Andreessen Horowitz-Backed Leap Buses Are Hitting San Francisco’s Streets This Week

It’s been a year in the making.

Transit startup Leap is finally launching in San Francisco with completely overhauled buses and a route from the Marina to the downtown area.

The startup, which is trying to rethink mass transit, is competing with a host of other shared transit companies from Y Combinator-backed Chariot to ride-pooling startup Loup and, of course, Uber and Lyft.

Leap, however, is aimed at regular commuters who are doing a predictable route every day and may not want to jump for the price points of on-demand services like UberPool and Lyft Line. Tickets cost $6 individually or $5 in packs of 20. If you use commuter benefits, you can get the cost down to $4 a ride, according to co-founder Kyle Kirchhoff.

The buses circulate every 10 to 15 minutes and take about 25 minutes to go from one end of the line on Lombard Street to the other end in the Downtown area. The service runs during peak commute hours from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

The key differentiator from other bus startups like Chariot is how Leap has rethought the entire internal experience of the bus. They bought old NABI buses and refurbished them with plush interior seating, Wi-Fi, USB ports and bar stools for working on laptops. They run on natural gas.

“We’re really building an entirely different experience inside. Every single material in this bus was really thought through,” Kirchhoff said. “This is kind of a blend between a coffee shop, a workspace and something that feels like your living room.”

The on-boarding process uses a quick QR code scan on an iPhone or an Android device, or if you have Bluetooth enabled, it will do it automatically. If you don’t have a smartphone, you can print paper passes. The same apps can also be used to purchase food and drinks from Blue Bottle Coffee to Happy Moose Juice. There’s an opt-in part of the app where you can choose to share a little bit of information about yourself and learn about who is riding along with you
leap-transit

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Kiran Upadhyay

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