Divvy To Grow Even Larger Next Year
By Chuck Sudo in News on Aug 21, 2014 4:35PM
The Chicago Department of Transportation announced Thursday the planned expansion of the Divvy bike-sharing program would take place next spring. An extra 175 stations and 1,750 bikes will be added to the network. When the expansion is complete, Divvy kiosks would be available as far north as Touhy Avenue, Pulaski Road to the west, and as far south as 75th Street, making the program the largest in North America in terms of stations. Divvy’s reach will grow to encompass 87 square miles across 31 wards, the largest of any city in North America
The expansion was to have occurred this year but Alta Bicycle Share, the Oregon company responsible for managing Divvy, has had trouble obtaining new equipment since the January bankruptcy filing by Bixi, the Montreal-based company that provides Divvy and other bike-sharing programs across the country with bicycles, kiosks and software. Bixi claimed $50 million in debt needing to be restructured. CDOT withheld $2.1 million in payments to Alta Bicycle Share related to delays in software updates and equipment deliveries. Alta, in turn, has not paid Bixi.
CDOT spokesman Pete Scales told the Tribune Alta Bicycle Share is in the process of vetting multiple supplier options, all of them "committed to spring deliveries.”