North Side Condo Owners File NIMBY Lawsuit To Have Divvy Station Removed
By Chuck Sudo in News on Aug 22, 2013 2:25PM
This photo shows a Divvy Bikes docking station at 28th Street and Emerald Avenue, located next to two condominiums. Condo owners who live near a similar station at Addison and Pine Grove filed a lawsuit to have it relocated or removed. (Photo credit: Chuck Sudo/Chicagoist)
A condo association on the North side filed a lawsuit against the city in Cook County Circuit Court Wednesday to have a Divvy Bikes docking station located outside their three-unit building removed.
The lawsuit, filed by husband and wife David Kolin (who is president of his condo association) and Jeannine Cordero, raises concerns the bike docking station at Addison and Pine Grove will lead to an influx of people, noise, parking and safety issues and property devaluation mere steps from their homes. Kolin told the Tribune the Divvy station has already led to crowds.
"It's hideous," added Cordero, also a lawyer. "It's less than 20 steps from our front door."
Kolin wrote in the lawsuit (per the Sun-Times), “Strangers will be at the front door, 24 hours a day and children who come and go from the building, which has no doorman, will be at risk.”
The lawsuit names the Chicago Department of Transportation and 46th Ward Ald. James Cappleman as defendants. CDOT spokesman Peter Scales told the Tribune the location was chosen because it was “the safest for customers near the busy intersection of Addison and Lake Shore Drive. It is located in the public way, close to the curb on the street, and not on any private property.”
Divvy, the city’s bike sharing program, has proven wildly popular since it was launched in June, with over 50,000 rides recorded on the system, according to CDOT. Tribune transportation reporter Jon Hilkevitch, a skeptic of the program before it launched, wrote a column earlier this week where he ate a significant amount of crow. But it isn’t without its share of detractors—business and home owners who have expressed similar concerns as Kolin and Cordero. For the sake of context, we ask you to take a look at the map below.
The arrow points to the station at the center of the lawsuit. If you look at Lake Shore Drive on the map you'll see there are Divvy stations planned at Lake Shore and Irving Park Road, and Lake Shore Drive and Aldine
Those intersections aren’t as busy as Lake Shore Drive and Addison but there’s still enough traffic from the drive, CTA and pedestrians that CDOT could have made similar calls to move the stations away from the drive, yet didn’t. Let’s not forget that map shows planned Divvy stations in close proximity to the one in the lawsuit; you won’t be able to go three blocks in that vicinity without tripping over a station before long
We wonder if this will be the first of many lawsuits filed by people against the city to remove Divvy stations because of safety or public nuisance concerns. New York’s CITI Bike program has become a source of class warfare for the way that city rolled out its programs featuring lawsuits, vandalism and one brilliant freakout about the program by a Wall Street Journal columnist.
It’s only a matter of time before John Kass weighs in with another piece of troll bait on how Mayor Emanuel is sucking up to “the Little Bike People.” We can’t wait for that.