History may haunt scooter applicants
City’s consideration of earlier experience could leave Lyft, Uber out of the running
San Francisco is still pondering which companies will get to rent out electric stand-up scooters here. A dozen contestants are vying for up to five permits.
But there’s a good chance that the city could blackball Lyft and Uber’s Jump subsidiary, as well as Bird, Lime and Spin, the companies that deluged streets with scooters last spring.
They may get tripped by a provision in the city’s new scooter law that considers an applicant’s “past experience, including compliance with applicable laws and its efforts to ensure compliance by its users with applicable laws.”
The scooter application asks companies that previously rented scooters in the city to describe how they and their users complied with the law, suggesting that scrutiny of past behavior might be limited to scooters. But “past experience” can apply to any previous company behavior, sources said.
Sources familiar with the process, who spoke under anonymity because the permits have not been issued yet, said Lyft’s application scored high in San Francisco Munic-
ipal Transportation Agency staff ratings of factors such as access for low-income riders, sharing data with the city, insurance, and ideas to address sidewalk riding and parking, but the ride-hailing company was dinged over “past experience.” The exact nature of its alleged transgressions wasn’t clear.
Likewise Jump, the electric bike company that Uber bought in April, scored well until its relationship with Uber was factored in, the sources said.
The MTA is weighing a range of criteria and doing “due diligence to carefully review and evaluate each application and give each one a fair shake,” spokesman Ben Jose said.
Uber and Lyft tussled with regulators nationwide when they began service several years ago in cities, including their San Francisco hometown, that lacked legal frameworks for paid rides in private cars. California has regulated them at the state level since 2013.
Both companies are political targets for some San Francisco lawmakers, who say their cars clog the streets and their drivers are underpaid. Uber is embroiled in lawsuits with San Francisco over the city’s requests that it share data on its local operations. Lyft has been providing that information since February.
Bird, Lime and Spin incurred San Franciscans’ wrath when they burst into business without permission last spring. Although the advent of dockless motorized scooters delighted those who appreciated a quick, cheap way to get around, it irritated residents who logged 1,863 calls to the city’s 311 line in just five weeks over issues such as scooters blocking sidewalks and buzzing past pedestrians.
The city impounded wayward scooters, issued the companies cease-and-desist letters, and required them to stop operations on June 4. San Francisco designed a pilot program that will allow up to five companies to operate 1,250 scooters in its first six months, with the number potentially doubling in the second six months. A dozen companies submitted lengthy applications in late June.
MTA records reviewed by The Chronicle showed transportation planners asking the Department of Public Works whether the three scooter companies still owed fines to the city. As of July 2, Bird owed $13,910 and Lime owed $15,784, and Spin had paid its fines of $14,189, the department replied. Lime said Thursday it had paid the outstanding fines. Bird did not reply to a question about whether it had paid its fines. “We are waiting to hear more about the status of our application and are hopeful that we can once again provide our traffic and carbon emissions-reducing vehicles to San Francisco,” a company representative said in an email.
None of the other scooter applicants commented on the permit process, citing its sensitive nature.
The MTA said a decision will come this month. Staff members have pored over hundreds of pages of applications, but the ultimate decision is up to Ed Reiskin, MTA director of transportation.
“We will make the information public as to what criteria was used,” MTA spokesman Jose said. “We want to ensure that we’re transparent.”
Two companies that reportedly scored well in the process appear free of “past experience” baggage.
San Francisco startup Scoot Global has rented red mopeds in San Francisco since late 2012; it has 650 of the red Vespa-like sit-down scooters here. It worked closely with the MTA to craft a permit for its then-new business. “We’ve earned the trust of the city,” CEO and founder Michael Keating said in an interview in May. It pays for a network of street and garage parking spaces for its fleet.
San Francisco’s Skip, started by the founders of electric skateboard company Boosted, noted in its application that it has legally been operating rental scooters in the U.S. (in Washington and more recently in San Jose, Oakland, Berkeley and Portland, Ore.) and that unlike Lime, Bird and Spin, it has never received a cease-and-desist order.
Many cities are struggling with how to regulate the new breed of scooter startups. Santa Monica said last week that Lyft and Uber’s Jump were its top candidates for a pilot program allowing up to four companies to operate e-bikes and e-scooters.
In response, Bird and Lime cooperated on the “A Day Without a Scooter” campaign, temporarily disabling their vehicles and mobilizing users to meet outside Santa Monica City Hall before a City Council meeting Tuesday night.
“They want to give the entire e-scooter sharing business to car-based rideshare corporations,” Bird said in a statement. “Neither Lyft nor Uber has ever operated a scooter sharing service.”
In San Francisco, Bird has set up a website where its users can click to email city leaders that they’re eager for Bird to return to the city. Lime had previously urged its users to write to the city about their enjoyment of the two-wheeled motorized ride.
Bird board member Roelof Botha, a partner in the Sequoia venture capital firm that led a recent $300 million funding round in Bird, has been tweeting “Please bring Bird back to San Francisco!” to Reiskin, Mayor London Breed and other city leaders.
Uber and Lyft are eager to branch beyond car-only transportation to become one-stop transportation providers offering “multimodal” ways of getting around, including scooters and bikes. In July. Lyft bought the nation’s largest bike-share operator, Motivate, which operates Ford GoBike in the Bay Area. Uber, in addition to its April Jump acquisition, invested in Lime in July and said Lime scooters will be available in the Uber app.