Louisiana Entertainment District Needs to Consider Adding Designated Space
(Lafayette, Louisiana) - Downtown Lafayette is an excellent place for lunch, dinner, and entertainment, but it is lacking one thing that could benefit those who visit the district.
I was recently leaving a venue late at night in downtown Lafayette when I noticed several people walking around on their phones, and then heard someone say, "We'll have to walk blocks for them to pick us up."
What the young lady was saying to her friends is that the ride she scheduled to pick them up that night or early the next morning could not reach them in downtown Lafayette.
In recent years, the Lafayette Police Department and Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office have installed several excellent safety measures in the downtown area, which does limit and in some cases eliminate traffic on Jefferson Street.
And while the safety procedures are great for those visiting downtown on Friday or Saturday nights, the barriers prevent ride shares like Lyft or Uber from reaching their passengers.
If you've ever attended a sporting event or concert at a large venue, you may have seen that there are designated areas in parking lots for ride-share vehicles. This allows those seeking rides to be picked up in a safe and secure location, limitiing the walking from the venue.
Perhaps it is now time for the downtown Lafayette area to adopt such a strategy for the weekends. As I watched groups of young people walk around on their phones, looking for their rides, I couldn't help but applaud them for being safe and responsible after a night out.
However, the difficulty in finding a scheduled ride needs to be addressed, and perhaps eliminated. If there were a designated pick-up spot in a parking lot in downtown Lafayette, this could encourage more to use services like Lyft and Uber while out for the night.
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Personally speaking, I've had rides leave me downtown because they could not find or reach us due to road closures, only leaving us to wait longer for a ride once the streets were reopened.
I've also had friends tell me that they've had to walk several blocks to reach their scheduled ride, only to look over their shoulders late at night as they walked towards their pickup.
Sure, this may sound easier than it is, but with a collaborative effort, I feel like the downtown district, along with ride-share companies, can make this happen. It should not be so difficult to get a ride in 2025 if designated pickup areas are defined in an entertainment district.
Several parking lots could be utilized late at night for ride pickups, and I hope that one day this is available for those out late at night who are looking for a safe ride home.