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Lyft filed a lawsuit against San Francisco today, claiming that the city authorities were violating a contract it had with the control company that gave it exclusive rights to operate free-riding bicycle programs. service in the area. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, for its part, claims to have the power to sign partnerships with dockless vendors (also called stationless) and that Lyft's contract gives it exclusivity only over bike actions at the dock. Lyft is seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent the city from issuing bike-sharing licenses to new vendors.
To date, Lyft owns the Motivate Company, which runs the Ford GoBike snowmobile program in San Francisco, a stalled program that, until recently, offered both electric and non-electric bikes, among many others in Canada. the country. (Lyft removed e-bikes from city streets in April after reports of dangerous malfunctions.) No other company besides saving Uber, Jump, does not operate bikes in the city, but Uber is an option without a dock. Lyft says Uber got an exemption under his contract because Motivate was not able to roll out his own wharf-free option in early 2018. Uber's license was valid for 18 months and 550 bikes through the city. It will expire on July 9th.
With Uber's license expiring, Lyft now claims that the city of San Francisco is trying to expand the list of shared motorcycle suppliers, in violation of an exclusive deal signed in 2015 by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission of the Bay Area Metropolitan Area with Motivate. In fact, Mr. Lyft stated that San Francisco, which accepted the terms of the MTC contract, is breaking the rules by soliciting new suppliers without a dock. As part of this contract, Lyft stated that Motivate had agreed to invest tens of millions of dollars in setting up the infrastructure needed to create its bike and extend it over time in exchange for an exclusivity.
"We look forward to continuing to invest in the regional bikeshare system with MTC and San Francisco. San Francisco must meet its contractual commitments to this regional program – do not change the rules mid-game, "said a Lyft spokesman The edge. "We look forward to resolving this issue quickly so we can realize our plan to bring bikes to all areas of San Francisco."
The argument does not come out of nowhere. Lyft has been in conflict with San Francisco over this contract for months. According to one San Francisco Chronicle last month, Lyft president John Zimmer wrote to the city's MTA to stop "publishing, soliciting or accepting new license applications from other operators (of bicycles); or issue new licenses to other operators "until the alleged violations of Lyft's contract can be discussed." The official position of the city is that Lyft misunderstands the terms of his contract with the regional MTC of the region Bay and that San Francisco refused to engage in a dispute resolution process.As a result, Lyft continued.
"As we will explain to the court, the agreement between Motivate and the city concerned a self-service bike system," said John Coté, director of communications of San Francisco's public prosecutor's office. Francisco, Dennis Herrara, in a statement TechCrunch. "It does not give Lyft the right to monopolize bike sharing in San Francisco. Lyft can apply for a license for bikes without a docking station on a par with everyone else. "
San Francisco wants to increase its current 2,000 vehicles to Motivate to more than 11,000, and do so with the help of new suppliers without a dock. Lyft says Motivate is committed to expanding its fleet to 8,500 vehicles. It wants to do it, whether with vehicles moored or moored, next month, with the help of refitted electric units to avoid the urgent problems that prevented them from leaving the city streets.
The main issue is whether Lyft's contract covers docked motorcycles and docksless. Anyway, this disagreement seems to have to be settled in the courts, because San Francisco does not seem in a hurry to solve the problem in private.
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