Divvy for Everyone

Thanks to member surveys, we’ve known for years that bike-share membership in other cities like Washington, D.C. and Denver has been disproportionately white, male, young, educated, and relatively affluent. Now we have confirmation that the same is true of Divvy’s annual members. However, the Chicago Department of Transportation hopes the Divvy for Everyone (D4E) equity program will increase access and help broaden its appeal, so that ridership better reflects the city’s demographics.

In Friday’s Chicago Tribune article about the impending price hike for Divvy day passes, transportation reporter Jon Hilkevitch implied that the extra revenue is needed because the bike-share system has been a money loser. In doing so, he ignored a statement he received from the Chicago Department of Transportation noting that, when you factor in sponsorship and ad money, Divvy is actually generating revenue for the city.

About a month ago, the Better Bike Share Partnership announced a $75,000 grant to the city of Chicago to launch the “Divvy for Everyone” campaign, a strategy to increase bike-share access and ridership among low-income residents. At the time, Chicago Department of Transportation officials declined to discuss the details of the program, but BBSP’s grant program manager provided info about the plan from CDOT’s grant proposal, and I shared it with Streetsblog readers.

The December meeting of the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Committee included lots of news about the future of the Divvy program. Ever since the bike-share program launched on June 28, 2013, 3.1 million users, including 23,177 annual members and many daily users, have biked over 6.6 million miles starting at 300 stations.