Skift Take
In a wide-open city such as Chicago, with so many scenic attractions, this bike-sharing program is bound to be very popular with tourists and locals alike.
Hundreds of three-speed bikes painted "Chicago blue" will hit the streets in June when the city debuts a bicycle-sharing rental program that originally was set to launch last summer.
Operating under the name Divvy, which is intended to convey the idea of sharing bikes, the system will start out with about 75 solar-powered docking stations in the downtown and River North areas and expand within a year to 400 stations and about 4,000 bicycles covering much of the city, according to the Chicago Department of Transportation.
The federally funded program is envisioned for the public to ride the bikes on short trips of mostly 30 minutes or less, instead of taking a taxicab or a bus or, worst of all, driving.
The city today launched a web site for the bike-sharing program. It is www.divvybikes.com.
The new transportation option is especially geared toward Metra and CTA commuters looking for a fast and inexpensive way to travel the final mile or less of their daily trips between train stations and offices, officials said. The CTA and Metra ban bikes on trains d
