Broward's Late Shift Connect program provided about 12,000 work trips last year, showing how public transportation is being adapted for workers whose schedules continue after regular bus service becomes limited or unavailable.

Most transportation systems are built around a familiar assumption.

People go to work in the morning and come home later in the day.

But plenty of jobs don't work that way.

Some shifts begin at 10 at night. Others finish at 2 or 5 in the morning. And a workplace that is relatively easy to reach while buses are running can become considerably harder to reach once regular transit service becomes limited or unavailable.

Broward County has been experimenting with a different way of filling that gap.

Instead of putting another bus on the road for every possible late-night trip, Broward County Transit uses its Late Shift Connect program to subsidize direct taxi rides for eligible workers.

And the program has steadily grown.

Broward County Transit reported approximately **12,000 Late Shift Connect trips during fiscal year 2025**.

That is still tiny compared with Broward's overall transit system, which provided roughly 26 million rides during the year. But that may be precisely the point.

Late Shift Connect isn't designed to replace the bus system.

It is designed to solve a transportation problem that conventional buses don't always solve very efficiently.

When a Work Schedule and a Transit Schedule Don't Match

Late Shift Connect is available to Broward residents who work in Broward County and whose shifts begin or end between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. Monday through Friday or between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m. on weekends.

Eligible trips must connect with the worker's registered employment location and remain within Broward County.

Workers can currently use the program for as many as 0 one-way trips each week.

The rider pays the first $2 of an eligible trip. Broward then subsidizes as much as $30 of the remaining taxi fare. If the total fare exceeds $32, the rider pays the additional amount.

That can make a substantial difference.

Broward's own Rider's Guide gives the example of a $32 taxi ride. Under Late Shift Connect, the worker pays $2 and the program covers the remaining $30.

For someone working five overnight shifts, the current 10-trip weekly allowance can potentially cover a trip to work and a trip home for each workday.

Broward has not said that a five-day round trip is specifically why the limit was set at 10, but functionally the current allowance can cover both sides of a conventional five-day workweek.

The Program Has Changed as People Used It

Late Shift Connect did not begin at its current size.

When Broward developed the pilot in 2021 and launched it in 2022, workers were limited to five trips per week. The county subsidy was $15 per trip after the worker paid the first $2, and eligible shifts generally fell between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

From the beginning, Broward said it intended to monitor usage and adjust the program.

That is what happened.

By 2024, Broward County Transit was reporting that Late Shift Connect ridership had tripled. The county responded by expanding the service.

The maximum subsidy increased from $15 to $30. Workers went from five eligible trips per week to seven. And the eligible service window grew to begin earlier in the evening and extend later into the morning.

The current Rider's Guide now permits up to 10 trips per week.

That progression is significant because it shows something beyond the existence of a transportation program.

It shows Broward changing the design as the demand became clearer.

Public Transportation Without Another Bus

There is an easy tendency to think of public transportation primarily in terms of vehicles.

More service means more buses. More access means more routes.

But Late Shift Connect approaches the problem differently.

A fixed-route bus works particularly well when enough people need to travel through roughly the same places at roughly the same times.

Late-night work trips can be much more scattered.

One worker may need to reach a workplace in western Broward at midnight. Another may leave work somewhere else at 4 a.m.

Running conventional service capable of matching every individual trip would be difficult and potentially expensive.

Late Shift Connect instead uses existing transportation providers and directs the public subsidy toward the individual trip.

That makes the taxi ride, in effect, one small piece of the broader transit system.

Broward's proposed FY2026 transportation funding includes $2 million for Late Shift Connect, reflecting the county's continued investment in the model.

The Part of the Economy That Happens After Dark

It is tempting to describe late-night transportation as a niche problem.

In one sense, it is.

About 12,000 Late Shift Connect trips are a very small fraction of Broward's overall transit ridership.

But a transportation problem doesn't have to affect millions of trips to matter to the person trying to get to work.

The larger issue is whether employment is actually accessible. A job may exist. A worker may be qualified for it.

The workplace may even be only a few miles away.

But if the worker has no practical way to get there when the shift begins—or get home when it ends—the opportunity becomes much harder to use.

Transportation access therefore isn't only about geography.

It is also about time.

Late Shift Connect represents one way Broward is acknowledging that distinction.

A Different Definition of Transit

The most interesting thing about the program may not be the taxis themselves. It is the idea behind them.

Public transportation has traditionally meant building a system and asking passengers to organize their trips around it.

Late Shift Connect reverses some of that relationship.

For a narrowly defined group of work trips, Broward is allowing transportation to organize itself more closely around the passenger.

The rider identifies the job location. The trip occurs when that worker actually needs it. 

An existing transportation provider supplies the vehicle. And the county reduces the cost enough to make the trip more practical.

That approach won't replace traditional transit, nor is it intended to.

But it illustrates something increasingly important about mobility.

Sometimes improving transportation doesn't mean extending every bus route indefinitely.

Sometimes it means recognizing the hours and circumstances in which the usual system stops fitting people's lives—and finding another way to close the gap.

For thousands of work trips in Broward last year, that other way happened to be a taxi.

Have you ever had a job where getting to or from work was harder because of the hours?

Tell us below what transportation options worked—or didn't work—for you.

----------

Key Program Highlights:

Who qualifies: Broward residents working in Broward whose shifts begin or end during eligible late-night hours.

Current hours: 9 p.m.–7 a.m. Monday–Friday; 8 p.m.–7 a.m. Saturday–Sunday.

Trip allowance: Up to 10 one-way work trips per week.

Cost: Rider pays the first $2; Late Shift Connect covers up to the next $30; the rider pays anything above that. 

----------
This story is part of The Bright Side, which is an ongoing series from Coral Springs Insider that highlights positive developments and community moments around Coral Springs.

Editor’s note: This piece was selected and adapted for Coral Springs Insider to provide local context and perspective on an issue relevant to our community.