[WoolieMammoth]

Would like to hear about rideshare on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.
Fairly bizarre compared to the mainland.

I've given rides to lots of island drivers over the years. They often come to the Cape to buy staple items from the stores here that they don't have over there or are costing like twice as much.

The base pay is far higher on the islands than even on the Cape. Nantucket has the highest base pay in the state and Martha's Vineyard second highest, with the Cape a distant 3rd.

Most drivers that know what they are doing can average $100 to $150 per hour in the off season, and about $200 per hour during tourist season.

These drivers live on the island and driving is a second job for them due to the logistics and cost of living in these places.

So for someone living on the Cape, it isn't really a feasible option to just drive on the islands by using the ferries each day to commute unless they have a place to keep their car on the island long-term.

The Vehicle Ferries are booked up months in advance and are booked up within days of the booking windows opening.

If I had some way to keep my car on Martha's Vineyard, I would. A 45 minute commute on the passenger ferry would be worth it.

 

[Goodellsux]

In general, how are rides down at Woods Hole when the boats come in? Are they mainly local rides to somewhere else in Falmouth where their car is? Are there a few or many requests from people coming off the boats?How often do you get a request for a long trip off of the Cape?

 

[WoolieMammoth]

In general, how are rides down at Woods Hole when the boats come in? Are they mainly local rides to somewhere else in Falmouth where their car is? Are there a few or many requests from people coming off the boats?How often do you get a request for a long trip off of the Cape?

This applies to both ferries in Woods Hole and in Hyannis.

The majority of trips are local. Whether heading home, to whatever place they are renting, or to one of the parking lots scattered all over to get their cars if they are too lazy to wait for one of the shuttles. And most demand is obviously during tourist season with people doing day trips to the islands.

That said, there are still quite a few trip requests going off-Cape, usually Boston, but just about anywhere within 1.5 hours. These usually start coming in later in the afternoon and evenings and are usually people who have a second home on the islands and need to make it back to their primary residence or are airport runs.

I usually see two or three requests for longer trips off Cape from the ferries two or three times a week, although I haven’t taken one in like 4 months. Since February we’ve had a bunch of new drivers start thinking they can make good money with the hourly rate that the media and Uber keep spouting without realizing how it actually works. And since these drivers don’t know anything they keep accepting everything thrown at them no matter how bad a trip it is and it’s caused the algorithm to to push everyone’s offers lower. Heck, one of these guys drives an F150. I got no idea how he’s even breaking even on his gas bill. It isn’t even a diesel.

I typically won’t do a Boston run for less than $125 so I have enough to dead head it back if needed for a roughly 3 hour round trip if I don’t stick around Boston for a while, which I usually don’t if it’s coming from the last boat of the day. These offers haven’t broken $90 in quite a while. At that price over half that disappears into making my car move at $.40 a mile.

I can always tell once the new guys log off or become unavailable as the price on all my offer immediately go up to numbers I would see before the Settlement and my acceptance rate can go from like 25% to 50% or higher by the end of the night.

If you are thinking about trying to milk the Boston runs, it isn’t really easy to do. During tourist season there are Boston drivers who will catch a morning ride down to the docks and just sit there all day waiting on a trip back to Boston. There are several Uber/Lyft Black drivers that will do this in particular.

 

[Paul Vincent]

Blue line to Revere Beach...

 

[Gung-Ho]

Jesus, That is some expensive rental prices. For comparison:

In Thailand you can buy entire apartment for 138k or rent 4 bedroom penthouse in China for 1200usd/month.

Hello fellow rideshare drivers!

The summer tourist season is soon going to be upon us and those of us who have been doing this for years are used to a climate where the tourists are plentiful and the demand is insanely high, making it a great option for drivers to come from all over New England to spend time driving here.

I live on Cape Cod and I wish I could say that was going to be the case for 2025, but all indicators are that it's going to be worse than it has been in 2023 and 2024, which have been some of the slowest summers here for demand since 2020.

