By The Star Staff
Bayamón Mayor Ramón Luis Rivera Cruz on Tuesday announced the start of the BayaRide, a pilot project that will be providing free transportation services to residents in the rural area of Bayamón.
The new service, subsidized with municipal funds, fills a transportation need, particularly for older adults, and will operate on three routes from Monday to Friday, with three departure times from rural areas: Route BR-1 (Montellano Sector in Bo. Nuevo) Route BR-2 (Santa Olaya Bakery located in the same neighborhood), and Route BR-3 (Int. PR-174 and PR 812 in Bo. Guaraguao Abajo).
The departure times are 7:30 a.m., 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., and all buses will arrive at the Multimodal Terminal in the Urban Center, from where they will leave again for the rural area.
The “BayaRide” project augments other existing transportation projects in the urban area and because it is a pilot project, “the necessary adjustments will be made according to its use and demand,” Rivera Cruz said.
Once in the urban area, citizens can run their errands or connect with other services that take them to other points in the metropolitan area.
The mayor noted as an example that a student from Bo. Nuevo could take the BR-1 route to the Multimodal Terminal and take the Urban Train to the universities of Puerto Rico, Sagrado Corazón or Politécnica.
An older person from Guaraguao Abajo could take the BR-3 and get to the town and then to the Medical Center, he said. Each unit has capacity for 14 seated passengers, room to stand, and a place to accommodate people with wheelchairs.
According to the 2020 Census, the population of Bo. Nuevo is 2,620, while in Santa Olaya there were 5,246 people and 6,893 in Bo. Guaraguao.
Rivera Cruz said the purpose is to mainly serve the population that resides in those neighborhoods far from the urban area. The municipal government will monitor the project’s use and adjust it to the demand on each route if necessary. All routes are identified with BayaRide signs.
The mass transit project joins the BayaTrolley and ParaTránsito service, both similar services serving the urban area of Bayamón and its periphery.