Lyft announced its deci­sion to remove its shared bicy­cles and scoot­ers from the Los Ange­les region, say­ing its oper­a­tions were stymied by short-term con­tracts and mul­ti­ple oper­a­tors. Matthew Hall reports on the sto­ry for the San­ta Mon­i­ca Dai­ly Press.

Accord­ing to Lyft, “expe­ri­ences in mul­ti­ple North Amer­i­can mar­kets has rein­forced a belief that micro­mo­bil­i­ty (scoot­ers and bikes) should be run through long term pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships with a lim­it­ed num­ber of oper­a­tors.”

After becom­ing the first city in Los Ange­les Coun­ty to launch a pub­lic bike share sys­tem, San­ta Mon­i­ca nixed Breeze Bike Share in Novem­ber 2020, cit­ing low rid­er­ship and the avail­abil­i­ty of oth­er shared mobil­i­ty ser­vices. Since then, the city has reg­u­lat­ed shared micro­mo­bil­i­ty through an “extend­ed pilot pro­gram” that per­mit­ted four com­pa­nies to oper­ate in its juris­dic­tion. The city plans to estab­lish a longer-term con­tract with two oper­a­tors begin­ning in 2023.

In the mean­time, San­ta Mon­i­ca’s remain­ing three oper­a­tors will con­tin­ue to pro­vide e‑bike and scoot­er devices. The city of Los Ange­les oper­ates its own Metro Bike Share fleet, which offers bikes at sta­tions along the rail that runs from down­town Los Ange­les to San­ta Mon­i­ca.