Image: LyftĪlso concerning was an Active Transportation Alliance blog post that originally seemed to say Divvy e-bike use fees for members would be rising steeply, including for lower-income people enrolled in the Divvy for Everyone (D4E) $5 membership program. Map of the current Divvy service area (green), showing traditional docking stations (blue dots), E-stations (purple dots), and planned bike corral locations (red dots.) More discussion of the corrals later in this article. Since destinations tend to be farther apart on the South and West sides, those Chicagoans are also more likely to rack up more minutes on bikes than people downtown and in denser North Side neighborhoods. Therefore, in much of the current waiver zone, including many lower-income Black and Latino communities, residents basically have no choice but to use the black or gray e-bikes, and it appeared they would have to have to start paying extra fees to use them. Divvy station density is generally lower in the waiver zone than the fee zone east of Western and north of Pershing, and all of the new stations placed in outlying neighborhoods last year were “E-stations,” basically glorified bike rack installations where it’s not possible to park the blue non-electric bikes. Third, Divvy is changing its pricing structure, including eliminating the fee waiver zones west of Western Avenue (2400 W.) and south Pershing Road (3900 S.), where there’s currently no additional per-minute surcharge or non-dock parking fee when you use the electric bikes (which can also be locked on racks and poles thanks to built-in locks.) Second, the publicly-owned Divvy system will be getting in on the action by deploying an additional 1,000 e-scooters that can be docked at existing Divvy stations (or, like the other scooters, locked to bike racks or poles via built-in cable locks), focusing on downtown locations.

First, the city’s first permanent e-scooter rental program will be launching in May with a total of 3,000 privately-owned electric scooters provided by Lime, Spin, and Superpedestrian. Last Thursday Chicago officials announced three major pieces of micromobility news.

Divvy bike pricing