Click here for updates on this story
Bossier City, LA (KTBS) — Jonathan Negard walks to work every morning. From Bossier City to Shreveport, about 9 miles one way, and 9 miles back.
“I’m kind of going through some hard times right now,” said Negard.
He leaves around 2:45 in the morning to be at work at 6:00 A.M. Negard spends six hours of his day just in route to work an eight hour shift.
“The only thing I got left is hope and if you don’t have hope, you don’t have anything.”
Until one day, his feet were hurting, so he called a Lyft for the first time.
“When I pick up one person, I tell them they can sit in the front with me,” said his driver, Kissa Morgan.
She says she’s a talker, so when Negard opened up to her about his daily commute…
“I said, “Will you at least ride a bicycle?” He said yes and I said, “Well we’re going to bring you a bicycle.”
Morgan says his story touched her because of the long length he had to take every day.
That’s when she and her two sons, Jaylin and Jadarius, went back to Negard’s apartment with one of their old bikes.
“She said he walked 18 miles a day, and I said we should give him the bike, it can fit in the trunk of the car,” added Jalin.
“They donated their bicycle to a complete stranger,” said Negard. “They don’t even know me, what I’ve done or who I am.”
Negard does not have his driver’s license right now and spent about 9 months in prison.
He was released early August and started work about a week later.
“This is my hard road, and it keeps getting harder. Doing this now is like me training for the next obstacle.”
Negard is aware of the mistakes he’s made that have placed him in the situation he currently is in, but he’s ready for a clean slate.
“I met a great friend, her kids are wonderful, and I got me a bicycle,” smiled Negard.
Lyft has only been available in Shreveport for less than a year. Depending on traffic — a roundtrip ride from home to work would have been around $40, which is about half a day’s paycheck.
Instead of walking six hours a day, his commute on the bike is about an hour each way.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
