New Bike Sharing System in Chicago (Washington: buy, taxi, price)

[marothisu]

It was supposed to open up last Friday, but the city wanted to do more testing. It's opening up next Friday. I wonder how many "subscribers" they have now.

[jdiddy]

Originally Posted by marothisu

It was supposed to open up last Friday, but the city wanted to do more testing. It's opening up next Friday. I wonder how many "subscribers" they have now.

Was 1700 a week ago.

[marothisu]

The system rolled out on Friday, and then the Tribune wrote a negative article about it. However, this guy wrote a good article about it. It's funny because his own friend was interviewed by the Tribune and said that the Trib pushed him to report on the negatives. It does seem as if the Trib has a little agenda against this system IMO:

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

[emathias]

Originally Posted by marothisu

The system rolled out on Friday, and then the Tribune wrote a negative article about it. However, this guy wrote a good article about it. It's funny because his own friend was interviewed by the Tribune and said that the Trib pushed him to report on the negatives. It does seem as if the Trib has a little agenda against this system IMO:

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

I'm actually a very big advocate of Divvy, but I have to admit that I had a uniquely horrible experience getting my account working with them. I use the phrase "uniquely" because it actually took their Director of Marketing getting involved to sort things out, which I'm fairly certain is not standard operating procedure for them.

I originally signed up on June 2nd. I didn't get a working key from them until yesterday, and then only after getting two other keys and lots of run-around from their phone staff.

But, all that aside, I've now used it several times and plan to use it to commute to work (there's a station across the street from my home and one a block from my office) most of the time. The more stations they add, the better it will be.

[marothisu]

Very interesting. Well, that sucks. Part of it is "just opened" kinks and part of that is obviously them not testing their systems thoroughly enough.

I agree though, the more the better. There's supposed to be 3 stations put up all very close to where I live. I haven't been on a bike in a few years but I may plan to use it for some errands and such or just getting somewhere fast. I saw a bunch of people riding them on Saturday near me too on Chicago Ave.

[emathias]

Speaking of bike share, this is a cool map.

[Link N. Parker]

The Trib (and all major newspapers) derive a lot of ad revenue from the auto industry. Local dealers pay big money to run sales advertisements. So generally speaking most papers only pay lip service to promoting any mode of transportation other than the automobile.

[k5therobot]

This would be perfect for work. They have a Divvy station 1 block from the workplace. They have on the map 2 blocks from my apt that is planned to get put in with 15 slots. Anyone know if there is a way to find out when it's planned to get built? I would prefer to try it in the summer!

[emathias]

Originally Posted by k5therobot

This would be perfect for work. They have a Divvy station 1 block from the workplace. They have on the map 2 blocks from my apt that is planned to get put in with 15 slots. Anyone know if there is a way to find out when it's planned to get built? I would prefer to try it in the summer!

I believe the yellow stations are planned by the end of this year, but afaik, Divvy hasn't published any more exact schedule.

[oakparkdude]

Stats for Divvy after one week.

Divvy: Now Open for Riding! • One week ago today, Divvy*launched in Chicago....