Ridehailing company Lyft is launching scooters in D.C. under a pilot program for dockless vehicles. (Photo courtesy of Lyft)

By Rachel Sadon and Jordan Pascale

Well, we’ve come quite a way from the early aughts, when Razor scooters took the country by tiny, two-wheeled storm. While the foldable kick scooter was largely thought of as a toy (it was even named a “toy of the year” in 2001), their motorized cousins are now being taken very seriously as a part of our transportation future.

Enter ridehailing company Lyft, which launched a fleet of rentable scooters in D.C. on Thursday.

“Part of the reason we’re so excited about this is it fits into our vision of a multimodal transportation future, where you can use Lyft as kind of a one-stop shop for all your transportation needs,” says Lyft’s Chris Dattaro, market manager for bikes and scooters in D.C. “So if you need a car, we’ll have a ridesharing app. If you need to go just a short distance, we’ll have scooters.”

He adds that the company will also have bikes “in the near future.” Lyft acquired Motivate, which operates Capital Bikeshare, in June.

The company’s founders have laid out an expansive vision for both scooters and bicycles, part of what they say is “a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the private and public sectors to work together to make our cities designed for people not cars.”

Meanwhile, competitor Uber has invested in Lime, a company that rents both scooters and bicycles, and it also owns electric bike company Jump, which recently rolled out its first fleet of scooters in Santa Monica.

Lyft’s scooters cost $1 to start, plus an additional 15 cents per mile. The new option now shows up in the regular app (would-be scooters riders will need to use the most up-to-date version of the app).

Scooter rides of two or three miles will likely be cheaper than taking a ridehailing vehicle, according to Dattaro. He estimates that a trip from Union Station to Logan Circle would cost somewhere from $10-12 in a car or $3-4 on scooter.

D.C. is the third place that the company has launched its scooter program, following roll-outs in Denver and Santa Monica in recent weeks.

In the District, Lyft is taking part in the same pilot program that has brought various fleets of electric scooters and dockless bikes to the city’s streets.

Under rules set by the D.C. Department of Transportation, each company can have up to 400 dockless vehicles of any kind. While the program launched entirely with fleets of bicycles last fall, only Jump’s electric bikes remain.

Meanwhile, new scooter options have been mushrooming up over the past few months. Washingtonians can currently jump on the motorized devices from Lime, Bird, Skip, and now Lyft.

While there has been grumbling about scooters whizzing by on busy sidewalks and other complaints, the majority of D.C. residents have a positive view of the electric devices, according to a survey released by transportation data company Populus over the summer.

There are also concerns about safety. Last month, a 20-year-old man died after being hit by a SUV driver in Dupont Circle, the first fatality involving a rented scooter in the District since the program began.

The pilot period, during which city officials are studying the implementation of dockless vehicles and designing rules for safe use, has been extended three times. DDOT aims to have a permanent program in place next year to accommodate the continued demand for the program.

Says Dattaro: “There’s a huge appetite for people to have transportation options other than sitting in a car.”

Previously:
Report: Seven In 10 D.C. Residents Have Positive View Of Electric Scooters
On Lock: Dockless Bikes Will Have To Be Locked Under New Rules

This story has been updated to reflect that Skip is one of the companies offering scooters, not Spin.