Ride services hit hard by COVID
The use of ride hailing services plummeted in Massachusetts in 2020 as the pandemic shuttered businesses and forced many to work from home.
Ride hailing companies last year provided about 35 million rides that started in Massachusetts — a 62% drop statewide from the 91.1 million rides started in 2019, according to data released Monday by the state Department of Public Utilities.
The decline was the sharpest in the Greater Boston area, the Cape and Islands, and in smaller towns in western Massachusetts. Outside of these areas, ride volume also fell, but at a lower rate.
The greatest drop came in Boston, which had 30 million fewer rides start within the city compared to 2019.
A Father’s Day gathering in Andover featuring Texas U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw has been called off due to planned protests, the Massachusetts GOP said.
“These protests would have caused a major disturbance in my neighborhood, and I do not want my guests, my neighbors or Congressman Crenshaw to be subjected to a chaotic and potentially volatile situation,” said party Chairman Jim Lyons, who planned to host the gathering as his home. “While the event is now canceled, we are nonetheless committed to hosting Congressman Crenshaw at some point in the future.”
“The fight against censorship, cancel culture, and the far-left’s obsession with silencing anyone who dares to express their right to free speech and free expression continues,” Lyons said in a statement. “The threat is real.”
Crenshaw, 37, a former Navy SEAL who lost an eye in Afghanistan, has called for Roe v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision protecting women’s right to abortion, to be overturned.
He also has called for conservatives to work for stricter election laws at the state level.