The summer traffic here is legendary with what should be a 30 to 40 minute trip from Falmouth to Hyannis often taking an hour or more. Attempting to make a left hand turn onto 28 in the summer? You'll have better luck making the sun rise in the West.

Those that live here or have driven here during the summer tourist season of 2023 and 2024 know that this is no longer the case. Rarely has the trip from Falmouth to Hyannis taken more than 45 minutes no matter the time of day and you could reasonably expect to make a left hand turn onto 28 with only a short wait for a gap to open up. And overall demand was way down with surges becoming even more scarce, even at bar close.

2025 is looking to be even slower than the past 2 years have been.

Why is this?

For the summer of 2023 and 2024 this was largely driven by a huge increase in the prices of short term rentals. Since most of the room rental inventory here on Cape Cod is tied up in home owners selling their houses for short term rentals either through local rental agencies (which have been doing this for well over 50 years) or AirBnB and their competitors, anything that affects the housing market will affect these prices. And this happened at the start of 2023 when every town on Cape Cod increased their property tax rates by an average of 25%.

What used to cost a family of $3,000 to $5.000 a week for a three bedroom house depending on location, was now running $5,000 to $7,000 a week. Once you factored in travel, food cost, etc., families that had been coming here for years a every summer were now looking at Disney World prices. And with how strong the dollar was, going to Europe for two weeks could be done at half the price, which is what many did.

For this summer this is still true with short term rental pricing still high, but on top of that we now have another issue and it's related to the current political climate.

Many restaurants and shops rely on the H2B Visa program to get seasonal workers for the summer months since there is not enough local labor to meet their seasonal demand needs. Many places are reporting that they have no idea of the status of these foreign workers or even if they will get any at all as the State Department has not been updating them at all. In years past, businesses knew by now if they had the workers they needed or not be now through this program.

This means that many restaurants will not have enough staff this summer to run their summer hours and will be forced to continue using their winter hours, or shorten their planned hours if they were seasonal to begin with. So there will be less for tourists to do, which will decrease rideshare demand.

The other factor that will hurt the rideshare demand even more here on Cape Cod this summer is the fact that 15% of the yearly tourists that come here are from Canada. Due to the current political climate, they have already cancelled, with some of these people having come here to the same house every year for 20 years or more.

This summer on Cape Cod is going to be painful for rideshare.

So my message to those of you who may drive down here from far off areas to drive expecting it to be busy like before the pandemic, you may want to reconsider the cost/benefit ratio again knowing that there will likely be a driver oversupply again this summer, and it will be worse than the past two summers.

If you have a ride which pulls you down here, absolutely stay down here for a few hours before making your way back.

Or if you live an hour or less from Falmouth or Hyannis, come down.

However, for those of you that will rent an AirBnB for a week with several other drivers, or will drive down from 3 hours away and park at the beaches for the night to sleep for a few hours, drive again, and repeat for a few days before going back home, you may want to reconsider this strategy as the demand just won't be there to make it profitable once you deduct your expenses.

While demand will be higher than the off-season, it won't be at the levels that would support the number of drivers we have had before the pandemic or even in 2021 and 2022. And those that did come here the last two years, already know that it is harder to make money here with the driver oversaturation that resulted from the decreased tourist demand.

So something to think about as you consider your driving plans for the summer of 2025. To judge the tourist levels, keep an eye on the short term rental bookings as this is the major indicator of how busy it will be here, and right now, it looks bad.

Stay safe everyone!

Thanks for the news Chicken Little.

There are literally no more Taxi cabs from Mashpee to Orleans. Last major fleet company closed their doors in March. Uber/Lyft could charge $5 per mile and $1 per minute and people would have no choice but to pay.

BTW...one other thing. Don't even think of parking at the beach parking lots. Patrolled constantly. Go to the back of a car dealership put a sun screen(if you have one) in your windshield and get lost in the crowd of cars. Just be awake and gone before they open.