4 ms·

Lyft is suing San Francisco to prevent competing bikeshares from moving in

28 points by pulisse 7y ago

vikramkr 7y ago
Regulatory capture is a wonderful thing isn't it? They cry "too much regulation!" when the city goes after them and then "not enough!" when the regulations are in their favor.
- supermanfan 7y ago
  What you're describing is irony. Regulatory capture is when a company gains control of their regulator through bribery or promise of jobs. For example, if you look at Wall Street's regulators, the most powerful are former financiers. Which is why any effort to impose fiduciary rules on brokers (ie. salesmen) is doomed. aka "Where are the Customers' Yachts?"
mdorazio 7y ago
All you need to know here is right in the first paragraph: "Lyft filed a lawsuit against San Francisco today claiming city authorities are violating a contract it has with the ride-hailing company that gives Lyft exclusive rights to operate bike-share programs in the area. San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency, on the other hand, says it has the authority to sign partnerships with dockless (also called stationless) vendors, and that Lyft’s contract gives it exclusivity only on docked bike shares. Lyft is seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent the city from issuing bikeshare permits to new vendors." They're disagreeing on specifics of the contract Lyft signed with the city. This is exactly the kind of thing I would expect to be settled out of court with some kind of compromise agreement.
- deogeo 7y ago
  How is such a contract legal in the first place? Shouldn't a city have to treat all businesses equally as a matter of law?
  - lancepioch 7y ago
    Which law are you referring to?
    - deogeo 7y ago
      I suppose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause - the city is treating people very unequally if it allows one company, and forbids others.
      - Nasrudith 7y ago
        Sadly that strong interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause never got held as precedent. It sounds like it would be great for anti-corruption purposes.
  - untog 7y ago
    In short, no. The city gives public space for Lyft to install these docks. Forcing them to treat every company equally in that regard simply wouldn't work, not to mention that the cost of building the network in the first place requires some guarantees in return. A bike share system needs lots of docks in order to be successful, granting one company a monopoly isn't that crazy in that context.
    - deogeo 7y ago
      The guarantees should then be limited to making available to Lyft enough space to build docks. Banning competition far exceeds that.
      - joshuamorton 7y ago
        It doesn't matter in practice (and in fact there's some decent arguments that one is better than two or more: consider the current ford Go-Bikes in SF. Would it be better or worse if there were 2 or 3 mutually incompatible bike racks? You end up fragmenting your transit system). You can only offer so many rack locations, so if Lyft takes 2/3 of them, no other provider can be as effective anyway. If we were looking at another kind of public transit, say, subway trains or busses that were subcontracted out to private companies, would you expect 2 competing subway providers? Or two competing bus systems in the same city? I wouldn't.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
tanzbaer 7y ago
Hilarious. Lyft is behaving like cabbies used to. The cycle continues and disruption is shown to become inevitable.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  Given their tenuous financial positions, Uber and Lyft seem to be poised for disruption.
- dwd 7y ago
  It's exactly the same except the cabbie licenses/medallions were often shared among multiple independent businesses. I'd be interested to know what the contract covered and the rules around placement and clearance rules, accessibility, lighting and safety around the docking stations - all things that the "fees" cabbies paid supposedly went towards. I find non-docking (scooters from experience) to be a public nuisance - left anywhere and creating a tripping hazard especially for vision impaired people. They would be better off with council owning the docks (make them modular so you can expand/contract to match demand in an area) and selling licenses to cover the upkeep.
CaliforniaKarl 7y ago
The actual complaint is worth a read: https://www.scribd.com/document/412705747/Lyft-Motivate-v-The-City-of-San-Francisco https://www.scribd.com/document/412705747/Lyft-Motivate-v-Th... For example, I’ve wondered for some time why I’d see Lime Scooters in San Jose, but not bikes. The complaint contains the answer!

28 points by pulisse 7y ago

Regulatory capture is a wonderful thing isn't it? They cry "too much regulation!" when the city goes after them and then "not enough!" when the regulations are in their favor.

supermanfan 7y ago
What you're describing is irony. Regulatory capture is when a company gains control of their regulator through bribery or promise of jobs. For example, if you look at Wall Street's regulators, the most powerful are former financiers. Which is why any effort to impose fiduciary rules on brokers (ie. salesmen) is doomed. aka "Where are the Customers' Yachts?"

mdorazio 7y ago

All you need to know here is right in the first paragraph: "Lyft filed a lawsuit against San Francisco today claiming city authorities are violating a contract it has with the ride-hailing company that gives Lyft exclusive rights to operate bike-share programs in the area. San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency, on the other hand, says it has the authority to sign partnerships with dockless (also called stationless) vendors, and that Lyft’s contract gives it exclusivity only on docked bike shares. Lyft is seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent the city from issuing bikeshare permits to new vendors." They're disagreeing on specifics of the contract Lyft signed with the city. This is exactly the kind of thing I would expect to be settled out of court with some kind of compromise agreement.

deogeo 7y ago
How is such a contract legal in the first place? Shouldn't a city have to treat all businesses equally as a matter of law?
- lancepioch 7y ago
  Which law are you referring to?
  - deogeo 7y ago
    I suppose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause - the city is treating people very unequally if it allows one company, and forbids others.
    - Nasrudith 7y ago
      Sadly that strong interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause never got held as precedent. It sounds like it would be great for anti-corruption purposes.
- untog 7y ago
  In short, no. The city gives public space for Lyft to install these docks. Forcing them to treat every company equally in that regard simply wouldn't work, not to mention that the cost of building the network in the first place requires some guarantees in return. A bike share system needs lots of docks in order to be successful, granting one company a monopoly isn't that crazy in that context.
  - deogeo 7y ago
    The guarantees should then be limited to making available to Lyft enough space to build docks. Banning competition far exceeds that.
    - joshuamorton 7y ago
      It doesn't matter in practice (and in fact there's some decent arguments that one is better than two or more: consider the current ford Go-Bikes in SF. Would it be better or worse if there were 2 or 3 mutually incompatible bike racks? You end up fragmenting your transit system). You can only offer so many rack locations, so if Lyft takes 2/3 of them, no other provider can be as effective anyway. If we were looking at another kind of public transit, say, subway trains or busses that were subcontracted out to private companies, would you expect 2 competing subway providers? Or two competing bus systems in the same city? I wouldn't.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

tanzbaer 7y ago

Hilarious. Lyft is behaving like cabbies used to. The cycle continues and disruption is shown to become inevitable.

Apocryphon 7y ago
Given their tenuous financial positions, Uber and Lyft seem to be poised for disruption.
dwd 7y ago
It's exactly the same except the cabbie licenses/medallions were often shared among multiple independent businesses. I'd be interested to know what the contract covered and the rules around placement and clearance rules, accessibility, lighting and safety around the docking stations - all things that the "fees" cabbies paid supposedly went towards. I find non-docking (scooters from experience) to be a public nuisance - left anywhere and creating a tripping hazard especially for vision impaired people. They would be better off with council owning the docks (make them modular so you can expand/contract to match demand in an area) and selling licenses to cover the upkeep.

CaliforniaKarl 7y ago

The actual complaint is worth a read: https://www.scribd.com/document/412705747/Lyft-Motivate-v-The-City-of-San-Francisco https://www.scribd.com/document/412705747/Lyft-Motivate-v-Th... For example, I’ve wondered for some time why I’d see Lime Scooters in San Jose, but not bikes. The complaint contains the answer!