![]() ![]() For most of its existence, Divvy largely did not extend south of 87th Street. ![]() That was a sticking point for Reed, who is based in North Lawndale. “They’ve been around for 10 years, so why didn’t they come earlier?” he said. A student with no regular source of income, he can’t afford a Divvy membership.Ĭuebas also questioned why it took so long for Divvy to reach Belmont Cragin. Garcia now gets to his high school, Muchin College Prep in the Loop, by bus and train. But one day the free zone disappeared with no warning. Garcia, who works with the Northwest Center to advocate for transit in the community, said the former fee waiver zone allowed him to take an e-bike to his school at the time for free. That left students such as Emmanuel Garcia, 15, scrambling. But the following year, e-bike prices went up and a zone where fees were waived was eliminated. Divvy didn’t come to Belmont Cragin until 2021, and when it did, e-bikes were prevalent, said Jeremy Cuebas, transportation organizer at the Northwest Center. The expense of e-bikes has been a sticking point in some communities. Cyclists who purchase a single ride pay $1 to unlock the bike, then $0.17 per minute for a regular bike and $0.42 per minute for an e-bike. And it’s faster and easier than going all the way in on the Blue Line and trying to take a bus.”Īn annual membership costs $130.90, and includes free rides up to 45 minutes for regular bikes and discounts on e-bikes. “I’m trying to go over closer to the lake, you can just jump on Divvy and go over,” he said. ![]() Without a membership, though, he wouldn’t ride e-bikes, he said. And, with a membership, the price is similar to paying for transit three or four times a week, he said. Riding an electric bike from his Bucktown home to his downtown office can take the same amount of time, or sometimes less, than public transit. He had a personal bike stolen, and said it’s less stressful to use Divvy than worry about his bike getting taken again. He doesn’t have a car, and finds public transit isn’t always reliable. “Can I make that a five-minute Divvy ride?”ĭaniel Griffis, 34, rides Divvy so often his friends call him Divvy Dan. “I get off the train here, I’ve got another 20-minute walk from here,” Jones said. It’s cheaper and better for the environment than taking a car, he said, and it also fills in the gaps between public transit and his destination. Kennady Jones, 25, rides regularly from his Gold Coast home to his Loop office, or north to play golf, or when he’s going somewhere he knows he’ll be drinking. His car hasn’t been running, he said while checking out a classic pedal bike downtown on a recent morning. Riders at those locations included people such as Anton Martin, 51, who uses Divvy to deliver for DoorDash. In May 2023, riders took more than 680,300 trips on Divvy bikes.Ī Divvy bicycle rider waits for a light to change beside a Divvy station at Clinton and Washington in Chicago on June 22, 2023. In the first full month of Divvy’s existence, cyclists rented Divvy bikes about 76,500 times, according to Lyft data. Ridership in the past 10 years has skyrocketed. Five years later, Lyft purchased the operator of the bike-share system and then poured $50 million into Divvy in exchange for much of the rider revenue, a commitment to expand the system and payments to the city. “I think what we’ve shown is that people want bike share and it’s a valuable service for a city to be offering as a way to get around both during the pandemic and afterward,” said Sean Wiedel, Chicago Department of Transportation deputy commissioner of citywide services.ĭivvy launched June 28, 2013, with some 700 bikes and 68 docking stations concentrated in dense, central parts of the city. The agency has built an average of about 30 new miles of bike lanes a year since 2020, officials said, reaching about 423 miles of bike lanes, shared lanes and trails in March, compared with more than 4,000 miles of city streets. CDOT described the strategy to start in dense areas and work out to the neighborhoods as intentional, but acknowledged the pace of expansion was slower than officials would have liked. ![]()
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