Uber and Lyft will test dedicated pick-up spots in San Francisco

One of San Francisco residents' biggest gripes with ride-hailing services is that their vehicles tend to double park and clog bike lanes. With traffic as bad as SF's, city officials had to do something about it. That's why Mayor Ed Lee has struck a deal with Uber and Lyft: San Francisco will launch a pilot program converting parking spaces into painted curbs ride-hailing drivers can use as designated pick-up and dropoff spots. Lee has been negotiating with the companies for months and has agreed to do the pilot in exchange for precious traffic data the city can use to combat congestion.

According to SF Examiner, the drivers will use a geofencing feature in their apps to figure out which painted curbs they can and can't use. Soon, both Uber and Lyft apps will include info about the new program to make sure riders are aware why their drivers can't always pick them up where they want. To "ensure compliance," Lee said the companies have to surrender anonymized trip details to the government. While some neighborhoods are already volunteering to be part of the pilot, the parties involved have yet to finalize how many parking spaces to convert and which locations will be the first to get designated pick-up zones.