City of Monrovia Receives $500K Planning Grant

Part of the grant will provide funding to hire transportation experts to help analyze the GoMonrovia program’s data. – Photo by Terry Miller/ Beacon Media News

Part of the Future Communities Pilot Program 

The City of Monrovia is one of eight recipients receiving a grant from the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) as part of the Future Communities Pilot Program (FCPP).

As just one of the two cities who received the maximum grant amount of $500,000, Monrovia’s application focused on evaluating alternative strategies to optimize the GoMonrovia program with a focus on collaborating with local employers to reduce commuting vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) and greenhouse gases (GHG).

“Since the establishment of GoMonrovia, we have seen phenomenal participation in our reimagined public transit program powered by Lyft,” said Mayor Pro Tem Becky Shevlin. “In fact, our ridership level has grown to around 70,000 passengers per month with nearly 19,000 unique riders.”

To further encourage public transportation options like the Metro Gold Line and subsidized rides with Lyft, the city plans to use the $500,000, plus a 25 percent local match, to design and implement a program with local employers to provide the first and last mile transportation solutions for commuters.

Additionally, the grant will provide funding to hire transportation experts to help analyze the GoMonrovia program’s data. The research will look for ways to reduce VMTs and GHGs by instituting infrastructure upgrades, pricing model shifts and other programmatic adjustments.

“GoMonrovia is such an innovative program that cities and other agencies around the country are eager to learn about how partnering with a Transportation Network Company like Lyft impacts traffic patterns and air quality,” Shevlin said. “This is a very exciting opportunity to help move the transportation field forward.”

Ultimately, the goal of the FCPP is to calculate the reduction of GHGs and VMTs by using available data provided by technological platforms through partnerships with the project’s mobility consultants, local employers and Lyft.

The other Future Communities Pilot Program recipients include the City of Cerritos, the City of Glendale, the City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation, the City of Anaheim, the City of Riverside, the County of San Bernardino, and the City of Ontario.

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