Update: Friday, November 13

• Q&A Webinar video posted. Click here to watch.
• Answers to FAQs posted. Click here to read.

MAPC, in partnership with MassDevelopment, is offering grants up to $250,000 to contract with taxicab, livery, or hackney businesses to meet transportation and delivery needs.

Eligible grantees include regional transit agencies, municipal and state agencies, health and human services agencies, and nonprofit organizations across Massachusetts. 

The Taxi/Livery Partnership Grant Program will support public transportation and non-emergency medical transportation initiatives; including first mile/last mile connections, fixed-route shuttle service, micro-transit initiatives, incentivizing non-emergency medical transportation programs, food delivery, senior transportation, and other services that taxi, livery, or hackney businesses could provide. 

Grants are funded through the MassDevelopment Transportation Infrastructure Enhancement Fund (TIEF). From 2017 to 2019, the fund collected fees on trips provided by transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft to provide financial assistance to small taxi and livery businesses. 

Dates to know: 

• November 9: Webinar for interested applicants  (Watch a recording here)
  
• November 13: Answers to applicant questions posted (Read them here)
  
• November 20: Application deadline 

The program is an adaptation of the Urgent COVID-19 Taxicab, Livery and Hackney Partnership Grant Program, which distributed over $1 million in funding this year to meet vulnerable populations’ transportation and delivery needs during the COVID-19 emergency. Recipients of the urgent grant program are eligible to apply for the grant opportunity. 

Twenty-five state and municipal agencies, regional transit authorities, and health and human services transportation providers received grants to partner with taxi and livery companies through the program.  

Taxi partnerships funded by this previous round of grants include: 

• The City of Somerville is providing deliveries of food and prescriptions via taxi to at-risk and homebound residents. 
• In the greater Worcester area, the Worcester Regional Transit Authority is using cab companies for food deliveries and medical trips where Council on Aging van services have been reduced due to COVID. 
• The Boston Public Health Commission is using taxi companies in Boston for transportation needs for people experiencing homelessness. 
• In Springfield, the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority is partnering with cab companies, medical centers and non-profits to provide trips for seniors,  persons with disabilities and those experiencing homelessness.
• The Town of Egremont in western Massachusetts, in close cooperation with the Towns of Alford and Mount Washington, is working with taxi companies to provide medical and other trips for seniors and essential workers. 

Learn more about the urgent COVID grants and the current round of funding on the Taxi Partnerships webpage. 

Learn more about how to apply on our Legal Notices webpage.