Chicago Launches Bike Share: A Divvy Day One Dispatch

[font size="1"]Seven-year-old Maurice Neuman checks out one of the new bikes in Chicago's bike sharing program, Divvy. (WBEZ / Robin Amer/flickr)[/font]


Chicago opened its bike sharing program Friday. By next spring, the city will have 400 stations and 4,000 bikes, making it one of the largest in the U.S.

Here are the basic facts for day one as reported by our friends at WBEZ:

Divvy kicked off with 65 solar-powered docking stations. The plan is to add hundreds more by next spring. With a fleet of 700 powder-blue bikes...

Most of the stations will stand within a couple miles of the lakefront, clustered mainly in the Loop and densely populated neighborhoods along transit lines...

Divvy’s startup financing include $22 million in federal funds and $5.5 million in local funds.

The day-to-day operations will be up to Portland-based Alta Bicycle Share, which also runs bike-share programs in Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. Chicago Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein once consulted for Alta and received criticism when Chicago chose the company for the city’s program. Klein said he recused himself from the selection process.

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The complete piece is at: http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/transportation-nation/2013/jun/28/chicago-gets-bike-share-divvy-launch-day-dispatch/