Recent Streetsblog CHICAGO posts about Divvy

Divvy Grows to 117 Stations, Launches Corporate Memberships

By John Greenfield | Aug 1, 2013 | 27 Comments

Rahm Emanuel celebrated the one-month anniversary of the Divvy bike-share system at a ribbon cutting this morning for a new docking station at Fosco Park Community Center, 1312 South Racine. The mayor announced that with 117 stations scheduled to be online by the end of the day, Divvy will become the fourth-largest public bike system […]

Diving Into Divvy Stats: Bike-Share Trips Spike on the Weekend

By John Greenfield | Jul 30, 2013 | 52 Comments

Steven Vance is the self-described “data geek” at Streetsblog Chicago, but even a right-brained type like myself couldn’t help but be intrigued by some recently revealed stats and charts about Divvy bike-share use patterns. Chicago Department of Transportation Deputy Commissioner Scott Kubly shared them during a talk at last week’s Complete Streets Symposium, hosted by […]

Post-Launch, Divvy Drawing 67 New Annual Members Each Day

By Steven Vance | Jul 24, 2013 | 43 Comments

As of this Monday, 3,157 annual members had signed up for Divvy bike-share, putting Chicago between the initial growth rate of systems in Washington, DC, which started with 49 stations in September, 2010, and New York City, which started with a little more than 300 stations on May 27. Divvy launched with 68 stations three-and-a-half […]

What’s Up With Waguespack? The Alderman’s View of Parking Conversions

By John Greenfield | Jul 16, 2013 | 30 Comments

32nd Ward Alderman Scott Waguespack is a key independent voice at City Hall. Most famously, when Richard M. Daley was ramming the disastrous 2008 parking meter contract through City Council in a mere three days, Waguespack was perhaps the only alderman to actually read the thick document. He led the opposition to the deal, and […]

South and West Side Residents Discuss Divvy Equity Issues

By John Greenfield | Jul 3, 2013 | 10 Comments

Last month I talked to Scott Kubly, deputy commissioner of the Chicago Department of Transportation, about the city’s efforts to make sure the new Divvy bike-share system benefits all Chicagoans, including those in low-income neighborhoods and/or communities of color. Surveys in bike-share cities like Washington, D.C., and Denver have shown that use of their publicly-funded […]

Divvy Data From the First Weekend and Beyond

By Steven Vance | Jul 3, 2013 | 12 Comments

In its first weekend of operation, Divvy bike-share saw 4,123 trips. Annual members accounted for 78 percent of the trips from Friday to Sunday, with the rest coming from people who purchased 24-hour passes (which cost $7). The five most popular starting stations were all downtown and near the lakefront and coincided with the five most […]

Pedaling to All 68 Divvy Stations in One Day Was Fun, Not Frustrating

By John Greenfield | Jul 1, 2013 | 43 Comments

In a hurry? Read a shorter version of this piece at Grist.org, an environmental news website. To hear the Chicago Tribune tell it, people who used the Divvy bike-share system on its first day of operations last Friday experienced nothing but headaches. But on Sunday I rode a Divvy to and attempted to dock at […]

Jessica Cervantes and Gary Resner Talk About Their Divvy Experience

By John Greenfield | Jun 28, 2013 | 10 Comments

When I encountered Gary Resner, an accountant, and P.E. teacher Jessica Cervantes standing with Divvy bikes underneath the ‘L’ tracks at Clark and Lake, they were looking for a place to dock their rides, so I directed them to the Daley Plaza station, but not before asking them about their bike-share experience. John Greenfield: So […]

Checking in With Potential Divvy Member Mike Berman

By John Greenfield | Jun 28, 2013 | 11 Comments

I visited several Divvy bike-share docking stations on my way downtown from the Northwest Side this safternoon, but didn’t see much activity, save for Divvy staffers standing by to assist customers. At the State and Kinzie station, downstairs from the IBM Building, I saw a couple of men with bikes who had unsuccessfully tried to […]

What It Takes to Install a Divvy Bike-Share Station

By Steven Vance | Jun 28, 2013 | 5 Comments

Tuesday morning I caught up with a Divvy bike-share station installation crew to tape the installation of the station in Pritzker Park across from the Harold Washington Library Center. The system Chicago is using, developed by the Public Bike System Company, is modular and relies on solar power, so the stations can be installed very quickly, without […]

Talking Transportation With Alderman Bob Fioretti

By John Greenfield | Jun 24, 2013 | 70 Comments

[This article also ran in Checkerboard City, John Greenfield’s column in Newcity magazine, which hits the streets in print on Wednesday evenings.] Second Ward Alderman Robert “Bob” Fioretti reelection chances got tougher after last year’s ward remap. His district currently includes portions of several neighborhoods on the Near South and Near West sides, but in […]

CDOT Provides an Update on Efforts to Ensure Divvy System Is Equitable

By John Greenfield | Jun 19, 2013 | 25 Comments

Imagine if almost everybody who rode the Chicago Transit Authority, a public transportation system subsidized with taxpayer money, was Caucasian. Denver found itself in an analogous situation last year, when a survey revealed that, in a city where almost half of residents are people of color, 89.9 percent the people using the publicly funded Denver […]

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