VanderZanden came to Lyft last March after it bought his company, Cherry, last year. Cherry was an on-demand car-wash service.
According to the sources, VanderZanden was "not the right fit" for the company, and there had been some tension between him and CEO Logan Green and President John Zimmer.
The fight among the car-sharing apps has been quite a circus lately. Lyft accused Uber of making thousands of bogus pickup requests. Uber then followed by accusing Lyft of "going nuclear" after Uber refused to acquire it.
The nature of the tensions between VanderZanden and the other Lyft execs remains unclear.
"Eighteen months ago, Travis joined the Lyft team as part of the Cherry acquisition to help scale our operations," said Erin Simpson, Lyft's director of communications. "We've talked about the future and all agree that Travis will move on as we move forward into the company's next chapter of growth. We appreciate everything he's done here, and wish him the best in his next adventure."