I understand the plight of the union and the fear of instability, but in all honesty the biggest criticism of this move is that it’s basically a conflict of interest for Lyft. It’s mentioned in the article! Lyft wants people to pay up to get a car ride somewhere. Bikeshares encourage people to not get rides from place to place, either cycling directly to a destination or to a public transit stop. And Lyft won’t get more money from bikes than they do from car rides, so they’re basically incentivized to provide a sub-par bikeshare experience to push more Lyfts.
I’d say this applies to every instance of a private company taking over a public service. But it does apply more in this particular case for the reasons you pointed out.
This is the best take I’ve heard on the matter. Even ignoring Lyft’s track record as a worker-hostile company and pretending that public-private partnerships as a concept aren’t absolute fucking cancer to city services, why would anyone hand over control of a crucial piece of transit infrastructure to a corporation that only exists to replace that infrastructure?
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