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Waze is expanding its carpooling service throughout California

Waze is expanding its carpooling service throughout California

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On Tuesday, June 6th

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Waze’s app icon.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Waze is expanding its carpooling service to the entire state of California three months after it made the service available in the Bay Area, according to a report from TechCrunch. Waze Carpool will be available to all California residents on June 6th.

The service, which launched as a pilot program last year in San Fransisco, isn’t designed to compete with carpool offerings from ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft, but to take advantage of the community that Waze has built in its app to help cut down on traffic. Drivers aren’t paid like Lyft or Uber drivers — they get paid no more than the federal mileage rate of $0.54 a mile — so this won’t become a part-time gig.

The idea seems novel, but the question is how many people outside of the tech-influenced Bay Area will be willing to pick up strangers on their route for a couple bucks? I guess we’ll find out soon enough.