By Laura Bliss on CityLab
But they’re about to get a little easier. In the coming weeks, a brand-new seven-seat Tesla Model X will be ferrying residents of this 500-person Central Valley outpost to distant towns, at roughly the cost of a bus ride. For a one-year pilot period, the Tesla will be operated as a ride-hailing service for part of the week, and available for hourly, Zipcar-style rentals on weekends.* “Van y Vienan” (“They Come and Go”) will be among the first rural ride-share programs in the country operating with an electric car.
“The need just kept growing and growing,” says Amanda Monaco, a policy advocate and lawyer with the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability. “It got to the point where we kept hearing people say that they’d like more support for this—even simply for a larger vehicle.”

Cantua Creek residents gather around the Tesla Model X. (Laura Bliss/CityLab)
LCJA is working with a Los Angeles-based electric vehicle ride-sharing platform called Green Commuter to insure, maintain, and operate the Tesla in a uniquely flexible way. Cantua Creek riders need not own smartphones to summon a ride; for a few hours every weekday, they’ll be able to dial into a dispatcher at the Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission office, where pickup times and routes will be coordinated using Green Commuter software; individuals from the community will work as drivers, and the car will be available for individuals to rent on the weekends. Ride costs to passengers will also be subsidized by the grant. “It needs to be comparable to other public fares in the area,” says Leslie Graham, the director of grants and partnerships for Green Commuter.
Cantua Creek may soon be America’s only farm town with a community Tesla shuttle, but it’s not alone in pioneering shared mobility in remote corners of the U.S. Rural neighbors have long carpooled by horse, buggy, and automobile. Since 1995, the Independent Transportation Network of America has relied on a mix of volunteer and paid drivers to give rides to seniors and people with visual impairments; a specialized routing and coordinating software helps draw connections in both rural and urban settings.
In upstate New York’s Watertown, the Volunteer Transportation Center directs its 250 unpaid drivers across a three-county area to get those with limited transportation options to medical appointments and other necessities. There’s also Liberty, a 24-hour ride-hailing service in Nebraska’s western panhandle that leans on the civic bent of its independently contracted drivers, many of whom are teachers and veterans.
And just 34 miles southeast of Cantua Creek, the 7,000-person city of Huron will soon provide two electric vehicles to be dispatched and driven by its own longtime raiteras, thanks to a $519 million grant from the California Public Utility Commission and winnings from the Just Transit Challenge. As in Cantua, riders will need only a phone number to order a ride, and will pay a subsidized, per-mile fare for “Green Raitera” lifts. The funds will also help build charging stations along the roads to Fresno and convert an old diesel gas station into a fully fledged EV repair shop—a nexus for employment, hopes Mayor Rey Leon, who has been envisioning such an operation for years with his nonprofit Valley LEAP.

Plans for the EV repair shop in Huron, California. (Courtesy Rey Leon/Valley Leap/Green Raiteros)
In Cantua Creek, part of the discussion at the community meeting earlier this year was whether riders should pay small monthly fees, in addition to fares, in order to ensure Van y Vienan has a future. Trips to Fresno will start at $10 for adults, and $5 for children and seniors; other locations will cost equal or less, depending on the distance. These prices might eventually decrease.
One local, Antonia Mendoza, thinks the success of Van y Vienan depends heavily on the pricing. “I feel better when I pay $10 for each ride,” he said. “That way we can keep it growing and growing.” Some worry that could risk suppressing ridership, which is another uncertainty in the program’s success. “I just hope our community does take advantage of it,” said Leticia Fernandez, one of Cantua Creek’s most vocal community advocates and supporters of the program.
In urban settings, competition between ride-sharing companies would surely bear in the success of one program or another. That is less the case in rural areas. Even in spread-out suburban areas, “the expansion of shared mobility services has long been considered a challenge,” says Shaheen. However, a recent data analysis by Uber suggests that as demand for ride-hailing grows, so does high-quality service in communities further and further outside city centers.
“I don’t personally need this thing,” she said, referring to the pilot program, as she jingled her car keys in hand. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t stop advocating for my community. If Hilda needs it, if Domitila needs it, if Gloria needs it, I’m going to make sure they get it.”
*This article has been updated to include additional information about Van y Vienan’s structure and pricing.
Laura Bliss is a staff writer at CityLab, covering transportation, infrastructure, and the environment. Her work also appears in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Los Angeles magazine, GOOD, the L.A. Review of Books, and beyond.