Lyft is suing San Francisco to prevent competing bikeshares from moving in
theverge.com
theverge.com
They're disagreeing on specifics of the contract Lyft signed with the city. This is exactly the kind of thing I would expect to be settled out of court with some kind of compromise agreement.
If we were looking at another kind of public transit, say, subway trains or busses that were subcontracted out to private companies, would you expect 2 competing subway providers? Or two competing bus systems in the same city? I wouldn't.
Regulatory capture is when a company gains control of their regulator through bribery or promise of jobs.
For example, if you look at Wall Street's regulators, the most powerful are former financiers. Which is why any effort to impose fiduciary rules on brokers (ie. salesmen) is doomed. aka "Where are the Customers' Yachts?"
I'd be interested to know what the contract covered and the rules around placement and clearance rules, accessibility, lighting and safety around the docking stations - all things that the "fees" cabbies paid supposedly went towards.
I find non-docking (scooters from experience) to be a public nuisance - left anywhere and creating a tripping hazard especially for vision impaired people. They would be better off with council owning the docks (make them modular so you can expand/contract to match demand in an area) and selling licenses to cover the upkeep.
For example, I’ve wondered for some time why I’d see Lime Scooters in San Jose, but not bikes. The complaint contains the answer!