Lyft Starts Service in 35 New Markets
Over the past few months, Lyft has been quietly expanding service in many markets. I have been hearing from Boston drivers that they expanded to Portland, Maine and also to Connecticut very recently. As a current driver in Seattle, I got an email about expanding service to Boise, Idaho, which is about 8 hours from Seattle. I have also been hearing about Lyft’s re-entry in a few markets and expanding service in new markets.
Lyft’s expansion in so many markets in the last three months was helped by regulations in a few states. In Pennsylvania, it was finally made legal statewide last week, which helped Lyft to continue to operate in Philadelphia, in addition to a few other cities throughout the state.
This market expansion by Lyft seems to be the next step in their growth strategy after getting about a billion dollars in additional funding earlier this year. First, they offered big incentives for drivers in select markets over the past six months in order to strengthen their driver numbers in their existing cities. The current promotion is a $2000 bonus for drivers in Los Angeles (the promotion in OC and Seattle has ended). I have seen many more drivers on the road in Seattle vying for the 500 rides needed for the $1500 bonus in Seattle and the response time for Lyft to be better than Uber at times during the day.
After getting attaining a better growth rate of drivers in existing cities, Lyft moved on to focus on expanding markets. In 2015, Lyft was forced out of various markets, including Kansas City, San Antonio, and Columbus, Ohio. During 2016, Lyft slowly added back in a few markets, like Columbus, Ohio. Lyft also had to apply for TNC permits in various states, including Connecticut and Maine, among others. This whole process takes time and from the looks of the list of cities below, they were busy in the beginning of 2016 in order to set up the approvals for the past few months.
Lyft Starts Service in 35 New Markets
Lyft’s current market count is 114, which is about double what it was back in 2015. I consider a market whenever there is a separate Lyft page under their cities directly. This is different from their city count, which is much higher than that.
Below is the list of markets that Lyft has opened this year, along with the dates they went live in. There are three cities or counties in Long Island, NY that do not have a definite start date. I wasn’t able to find any news articles that states when they started, but I have heard from a few drivers who received emails about promotions to drive on Long Island (more specifically, in the Hamptons).
[Update: Added Allentown and removed Scranton, despite being on Lyft’s list of cities]
| Date Start (New City) | |
| Allentown | 11/10/2016 |
| Athens | 8/6/2016 |
| Boise | 10/13/2016 |
| Bradenton | 8/25/2016 |
| Bridgeport-CT | 11/3/2016 |
| Champaign | 11/4/2016 |
| Charleston | 6/23/2016 |
| Charlottesville | 10/20/2016 |
| Chattanooga | 9/8/2016 |
| Dayton | 10/20/2016 |
| Flagstaff | 10/20/2016 |
| Grand Rapids | 7/28/2016 |
| Green Bay | 10/13/2016 |
| Greensboro | 11/4/2016 |
| Harrisburg | 11/4/2016 |
| Hartford | 11/3/2016 |
| Knoxville | 9/8/2016 |
| Lancaster | 11/4/2016 |
| Lansing | 8/11/2016 |
| Lawrence | 11/4/2016 |
| Naples | 8/25/2016 |
| New Haven | 11/3/2016 |
| Norwich | 11/3/2016 |
| Port Charlotte | 8/25/2016 |
| Portland-ME | 7/28/2016 |
| Reading | 11/4/2016 |
| Richmond | 6/23/2016 |
| Santa Fe | 8/18/2016 |
| Sarasota | 8/25/2016 |
| Savannah | 6/9/2016 |
| Scranton | N/A Yet |
| Southampton | June |
| State College | 9/15/2016 |
| Suffolk County | June |
| Wilmington | 11/4/2016 |
| York | June |
Signup Bonuses
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any particular signup bonus in any of the above cities for the past three months. There may have been targeted offers on Facebook, Twitter, and Google, but nothing formal. Lyft seems to be using their brand recognition and their existing driver base to recruit drivers in new markets. In Seattle, they were emailing us about Boise, Idaho and asking if anyone we know would be interested. The same thing was happening in Connecticut and Portland, Maine. I don’t remember hear about any signup bonuses in those cities.
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