Lyft will launch in Brooklyn and Queens Friday night

Lyft will launch its ridesharing service in Brooklyn on Friday night, the company announced Tuesday. We previously reported that the company was launching here, based on evidence gathered online and from sources.

Here’s the basic pricing outline:

• Minimum: $8
• Pickup fee: $3
• Per minute: $0.40
• Per mile: $2.15
• Trust & Safety fee: $1
• Cancellation fee: $10

In an email to Technical.ly Brooklyn, Lyft spokesperson Paige Thelen said this is the company’s biggest launch to date, with ten times more drivers than they usually deploy in a new city.

“Some of Lyft’s NYC Founding drivers include a NY firefighter, a mother going back to school who runs a youth organization that revolves around teens and art, a honor student & MTA maintenance worker using Lyft to help pay off loans, a school teacher and father of three sons who are all actors, and a space suit designer,” Thelen wrote. We bet we know that last one.

Lyft screens out drivers convicted for reckless driving in the last three years and drivers convicted of DUIs in the last seven years. According to the company, this isn’t true for drivers of cabs and private cars.

Meanwhile, Uber just announced a dramatic price cut on its New York City ridesharing service, UberX, according to the NY Business Journal. It’s probably no accident that this happened just before its competitor launched here, and Lyft is launching with the same prices.

That’s not going to be the company’s only challenge, though. 

Taxi and Limousine Commission spokesperson Allan Fromberg described what it would take for the company to operate under the law in New York City in a story in Capital New York. He said, “Obviously, the rules are the rules, and as you know, it is not within the law to transport somebody from point to point in New York City without being a licensed driver, without having a licensed vehicle, without being dispatched by a licensed base. That’s what would have to happen for them to be operating within the rules.”