Mt. Pleasant resident brings Lyft to Henry County

MT. PLEASANT - Anyone who requests a Lyft in Henry County will most likely be getting a ride from Dan Ross and his red, 2009 Chevrolet Traverse.

As far as Ross can tell, he's the only registered driver in the area with the ride-sharing company, even though Lyft became widely available to Southeast Iowa cities beginning in 2017. Like Uber, Lyft is an app-driven service that allows people to request a local driver for a ride. With Ross, the service has finally made it to the more rural parts of the area.

'Mt. Pleasant just has me,” he said.

To promote his services, Ross has begun supplying Lyft posters to local businesses to let residents know that his services are available.

As Ross continues through the early stages of providing rides, the new driver notes he doesn't get too many requests. On a busy night, he provides two to three rides to local residents.

Ross said most of the ride services are concentrated in bigger communities. If he were to seek out more steady business, he would probably have to travel outside of the rural areas. There tends to be more ride-sharing service availability in Burlington and Iowa City, where many University of Iowa students use the service to get to and from downtown on the weekends.

Ross, who works at the local Salvation Army and is based out of Mt. Pleasant, started providing rides last year as a means to make some extra cash. He was also motivated by the fact that some people in the area don't have the means to transport themselves.

'A lot of people don't have cars to get places,” Ross said, 'The other options for people are either to walk or don't go.”

Many of Ross' rides have been longer distances to locations like The Eastern Iowa Airport or Iowa City.

While he has given rides to people within town, a large number of the people who use his services have been from out of town, including field organizers.

Ross said he likes the conversations with customers to learn about what's going on around town.

'I've been wanting to do this for a while, about ten years now. I love driving. I don't know what's fun but I just like it … I give rides whenever they get a hold of me on the app,” he said.