bike share

This winter, Chicago’s fifth snowiest on record, with over 20 subzero days, has been a test for whether bike-share can be viable year-round in U.S. cities with harsh northern climates. The multitude of baby-blue bikes I observed whizzing by the Daley Center during this evening's rush hour (and, no, Critical Mass hadn’t started yet) suggests Divvy is still going strong. I buttonholed bike-share user Adam Loedint, an engineer, to ask how the system has been working out for him during this unforgiving season.

Divvy and the Chicago Department of Transportation quietly launched a new bike-share station suggestion map yesterday. The new version features design and speed improvements (both versions were built by the software division at OpenPlans, Streetsblog's parent non-profit).

Back in May, a month before the Divvy bike-share system launched, transportation reporter Jon Hilkevitch published the first of three Tribune articles characterizing Divvy as a rip-off, dysfunctional and racist. In that first piece, a faux exposé entitled “Overtime fees, legal potholes dot city bike-share program,” Hilkevitch portrayed the rules and charges associated with the new system as an unreasonable burden, even though they’re similar to those in other successful bike-share cities.