Lyft launched a fleet of electric scooters in Denver today in an attempt to gain some traction in the ever-growing scooter-centric ridesharing market already ablaze Los Angeles with companies like Bird and Lime leading the foray.
So where's Uber? Fear not, the ride-hailing giant is expected to deploy its own scooters in rival Bird's hometown of Santa Monica, California within a few weeks.
Erm, great?
I dunno. As an Angelino, I feel conflicted. Here we have such fine and upstanding cities such as our Beverly Hills banning scooters, but our favorite rideshare company Lyft is now provocatively including the things in their business model.
Although the two companies are focused on ridesharing, they see huge potential in electric scooters and bicycles, which are popular with commuters.
Perhaps the initiative isn't so silly. And just maybe we'll be seeing giants like Uber and Lyft gobbling up such as Bird and Lime in the near future.
We received this official notice from Lyft's communication team:
Excited to share that today, we’re launching Lyft Scooters for the first time to the public, starting in Denver!
Our work with scooters (and bikes) is guided by four key tenets: transportation equity, safer streets, transit integration and environmental sustainability. If you haven’t seen already, Lyft co-founder John Zimmer outlines our vision for bringing bikes and scooters to riders here.
Scooters are available in Denver today and we look forward to bringing them to additional cities, including Santa Monica, in the near future.
Lyft Scooters / Denver Info:
The map in your Lyft app will show the area where Lyft scooters are located and available.
It costs $1 to unlock a scooter and 15 cents for each minute you ride. This includes reservation time and hold time as well.
By the end of the year, we expect to be in over 10 additional cities with plans to grow quickly from there.
We believe in being strong partners with cities and educating riders to be stewards of their communities as well.
According to our Economic Impact Report (click on city / Denver), 25% of Lyft passengers in Denver say owning a personal vehicle is less important to them now.
Nationally, last year, 250,000 Lyft passengers gave up their cars.
In Denver, 80% of passengers use Lyft to go to restaurants and entertainment venues. We’re the official rideshare partner of all Denver-owned venues, included Red Rocks
Read more about Lyft's fleet of scooters at Lyft.com.
(Photos courtesy of Lyft)