Where are the bikes? As Lyft and SF spar in court, new...

As Lyft wrangles in court with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, cyclists and commuters have noticed an unusual change in the city landscape: a bike rental drought.

On a recent Wednesday afternoon, the company’s baby blue two-wheelers and black electric models— once known as Ford GoBikes, now rebranded Bay Wheels — were all but missing from the downtown core. The 26 docks at Howard and Mary streets were empty, as were the 19 docks at Jones and Post streets and the 18 docks outside City Hall. At Golden Gate Avenue and Hyde Street, one bike sat in a normally busy station with 22 docks.

The dry spell began in April, when Lyft began a fleet transition that eventually got hobbled by the lawsuit. The company pulled its black e-bikes off racks to fix a braking defect, then quietly discontinued them. It also stopped supplying the blue docked version. As a result, the number of bikes available on streets dropped precipitously — from about 2,000 to 1,100, according to the SFMTA.

Lyft introduced a new electric model in June: black with hot pink wheels and a cable lock so riders can choose whether to park it at a company dock or tether it to any bike stand. These bikes are already rolling on the streets of San Jose. In San Francisco, though, they’re caught in a legal standoff. While the docks sit vacant, hundreds of new Lyft e-bikes are gathering dust in a Dogpatch warehouse.

Commuters are getting frustrated.

“I was running late for a doctor’s appointment, and I thought I’d get an e-bike, and I couldn’t find one,” said Brad Williford, an avid cyclist. “And this kills me — I had to take a Lyft,” he added.

The lawsuit stems from an agreement that the Metropolitan Transportation Commission signed in 2015 with a company called Bay Area Motivate that later became part of the ride-hailing service Lyft, seeking to build a regional bike rental network at no cost to taxpayers. Motivate invested millions in the project, setting up docks on sidewalks, intersections and outside transit hubs. In exchange, the company got exclusive rights to run bike rental services in the Bay Area.

Yet technology moves faster than government contracts. Two years ago San Francisco and Motivate agreed on a settlement allowing another company, Jump, to temporarily rent 500 stationless electric bikes throughout the city. At that time, Motivate lacked the infrastructure for e-bikes.

The 18-month experiment became an enticing business, prompting ride-hail giant Uber to purchase Jump last year. Months later, Uber’s longtime rival, Lyft, bought Motivate. Seemingly overnight, the Bay Area’s ecologically minded bike rental program set off a slugfest between two Silicon Valley titans.

Both companies see bike rentals as a fertile market that will eventually reap profits. San Francisco, meanwhile, has its own agenda. The city intends to boost the number of street-rented bikes — from 2,000 to about 11,000 — in an effort to lure people out of cars and stave off the effects of climate change.

In May, SFMTA began soliciting applications from vendors offering free-floating, dockless bikes. Lyft sued, citing its exclusive contract and seeking an injunction to block out its competitors. City transportation chief Ed Reiskin said in a court declaration that the permit program for dockless bikes doesn’t violate Lyft’s regional contract, which he argued doesn’t cover these new devices. Unlike the traditional blue bikes, these stationless versions have locking mechanisms that enable riders to stash them anywhere.

While the case winds through court, Lyft’s fleet shortage has become more obvious. More people want to ride bikes during the mild summer days, but few are available.

“It feels like we’re caught in this legal fight,” said Kyle Grochmal, a Mission District cyclist who organizes his life around e-bikes.

Like many residents, Grochmal is grinding his teeth as he awaits the new pink-wheeled line, which Lyft says is all ready to go.

“We’re eager to launch and just waiting for the green light from SFMTA,” the company said in a statement.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman has issued an order enabling SFMTA to permit Lyft’s new e-bikes while extending the permit for Uber’s Jump bikes, which would have expired July 8.

But so far, SFMTA has not granted any permits.

“Lyft has no one to blame but itself,” said city attorney spokesman John Coté, adding that Lyft’s lawsuit effectively blocks the SFMTA from permitting anyone to operate stationless bikes until the court rules on Lyft’s request for an injunction. Seven companies applied for permits. Jump entered the case last week, arguing that Lyft shouldn’t have a monopoly over dockless rentals.

“Riders win when bike-share companies compete in San Francisco,” an Uber spokesman said. “That’s why we’re standing with the SFMTA to oppose a bike-share monopoly and protect riders’ rights to choose the transit option that fits them best.”

Nothing is stopping Lyft from filling its stations with the classic blue rental bikes, or with the new electric bikes — so long as it disables the locking feature, Coté said.

“For some reason they haven’t done that,” he said.

A Lyft representative said it would require significant engineering to disarm the lock, only to reinstate it when SFMTA grants the permits.

Some policymakers defend the business model of the exclusive contract. If Lyft has sole domain over busy markets such as San Francisco, it can then afford to expand in neighboring cities, where fewer people rent bikes and the return is lower.

“The business model is to have a single vendor and allow cities to get concessions from that vendor,” said Randy Rentschler, legislative director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. He pointed to other cities worldwide with a public-private bike rental system that seems to work, including New York City, Paris, Chicago, London and Washington, D.C. Some of those cities aren’t completely dominated by one company — they have multiple operators for dockless fleets.

The Bay Area “needs and deserves” a robust bicycle network that resembles the ones in other parts of the world, Rentschler said. He and other enthusiasts hope to convert all those people who might otherwise hail a car, while sparing them the inconvenience of lugging their own bikes onto BART or Caltrain.

Wiliford and other riders are hesitant to take sides in the lawsuit, but they worry that growing enthusiasm for cycling might start to wane as the bike stations sit empty.

“We’re losing people who were on the edge, discovering that biking is a healthy way to get around the city,” he said. “From a policy perspective, that’s devastating.”

Nowhere are the consequences of the fight more obvious than Lyft’s big, cavernous warehouse near the waterfront, where hundreds of untouched bikes form a sea of black and pink along the concrete floor. A large trailer in back contains more bikes.

Around the corner is a bike rental station, which was nearly empty on a recent Thursday afternoon but for one blue bike.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan