By Regina Clarkin

A new-to-Peekskill resident had trouble getting a ride one night when his calls to the services Uber and Lyft didn’t pan out. Those drivers were at least 30 minutes away and didn’t take the request for a ride in Peekskill. When he Googled taxi services in Peekskill, they were not working at the time he needed or not answering the phone.  He started walking and eventually saw a local taxi drive by and hailed it. 

His experience showed that Uber and Lyft don’t have good service coverage in the Peekskill-area during any time of day or night – and having a reliable, accurate listing of taxi services in Peekskill just didn’t exist. Determined to do something about this gap, he created a website at the end of June called  PeekskillTransitHub which details all of the taxi companies registered with the Peekskill Police Department. 

Mr. Transit Hub, as he likes to be known, moved to Peekskill in January of this year. He left New York City after living there for eight years without owning a car and has no interest in getting one now that he lives in Peekskill. “I don’t enjoy driving or owning a car or the expenses that come with it. But I may rent a car as needed.”

A journalist by profession, he’s not an expert in creating websites. “But since I was a kid, I’ve always played around with click-and-drop type website design and I have created other sites before. I love the Peekskill-area and I wanted to do something that would help other residents; so this website is really a public service type of thing” that he funds himself. 

The list of taxis serving the Peekskill area is still being updated as he gets information. He plans to hyperlink the phone numbers to the cab companies so a person going to his website on a phone can tap the phone number and the call will be dialed.

RIDE! Peekskill misses DRI funding

In another local transportation story, RIDE! Peekskill, a project that was proposed for part of the state Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI) grant did not receive the $68,000 it requested to purchase 20 e-bikes with associated software for service. 

According to RIDE! Peekskill’s Facebook page: The group’s hope was to use the funds to purchase the bikes and construct two bike parking corrals (one at riverfront and one downtown), and additional batteries for the bikes.

The remaining legal, administrative, and operational costs were to be privately funded.

According to the post “Without the state funding the capital investments, we are reassessing the viability of the project and searching for a new way forward.”