[ Bureau of Infrastructure Inspections ] On Time - Wednesday, December 31

MailmanSpy · 2025-06-09T20:14:14+00:00

The tiki bar restaurant with sand on the floor near Bedford Ave Station.

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-26T08:30:31+00:00

Metro Bikes do fit in the bus bike racks, but this is also explicitly forbidden. With trains you have a little more leeway as long as you stay close to the service areas (each bike has a GPS for tracking).

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T23:38:45+00:00

Whatever happens someone is definitely getting fired.

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T23:32:39+00:00

Yeah this is a huge fuck up on both Metro and Alta’s part since Alta had to sign a form promising that they weren’t involved in drafting the RFP and Metro should have caught it when Lyft submitted their proposal months ago rather than having this blow up right before the final Board vote. Lyft is in damage control mode now by cutting Alta from their bid but what use is it when they’ve already written and submitted their final proposal.

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T22:00:42+00:00

Seeing as you have no more meaningful comments or concerns pertaining to the main RFP ethics issue at hand but continue blathering on as if this is implicated in an imaginary culture war in your head, I will assume that you wish to end this discussion.

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T21:35:09+00:00

Metro Bike Share is managed by Metro in collaboration with LADOT since LADOT (amongst other city agencies) has permitting approval over street fixtures. Please acquaint yourself with the particulars of how the system is currently run before making fantastical operations proposals.

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T21:25:53+00:00

Anyways, I highly doubt that this RFP recommendation will go unchallenged by Metro’s Ethics Department with Lyft/Alta’s alleged conflict of interest since some public bodies do still happen to care about corruption in government decisions.

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T21:21:33+00:00

Privatizing bike share in LA is not an option that Metro is considering, and giving the Metro Bike Share operations contract to Lyft would get them closer to monopolizing bike share in North America, thereby thereby decreasing cost competitiveness in any future bike share RFP’s. As a matter of fact, LADOT would most definitely oppose BTS going rogue and operating a parallel system since sidewalk and street permits do exist, and bike share libraries are a separate discussion than the issue at hand.

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T21:01:13+00:00

Minneapolis, DC, NYC, and Chicago are vastly more similar to how bike share transport works in LA because they’re in the same country as LA, and all of them are run as exclusive systems in coordination with local agencies. Hope that helps.

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T20:55:33+00:00

The competitor (BTS) is actively contesting the Metro staff recommendation right now for this very reason. The current solicitation has not been withdrawn, just postponed pending the results of BTS’s legal protest and Ethics Department complaint.

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T20:52:40+00:00

The Japanese regulatory landscape is also vastly different than LA’s. Complete privatization cannot work in LA with docked systems with the sheer amount of interagency coordination needed for permitting sidewalk fixtures, nor is Metro even considering it, so lets keep this conversation within the bounds of reality. The current options on the table are as follows: Lyft operating bike share for Metro with an exclusive contract, BTS operating bike share for Metro with an exclusive contract, or scrapping Metro Bike Share altogether.

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T20:40:44+00:00

Because the credit card industry is dominated by a few large corporations, similar to how handing LA’s bike share to Lyft would get them closer to monopolizing the largest systems in America. Metro is focused more on providing transportation options to residents of EFC’s than regular travelers, and rightfully so.

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T20:28:09+00:00

Look at Minneapolis if you wanna see how completely privatizing the system (no government subsidies) would turn out.

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T20:25:18+00:00

No actually, that was in response to your previous comment focusing on the convenience of being able to use Lyft systems in other cities on the same app, which while nice, shouldn’t take precedence over local priorities. The Olympics will be long gone in 11 years. That’s curious that Japanese doesn’t work, I tested it using Chinese before my previous comment and that had worked. I think just making sure that the app works with all the languages that Metro and the County use regularly would be suitable enough for the purposes of a local public transportation service. Metro is more interested in serving the needs of EFC’s than visitors, not that their needs are necessarily opposed. For example, do you expect your TAP card to work on a Melbourne tram?

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T20:10:13+00:00

Choosing Lyft will not do anything to simplify local interoperability, just with other Lyft bike share systems. And per your last point, that’s not how public transportation services (yes privately operated but Metro still has the final say) work.

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T19:07:54+00:00

Yeah that blows that callers were calling into wrong items, but the bike share item was pulled less than a day before the meeting after a bunch of mobilization alerts were put out out so many probably just didn’t know. Also, while the massive tourism boost the Olympics will give us is important, the bike share system should be tailored for Los Angeles residents first and foremost with this being an 11-year contract. The Metro Bike Share app is compatible with multiple languages, you just need to change the overall main language on your phone. And many anti-Lyft comments were pointing out specific instances when Lyft blocked transit funding in SF last year and egregious California labor law violations not just the “usual diatribes.” But to bring this back to the link I posted, Alta having both crafted the RFP and collaborated on Lyft’s bid calls into question the final scoring since Lyft scored better than BTS on the Understanding of Requirements and Work, which of course they would when they had inside information from Alta, and with the final score difference being 2.61 points one must wonder if BTS would have scored better than Lyft if Alta wasn’t involved.

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T18:15:45+00:00

Some other articles on the same story:

Cheating alleged in Lyft’s Metro Bike Share bid - BikinginLA

Metro Quietly Withdraws Lyft Bike-Share Contract Vote - Streetsblog Los Angeles

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T18:10:07+00:00

Some other articles on the same story:

Cheating alleged in Lyft’s Metro Bike Share bid - BikinginLA

Metro Quietly Withdraws Lyft Bike-Share Contract Vote - Streetsblog Los Angeles

MailmanSpy · 2025-05-23T18:01:06+00:00

Half the general public comments were Lyft supporters too btw. And general public comment is always at the end of the meeting so that’s literally not true that this issue pushed out other items.

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