Lime is doing the most right now. In light of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency denying Lime a permit to operate electric scooters in the city, Lime is gearing up to request a temporary restraining order.
“Lime believes that after selecting two other less experienced electric scooter companies and comparatively weaker applications in a process that was riddled with bias, the SFMTA should revisit the decision and employ a fair selection process,” the company wrote in a press release.
Those two “less experienced” electric scooter companies Lime’s referring to are Skip, which currently operates via an official permit in Washington, D.C., and Scoot, which has successfully and legally operated shared electric mopeds in the city for several years.
Following the SFMTA’s decision, Lime sent an appeal requesting the agency reevaluate its application. At the time, the SFMTA said it was “confident” it picked the right companies.
Now, since the SFMTA still plans to enable both Scoot and Skip to deploy their respective scooters on Monday, Lime says it “believes that it has no choice but to seek emergency relief in the court.”
Ahead of the decision in Santa Monica, Lime, along with Bird, protested recommendations for the city to not grant Lime a permit. Though, the city did end up granting Lime a permit. Lime, however, is not the only company that has appealed the decision in San Francisco. Earlier this week, Lyft reportedly petitioned SF Mayor London Breed, asking her to reconsider the SFMTA’s decision to only grant two permits for electric scooters.
“It’s unfortunate Lime has chosen this course,” John Coté, communications director for City Attorney Dennis Herrera said in a statement. “The SFMTA’s permitting process for the pilot program was thoughtful, fair and transparent. It includes an appeal process that Lime should be pursuing instead of wasting everyone’s resources by running to court.”
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He added:
Lime appears to be playing games. It had weeks to resolve this and instead chose a last-minute motion in an effort to shut down the entire scooter program. Lime fails to admit that its application simply didn’t match those of its competitors. If Lime succeeds, it will be hurting the very people it purports to want to help – those who are ready to use scooters on Monday.
Last spring, Lime told San Franciscans that electric scooters were a great transportation alternative. Now, Lime is saying that if they can’t run electric scooters in San Francisco, no one can. It’s sour grapes from Lime, plain and simple.
I’ve reached out to the SFMTA and will update this story if I hear back.
