City of Chicago officials on Thursday said the planned expansion of the Divvy bike sharing program has been be delayed for a year and will not be implemented until next spring, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
The company that supplies the Divvy bike sharing program filed for bankruptcy in January, and that has thrown a wrench in the city's plan for expansion, which includes an additional 175 stations and 1,175 new bikes. City officials previously maintained that the bankruptcy would not hinder expansion plans.
Following the bankruptcy news in January, city officials said supplier Public Bike System Company had not been paid $2.1 million from the city because bikes, other equipment and software updates did not arrive by the dates that the company had promised. That $2.1 million is still being withheld, Peter Scales, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Transportation told the newspaper.
Alta Bicycle Share Inc., meanwhile, runs the city's bike sharing program.
“We haven’t been able to finalize our order for new equipment until now. It was all up in the air because of the bankruptcy issue. We have to go through Alta to get the equipment. They needed to come up with a new supply chain. That put everything on hold,” Scales said of the planned expansion.
"Alta Bicycle Share is [now] in the final stages of vetting multiple supplier options, all of whom have committed to spring delivery time frames. We’re putting our order in and expect to get equipment in the winter and put new stations and bikes out on the street in early spring.”
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