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Uber and Lyft are reportedly battling it out to buy Citi Bike's parent company, Motivate
Lyft might have thought its plan to buy bike-sharing company Motivate was a done deal. Uber, it seems, has other plans. Reports last week suggested that Lyft had struck a deal for upwards of $250 million to buy Motivate. But Uber is considering muscling in with its own offer, Axios reports.
Motivate is behind Citi Bike in New York and Ford GoBike in San Francisco, along with bike-sharing programs in other cities including Boston, Chicago, and Washington, DC. Commuters used its bikes 3.18 million times last month.
As the battlegrounds get more intense for the companies' non-ridesharing offerings, Uber and Lyft are exploring electric scooters and, yes, bike sharing. Uber recently bought Jump, which has an exclusive permit to run a dockless bike share system in San Francisco, so Motivate would expand its portfolio of urban services.
Both Uber and Lyft have reportedly applied for licenses to run electric scooters in San Francisco; scooters were recently pulled from the city's streets pending a licensing process, in part because they've proven a nuisance for many. There are more ways than cars to get people around cities, and both companies seem to be focusing more on alternative transport methods. Bike sharing, at the very least, would be a stopgap until flying cabs come along.
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/08/uber-motivate-citi-bike-acquisition-lyft-bikesharing/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 12 2018, @12:48AM (3 children)
The problems according to Gizmodo: "they're often strewn aside carelessly, blocking the public right-of-way, thus making it especially difficult for wheelchairs and those with disabilities to move past them. Further, scooter riders are using them on the sidewalk, which is not only illegal but dangerous."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday June 12 2018, @01:13AM (2 children)
And just what percentage of the population in San Fran uses wheelchairs? Answer: an extremely negligible one. And the last sentence you wrote outlines the reason why people hate cyclists: Douchebags who ride in the streets outside automobiles don't know how to. San Franciscan streets are even more impacted with traffic than where I live. You really think it's a good idea for having the streets even more clogged than they usually are? San Franciscan sidewalks are pretty goddamn open compared to here. Their sidewalks could stand to have a bit more traffic. The only times San Francisco sidewalks are cluttered is when the gays come out of the woodwork to have their naked street-orgies.
But if you're paying a million bucks a month to live in a sweet Victorian, I can see why you would be annoyed enough to complain to city hall about the occasional errant scooter laying on its side outside your door.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 12 2018, @08:31AM
Ah, the God given right to drive a car shall not be infringed by those douchebag cyclists who don't know how to properly ride in the presence of automobiles**.
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** The proper way to ride a bicycle is either:
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday June 12 2018, @06:54PM
If providing accommodations to the disabled really gets your knickers in a twist, banning electric scooters should be pretty low on your list of things to fight. What about building requirements for ramps, elevators, disabled access, and reserved parking spots?
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