Supes to MTA: Explain scooter winners

San Francisco is still wrestling with rental scooters, even though they’re not yet on city streets.

On Monday, a Board of Supervisors committee delved into the process by which the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency selected two startups, Scoot Networks and Skip, to offer app-based rentals of electric scooters in the city. Scoot and Skip are expected to start rentals on Oct. 15 under a year-long permit program.

Lime, one of 12 contenders for the e-scooter pilot program, appealed that decision last month, saying the MTA exhibited “unlawful bias.”

The MTA will hold a hearing to consider Lime’s charges but, meanwhile, Supervisor Ahsha Safai asked the Land Use and Transportation Committee to examine the transparency and fairness of the agency’s process.

“I’m left with significant questions on how this application process was created, how companies were chosen and ultimately how well the citizens of San Francisco will be served,” he said in a brief interview after the hearing.

Tom Maguire, MTA director of sustainable streets, outlined how the Board of Supervisors had directed his agency to create a permit program for scooters after three companies (Lime, Bird and Spin) started operating them here in March,

raising concerns about public streets being used for private enterprise and about scooters impeding pedestrians on sidewalks.

The agency was surprised to receive applications from a dozen companies, he said. It spent three months poring over more than 800 pages of material, rating them on a variety of criteria with safety, equity and accountability being the most important.

Safai said he felt that the MTA could have coordinated and communicated more closely with the supervisors as it created the pilot program and permit application. He dinged the agency for not publishing its scoring criteria in advance, although Maguire said that the application questions themselves made the criteria clear.

Another key element was that scooter operators agree to labor harmony, something the MTA insisted on in accord with a 2015 resolution. Both Safai and Supervisor Jane Kim said they look askance at piecemeal work in which freelancers compete to find scooters and take them home for charging.

“It’s important to have the ability to ensure that all these workers are employees versus outside contractors,” Kim said. “If we’re going to claim that these companies are creating jobs, let’s create real jobs with benefits for employees.”

Safai asked why the city ended up with only two scooter operators although the MTA board authorized up to five permits.

“There were clearly two that outscored the rest,” Maguire said.

Scott Kubly, chief program officer for Lime, spoke about the San Francisco company’s concerns with why it wasn’t picked.

“The process the MTA followed was flawed and clearly biased,” he said. His examples: It rated Lime as “poor” under experience, even though the company operates 22,000 e-scooters in 100 cities worldwide, while companies that have not operated scooters were rated “strong,” he said. Although Lime’s proposed service area would cover the entire city, it receive a “poor” rating while companies that proposed more limited areas were rated “strong,” he said.

Jon Givner, deputy city attorney, said the supervisors don’t have authority over the MTA permitting processes, only the power to ask about them.

“Permitting programs like this are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the MTA,” he told the committee.