Divvy

[This piece ran last week in Checkerboard City, my column in Newcity magazine, which hits the street on Wednesday evenings. After yesterday's gorgeous weather, with temperatures in the 50s, I was concerned the piece might seem a bit dated today if I syndicated it on Streetsblog. Fortunately, six-to-eight inches of snow are predicted for this evening, so we can look forward to more Divvy slush fun.]

Last month, I won a digital silver medal in the Divvy Winter Olympics, a challenge put on by the bike-share service to encourage cold-weather ridership. I was one of 3,444 Divvy members who won medals during the promotion. Taking five or more trips between December 1 and February 16 got you a bronze medal, 25 or more trips earned you a bronze, and 50 or more garnered you a gold.

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 started sending out surveys yesterday asking how members use the system, whether their patterns have changed over time, how often they drive and take public transit, and what would get them to ride a bike more. The survey also asked members for their opinion of hypothetical changes to the system's current price and fee structure.

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For a very new American bike-share system, Divvy is doing well, but it has a lot of room to improve, according to the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy's new Bike Share Planning Guide [PDF]. The guide includes best practices for designing, distributing, and marketing this new form of transit. While Divvy is still growing and hasn't gone through a full peak season yet, the guide illustrates one area where Chicago should focus on improving its bike-share system: station density.

At last Wednesday's Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Council meeting, assistant transportation commissioner Sean Wiedel shared Divvy's cold-weather operating strategy.

Prior to the Divvy bike-share launch, some folks argued that the program would be a waste of money because no one would use it during Chicago’s long winter. However, even during this week's cold, snowy weather, the fairly common sight of bundled-up riders on the baby-blue bikes proved the system is still getting plenty of use.