Lyft’s ride-sharing service has been delayed in New York City

Friday was the day that the ride-sharing service known as Lyft was supposed to launch in New York City, however, the launch was delayed due to legal battles with both the state and the city.

The governments are claiming that Lyft has neither completed necessary licensing requirements nor complied with necessary safety requirements and is therefore not allowed to send drivers into the city. There are also concerns regarding the lack of drug, background, or driving checks for the service’s drivers. Not to mention the service uses personal vehicles that haven’t been subjected to maintenance and emission checks, unlike yellow cabs.

For the most part, Lyft seems to be trying to comply with these regulations rather than fight them in court. The company announced on a blog post that announcing via a blog post on its site that it “will not proceed with [Lyft’s peer-to-peer] model unless it complies with New York City Taxi and Limousine regulations”. Meera Joshi, the chairwoman of New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission, said that she was “gratified that Lyft will be working with us”.

This statement, however, was preceeded by a an earlier threat towards potential drivers for the ride-sharing service, with the TLC issuing a statement saying, “drivers who sign up with Lyft are at risk of losing their vehicles to TLC enforcement action, as well as being subject to fines of up to $2,000 upon conviction for unlicensed activity.” It’s worth noting that Lyft rival Uber has been operating in the Big Apple for the past few years. Read more about this story here.