Thursday, September 19, 2013

Even More Divvys


With several new Divvy stations going online this week and last, including the one above (located east of the Bridgeview Bank building, near Lawrence and Clifton), Uptown now has 11 places to rent and dock bikes.  We thought we had the northernmost stations, but one has been activated in Edgewater as well.  Check out the live map of current locations and upcoming locations here.

Update:  According to a press release sent out by Divvy, this week Chicagoans pedaled their millionth mile on Divvy bikes.  "With 240 stations on the ground to date, Divvy staff plans to install another 60 in the next few weeks, ramping up to 300 stations and 3,000 bikes.  By next spring, Divvy will be in 400 neighborhood locations with 4,000 bikes."  So look for more to go live very soon.

5 comments:

  1. Any idea what the plan is for the Divvy stations and bikes when winter arrives?

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  2. We'd been wondering, that, too, so I Googled an interview with one of the CDOT guys.

    "The system is going to operate year-round, because we will get a warm day every now and then in December, January or February. Sometimes you’ll get a 50 degree day here and there, and we want to make sure that when it’s warm, or when people want to ride the bikes, they know it’s always going to be there. That’s the number one thing. If you want people to use your service, then you need to make sure that it’s always available. But in winter, when the bikes aren’t being used as much, we’ll pull some of them into a warehouse so we’re able to do preventive maintenance on them, make sure that they’re well maintained and operating smoothly."

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  3. So, a new station just went in at Sheridan/Buena in front of the library. They took out four or five parking spaces to do it. Across the street, RIGHT across the street, is a super-wide sidewalk alongside St. Mary of the Lake that could easily accommodate the station without taking out one parking space.

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  4. I also though it was weird that they put a Divvy in the street in front of Dollop given that it removes several parking spots in front of the building. Those were normally useful for delivery vans to the businesses at that location so it seems like it'll affect them. I thought most Divvy's were being incorporated into sidewalk space vs. taking parking spots.

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  5. The Divvy stations aren't connected to any power source other than solar energy. They need to be placed where they can get enough sunlight to make them work. Where there are wide sidewalks and ample sun is ideal, obviously, but enough sun trumps sidewalk width every time.

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