trip into the future.
Standing in a parking lot in Lawrenceville on a bright Friday afternoon, I used an app to order a ride. This wasn’t Uber or Lyft, though. It was part of a public transportation initiative that seeks to reach riders who may not live near a bus or train line. Microtransit, as it’s called, has been available in Lawrenceville and Snellville since last year; Norcross launched the service in September. And in November, it’s a key part of a ballot referendum aiming to expand transit in Gwinnett.
If voters give it the okay, microtransit will go countywide. The idea is to have a fleet of small buses that pick up riders wherever they are—arranged via app—and take them where they want to go. This “allows us to get to 100 percent of the county,” said county commissioner Ben Ku. Right now, only about one in 10 Gwinnett residents, which spans 437 square miles, lives within walking distance of a fixed-route bus stop. The microtransit system would transport fewer people in smaller buses but would reach everyone who needs a ride, over larger areas.
A ride would cost $3. In the absence of a robust, countywide public transportation system, many county residents are now spending $15 or $20 round-trip in an Uber or Lyft to get to and from jobs that pay less than that per hour, or use any of a dozen or so private taxi companies. A doctor’s appointment—$20. A run to the grocery store—another $15. If the plan is voted in, and works as supporters hope, daily life would change for tens of thousands of people who don’t have a car—because they can’t afford one, or can’t afford to fix a broken vehicle, or because they’re undocumented and Georgia law doesn’t allow them to get a drivers license.
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The plan—which county commissioners voted in early June to put on the ballot—also includes five new bus routes, including one to Hartsfield-Jackson airport. But the addition of microtransit, Ku says, is what sets it apart from previous attempts at expanding public transportation, all of which Gwinnett voters rejected. (It is also the first proposal that doesn’t include MARTA, Atlanta’s public transportation system.) The plan would be paid for in part by a 1 percent sales tax—instead of property taxes, as is currently the case with Gwinnett public transportation—as well as fares and federal funds.
If the referendum passes, Gwinnett will join many places that have launched microtransit in recent years, mostly suburbs and small cities like Wilson, North Carolina. Besides bearing less upfront costs than trains, or multiple large buses with fixed routes, this trend is fueled in part by local governments wanting to provide “lower-income people, wherever they live, with the mobility they need to access jobs, education, and services,” according to a 2019 National Academies of Sciences report.
But ridership will be what ensures the program’s success—which, as the NAS report noted, “requires a high level of involvement with the communities to be served,” particularly since “the service is different from what people are familiar with.” Some failed microtransit pilot programs “didn’t do a good job of marketing,” said Joel Volinski, author of the report, citing a Kansas City trial where “people interviewed hadn’t heard about it.”
In Gwinnett, that will mean reaching Spanish speakers, who make up nearly one in five of the county’s nearly one million residents—the largest demographic in the county to speak a language other than English at home. Gwinnett was already the first county in Georgia required by federal law to translate all election materials into a language other than English, a move triggered in 2017 by U.S. Census figures showing that the Spanish-speaking population had crossed a statutory threshold—more than 5 percent or 10,000 citizens of voting age belonging to a single language minority group, with difficulty speaking English. Before it was legally required to do so, the county had been criticized for dragging its feet on providing such assistance. Jerry Gonzalez, the executive director of GALEO, which supports the civic engagement of Latinx people in Georgia, told me that Gwinnett for years “not only said ‘no,’ but ‘hell no,’ to translating election materials.”
Not sure what to expect on your ballot? Here’s what the referendum will say:
Last year, the county spent $25,000 to inform residents about the Snellville and Lawrenceville microtransit programs—but none of that promotional material was in Spanish. This should be remedied, Gonzalez said. The plan “will fail or succeed based on language access,” he said, adding that large populations in Gwinnett also speak other languages, including Korean.
In Norcross, where nearly four in 10 residents are Latino, Mayor Pro Tem Bruce Gaynor said that the city’s one-year microtransit pilot program, which launched in September, includes partnerships with Latino community groups. “We recognize that marketing only in English is probably not the fastest way to get riders,” Gaynor said. Leading up to the referendum, Gwinnett plans to develop materials in multiple languages about the countywide plan, and to partner with the Spanish-language news stations Telemundo and Univisión, according to the county’s communications department.
“We recognize that marketing only in English is probably not the fastest way to get riders.” —Norcross Mayor Pro Tem Bruce Gaynor
One person who will be following the results is Claudia Blasnich, owner of Alo Taxis—cabs being a key form of transportation for the county’s tens of thousands of undocumented Latinos. Based in Lawrenceville, the company was one of the first to serve the area’s Spanish-speaking community when it opened two decades ago. With 14 taxis, Blasnich says about 60 percent of her customers are Latinos, “most of whom use taxis because they don’t have a license—because they don’t have legal status.” If the referendum goes through, Blasnich says, she’s concerned about what impacts it might have on her business: “People are looking to save money, and buses are going to cost less.”
I live near Lawrenceville, so on a Friday during evening rush hour, I downloaded the Ride Gwinnett app, drove my car to a parking lot located within the zone of service, and, at 5:24 p.m., ordered a ride that would take me south across the 316 to downtown Lawrenceville. Natasha Tyler, a deputy director at Gwinnett County’s transportation department, told me that the average wait time is 20 minutes but can vary during peak hours. The plan on the ballot in November says countywide service would have a “maximum average wait time of 20 minutes.” But for me, the bus took nearly an hour to appear, arriving at 6:19. An hour later, at 7:19, I ordered a bus from downtown Lawrenceville for the return trip; it arrived at 7:42—a 23-minute wait. Both rides were smooth. The drivers were friendly. At the same time, I was glad I wasn’t depending on being anywhere at a specific time.
“They need a car, but don’t get paid enough to buy one—so they really need this.”
Tyler said the two cities were seeing three to four passengers per vehicle per hour, a number “exceeding our expectations.” But, during my short rides, no other passengers got on the bus. The drivers I spoke with said passengers talk to them quite a bit—perhaps because of the relative intimacy of the small bus, as well as the newness of the service. Riders have said they’re taking the bus to jobs at places like Publix, Target, McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, and Northside Hospital Gwinnett. Others were using the buses to get to school at Georgia Gwinnett College, or to the doctor.
“They need a car, but don’t get paid enough to buy one—so they really need this,” said one driver. Some passengers told the other driver they had been paying $250 or more every month to get to and from work. “They say it’s a blessing,” the driver said. •
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