Improving Equity and Access for More Lyft Pass Users

When someone qualifies for Medicaid waiver transportation, the system has already said yes. A caseworker reviewed their situation. A budget was allocated — transportation dollars set aside specifically so that person could get to their job, their community activities, or their daily errands.

So what happens when they can't get a ride because they don't have a credit card, debit card or digital wallet?

That's the problem Lyft just fixed.

The gap

Lyft Pass for Public Funding (LPPF) is Lyft's product for Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) organizations — the agencies that administer Medicaid transportation benefits for people aging at home, some with disabilities. When a rider is enrolled in LPPF, their organization authorizes a Lyft Pass for the rider’s approved budget and pays for the rides up to that budget. Lyft never touches the rider's personal finances.

But until now, riders still had to add a personal payment method to create a Lyft account — and Lyft pre-authorized it before every single ride. According to the National Disability Institute, 11.2% of working-age people with disabilities were unbanked in 2023, close to 3x the number of people within the unbanked demographic without disabilities. For roughly 15–20% of LPPF riders who are unbanked, this was an insurmountable wall. Their rides were approved. The budget was there. Lyft just couldn't reach them.

The fix

Lyft has removed the payment requirement for LPPF riders in two ways: at ride request, where pre-authorization checks are now bypassed for fully subsidized LPPF rides, and at account creation, where riders invited to an LPPF program can complete sign-up without adding a personal payment method at all.

The logic is simple: LPPF rides don't use the rider's personal payment method — the organization pays.

Seeing it work: Dakota County, Minnesota

This isn't a theoretical fix — it's already reaching riders on the ground. In Dakota County, Minnesota, the County partnered with Lyft to give residents working with Dakota County Social Services case managers a reliable way to get to and from employment. For a program built around helping people get to work, a payment barrier at sign-up isn't a small technicality — it's the difference between a rider using the benefit they were approved for and a budget that goes unused.

Dakota County has built real infrastructure around the partnership: recurring "Lyft 101" trainings for case managers, riders, and families; rider guides and FAQs; and a dedicated support line — all designed to make sure eligible residents actually know how to use the benefit once they have access to it. That kind of on-the-ground groundwork is exactly where removing the payment barrier makes the most difference: it clears the last obstacle standing between a rider who's ready to use their ride and a ride that's ready for them.

“Transportation has always been one of the biggest barriers standing between the people we serve and steady employment. Lyft removing the payment requirement means we're no longer troubleshooting sign-up problems for the very riders this program was built for — we can focus on the thing that actually matters, which is getting them to work." — Robyn Bernardy, Transportation Coordinator, Dakota County Social Services.

Why it matters

A missed ride to a job interview, or a day program isn't just an inconvenience — it's a health outcome. An employment outcome. A quality of life outcome.

HCBS bookings on Lyft are growing rapidly year over year. The people in these programs chose Lyft. Their agencies chose Lyft. The only thing standing between them and their rides was a payment requirement that didn't apply to them in the first place.

That barrier is gone now. The rides that were always theirs can finally reach them.