Santa Monica down to three shared-mobility companies
By Dolores Quintana
Lyft has removed its micro-mobility services from the cities of Santa Monica and Los Angeles. The company said that they are disappointed to have to withdraw the service, despite their commitment to micro-mobility, but that their experiences in North America have shown that cities believe that those services “should be run through long-term public-private partnerships with a limited number of operators.”
Lyft has also removed the page for bike and scooter rental from their website.
Both cities still have bike-share services through Metro.net that can be found at the Expo Line stations. Veo provides scooters and an electric bicycle, without pedals, called the Cosmo. Wheels also has an electric bicycle-sharing service available on the Westside.
City of Santa Monica Communications & Public Information Manager Constance Farrell said, “The City intends on sticking with the three remaining shared mobility operators — Spin, Veo, and Wheels — through the term of the existing Pilot Program, and then selecting up to two operators for the following contracted phase,” said Communications & Public Information Manager Constance Farrell. “Veo currently operates Class II e-bikes, while Wheels operates sit-down scooters. For the next group of the contracted operator(s), the City will seek to ensure that one or both (if there are two operators selected) deploy enough e-bikes to meet community demand. And as mentioned, Metro Bike Share will continue to operate.”
This is not the first time that Lyft has removed scooters from large cities. In 2019, Lyft removed their scooters from Nashville, San Antonio and Columbus, Ohio.
