John Coté, communications director for SF City Attorney Dennis Herrera, told TechCrunch that the agreement only covers docked bike-sharing services. Lyft's Ford GoBike operation in San Francisco, as you can guess, uses stations for docking. "It does not give Lyft the right to a monopoly on bike sharing in San Francisco. Lyft can seek a permit for dockless bikes on equal footing with everyone else," Coté said. A Lyft statement given to TC, however, insinuates that San Francisco changed the terms of their agreement. "We need San Francisco to honor its contractual commitments to this regional program -- not change the rules in the middle of the game," the spokesperson said. "We are eager to quickly resolve this, so that we can deliver on our plans to bring bikes to every neighborhood in San Francisco." Uber already operates a dockless service in San Francisco after purchasing a local service called Jump. But according to the lawsuit, it was supposed to be a one-time exception because Lyft wasn't ready to launch its dockless product at the time As SF Examiner noted, docked bike-sharing services are getting pushback from SF residents, as the construction of more and more docks could lead to the lack of parking space. That's why when the city decided to expand its dockless program, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's Benjamin Barnett said one of the reasons was that there's high "[p]ublic demand for shared and stationless electric bikes."
Lyft has filed a lawsuit against San Francisco to try to stop the city allowing its bike-sharing rivals to operate. The company said permits for competitors would violate a 10-year exclusivity agreement with city authorities it took over when it acquired Ford GoBike. City Attorney Dennis Herrera, however, said the deal only relates to docked bike-sharing services and did not give Lyft a bike-sharing monopoly in the city. San Francisco is expanding its programme for dockless cycles after residents complained that the increasing number of docks threatened parking space.