Six years after the first electric scooter companies blitzed the Denver market, the future of shared scooting in Denver could shift dramatically.
Lyft, one of two major providers in the city, said last week it was restructuring its electric bike and scooter business. The company will no longer operate dockless bike and scooter networks like the one it has spread across Denver, with users able to park them virtually anywhere in the public right-of-way within its coverage zones.
It’s unclear if Lyft will bring in the new dock-based system it now favors — an electrified version of Denver’s old B-cycle stations, which provided purely human-powered bikes for dock-to-dock trips. But one eclectic bike maker saw Lyft’s announcement as a clear sign that the explosion of e-bike popularity will soon push dockless scooters out of major markets like Denver.
“I think (Lyft) may be kind of going away from that productization — and moving towards e-bikes, which are obviously safer than the small scooters,” said Bill Klehm, the chairman and CEO of eBliss, in an interview.
Lyft has already decided to shut down its dockless scooters in Washington, D.C., according to a blog post shared on its website last week.
Denver — one of the few cities where it operates dockless programs directly rather than partnering with other companies — could be next.
“We are narrowing our product portfolio to focus on our best-in-class bikes and e-bikes, scooters, electrified docking stations, and software, to better sell to, serve, and electrify cities,” reads the post, penned by Lyft CEO David Risher. “This means we will no longer operate standalone dockless bikes and scooters.”
After noting the decision to cease operations in Washington, Risher said the company is “exploring alternatives for our dockless bikes and scooters in Denver.”
Dockless e-bikes and scooters are a popular pay-per-minute transit option in Denver. According to RideReport.com, a data tracking site endorsed and utilized by the Denver Regional Council of Governments, riders in the Mile High City took just shy of 19.9 million trips on the devices between Dec. 28, 2018, and June 30 of this year.
Scooters carried the lion’s share of that workload, with 18.3 million rides — compared to just 1.6 million for shared e-bikes, according to Ride Report.
That discrepancy is attributed at least in part to companies rolling out scooters earlier than bikes in the market. And the city permitted thousands more shared scooters than shared bikes on its streets — at least for now.
Lyft and Lime are the two companies authorized to operate fleets of those two-wheeled conveyances in the city today. Lime is a brand that’s partnered with Lyft’s chief ride-hailing rival, Uber. Lime rides can be booked through Uber’s smartphone app, similar to how Lyft operates — with the single app allowing users to summon drivers to pick them up or to unlock bikes and scooters.
During a recent visit to Chicago, Rob Toftness, a downtown Denver resident and bike infrastructure advocate, said he noticed that the Midwest city’s shared-mobility network, Divvy, featured scooters and bikes that both utilized docks. That system is operated in partnership with Lyft.
Lyft also runs the much larger dock-based bike share system in the New York City area, Citi Bike — which has added more e-bikes to its system and recently began installing docks that can recharge them. As of a year ago, that huge system had more than 1,900 active docks.
Nearly 6,600 scooters allowed in Denver
The Denver City Council awarded Lyft and Lime five-year licensing agreements in May 2021, leaving them as the only micromobility operators in Denver once older licensing arrangements expired with other brands, including Bird and Spin.
Their systems have grown. As of Monday, Lime had a cap of 3,662 scooters and more than 725 e-bikes, according to Nancy Kuhn, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure. For Lyft, those numbers were 2,930 scooters and more than 575 bikes.
City officials are aware of Lyft’s plans to move away from dockless fleets in Denver, Kuhn said, but what comes next, so far as they know, is still to be determined.
In an email, she wrote that, “given the popularity of micro-mobility in the Mile High City and our interest in alternative transportation, we’d like to ensure that scooters and e-bikes remain a viable travel option for our residents and visitors.” She added: “We have not yet had a discussion on next steps with Lyft and will work to minimize impacts to users as we chart a path forward.”
A Lyft spokesman this week declined to provide more information, beyond what was shared in Risher’s post.
While Toftness hopes Lyft continues to operate and invest in its shared mobility network in Denver, he said there is a risk inherent in systems run by private, profit-motivated companies. He would prefer to see such a network run by a nonprofit organization, with an eye toward stability.
“There is that fear of what happens if they pull the plug,” he said. “I think shared mobility systems should be subsidized systems like mass transit. It’s definitely a public good.”
While Lyft shifts gears, Lime says it’s committed to Denver.
It introduced a new style of e-bike last month — one that accelerates via a throttle on the handlebars, similar to how its scooters are operated, rather than via a motor that kicks in as riders pedal. The focus, according to a company news release, is on providing an option this is accessible to more riders.
“We are in the midst of another record year for ridership in Denver and across the Front Range, and we’re proud of our work with the city and our local partners to make Denver a model for successful micromobility nationwide,” said Zach Williams, Lime’s senior director of government relations, in an emailed statement this week.
Beyond a new bike model, the brand is also launching “comprehensive integrated safe-riding and proper-parking campaigns.” While its scooters and bikes in Denver are dockless — like Lyft’s — Lime has embraced what it calls alternative parking structures, like on-street corrals, as a way to encourage riders to leave vehicles in designated spaces, out of the way of other road and sidewalk users.
The company is working with DOTI now to permit 150 new parking corrals, according to Williams.
“We know our partners at DOTI are concerned about continuity of service, and Lime is ready to support in whatever way makes sense for the city and for our riders,” Williams wrote in an email. “Lime is staying in Denver and will continue working to ensure Denver is a national model for the success of shared micromobility.”
Dock-based system “definitely the right idea”
But Klehm, the e-bike company CEO, sees docked systems as providing a number of obvious benefits for providers and riders — even if rides must begin and end at docks.
“You’re going to need fewer humans to run a system in a docked system. You’re going to have a much better consumer overall experience because the vehicles will be better cared for — and they will be better accounted for, from a financial position,” he said. “We, as consumers, have been trained to bring things back when we’re told to bring things back, from rental cars to pop bottles to whatever.
“So it’s definitely the right idea, in my opinion, to control the endpoints of that relationship.”
If Lyft were to pivot to bicycles with docking stations in Denver, it wouldn’t be a new arrangement for the city.
Toftness says there is a lot to like about the electric scooters. They’ve reduced the need for people to drive in his neighborhood, and data he’s seen suggests their heavy usage has helped motivate the city to build new protected bike lanes.
But he also sees plenty of bad behavior on a regular basis — people riding scooters recklessly on sidewalks or dismounting and discarding them whenever they feel like it. Denver hospitals have seen a stream of injuries resulting from mishaps.
Some of those problems, Toftness said, stem from a core problem identified by the Denver Bicycle Lobby, an advocacy organization he co-founded: Cars take up the vast majority of the space in Denver’s transportation system, leaving other users to share slivers of pavement.
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