Lyft is up and running in New York. But just barely.
Lyft is the latest tech-based alternative to traditional cabs. It’s a service that uses an app to match people who need a ride with people willing to provide it.
And it’s impossible not to recognize a Lyft car, because its front grille sports a fuzzy pink moustache.
Not everyone is enamored. To begin with, New York’s attorney general hit Lyft with a restraining order when it announced it would be taking to the city’s streets.
That was resolved via a deal with the Taxi and Limousine Commission, under which Lyft agreed to provisions such as fingerprinting all drivers and ensuring they’d all completed a defensive-driving course.
Alas, even after appeasing the bureaucracy, Lyft has found its ride here far from smooth.
With a promotional offer of $50 worth of free rides over two weeks for early “pioneer” customers, there weren’t enough cars available to meet the demand. Most likely this was because of the lag in fulfilling the regulatory requirements.
And would-be customers took to Twitter to express their displeasure at their inability to order up a Lyft ride as well as the pricing.
Lyft responded the way you would expect a young, hungry start-up to: It extended its pioneer promotion another two weeks. And it is scrambling to redress the service and pricing issues New York riders have been tweeting about.
We have no idea if Lyft will overcome its start-up pains. But isn’t this what competition is all about?
New York works much better when its doors are open to innovation, and it lets customers — not bureaucrats — determine an enterprise’s success or failure.