Circuit, a ride share service born in East Hampton that has expanded to 50 cities in seven states, may be coming to Sag Harbor by Memorial Day weekend.
“I have my heart set on doing something with this,” Mayor Thomas Gardella said at the monthly meeting of the village board on Tuesday night. The service could run a loop around the village, making stops at the windmill, the municipal building, and the cinema, with alternate routes to avoid traffic. The six-door compact electric GEM cars would provide transportation to and from beaches and satellite parking lots.
With village traffic studies ongoing, board members were optimistic about the idea of eliminating some traffic and parking bottlenecks. Last summer, the village contracted with Pierson High School to utilize its parking lots, but found that they were not being used as hoped. People prefer parking in town and possibly being ticketed, Aidan Corish, a board member, said, to having to walk the distance to the business district. Circuit could change that.
In fact, said Jeanne Kane, a board member, the village has explored owning and operating its own shuttle service in the past, but the idea was scuttled when costs and liability ruled it out. Contracting with Circuit would cost the village approximately $60,000 for a pilot program to run from Memorial Day to Labor Day 38 hours per week. A full-time schedule of 66.5 hours per week would cost about $75,000 for the same time period. A ride on the Circuit car would be free and fully subsidized by the village.
Max Hendrix represented the company on Tuesday night. He called the Circuit system “community-driven transportation.” What his company has identified as a problem with regard to parking is employee parking. By nature, he said, employees arrive first and take the first available spots. That parking could be turned over throughout the day, he said, if employers direct their employees to use Circuit, freeing up the spots.
Mayor Gardella has proposed that the cars run to Mashashimuet Park for students participating in sports and needing a ride back to school.
Once known as Hamptons Free Ride and founded by two local residents, Alex Esposito and James Mirras, the ride-sharing company subsidizes the costs of rides through advertising. It still operates in East Hampton as an on-demand model.
