Dockless bikes, except for JUMP’s, are still on hold in SF

In light of Lyft filing a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco regarding dockless bikes, the city is holding off on its permitting process for additional dockless bike providers — at least until later this week. Although Uber-owned JUMP’s pilot was set to expire today, it is now extended until 10 days after the court’s order, SFMTA spokesperson Benjamin Barnett told TechCrunch.

In June, Lyft sued the city, claiming San Francisco was in violation of its 10-year contract with Lyft that would give the company exclusive rights to operate bike-share programs. The lawsuit was in light of SF announcing it would take applications for operators seeking permits to deploy additional stationless bikes.

San Francisco, however, said the contract does not apply to dockless bike-share, but only station-based bike-share. In its lawsuit, Lyft is seeking a preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order to prevent the city from issuing permits to operators for stationless bike-share rentals. A judge denied Lyft’s request for a temporary restraining order but is still determining whether or not to grant Lyft a preliminary injunction.

“We opened up the stationless e-bikes permit process, but legal action by Lyft/Motivate has put that process on the hold,” Barnett said.

The court order could happen as early as July 11 and as late as October 11, Barnett said. Additionally, the SFMTA is not going to issue permits until at least five days after the order. Though, the judge did say there is nothing stopping the SFMTA from issuing a permit to Lyft at this time.

“We recently launched our new ebike model as part of the regional bikeshare system in San Jose and have many more of these ebikes ready to go in San Francisco,” Lyft spokesperson Julie Wood told TechCrunch. “We’re eager to launch and are just waiting for the green light from SFMTA.”

*This story has been updated with comment from Lyft.

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