Seattle’s Pronto bike share shutting down on Friday

Seattle Times ^ | March 28, 2017 | David Gutman

[mdittmar]

Poor, poor Pronto.

Seattle’s beleaguered bike-share system is not long for this world.

Its last day of operation will be Friday. After a weekend in purgatory, work crews will begin taking down and packing up the program’s 54 stations and 500 bikes on Monday. That process will last about two weeks, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) said.

[mdittmar]

That's a shame.

[sagar]

So sad. NOT!

[Blue Jays]

Bike sharing works pretty well in other cities.
Too bad it couldn't be successful in that location.

[PAR35]

The libs are pushing bike share for Dallas. Maybe they can sell the setup to them.

[oldplayer]

Why doesn’t Seattle just raise taxes and fund it fully?

[mdittmar]

Darn climate and topography.

[Pining_4_TX]

Like those bikes won’t be stolen in a heartbeat.

[Reno89519]

That was $8,500 per bike, including the stations. No wonder cities are broke.

[Pining_4_TX]

No government program is successful for long. I can’t believe some of the cities on the list that want to buy the equipment.
Tulsa, OK? You either freeze your butt off, roast in the heat, or get blown away by a storm. Tulsa is full of do-gooder Chamber of Commerce types who just love to spend other people’s money on so-called economic development.

[mdittmar]

They should give the bikes to the homeless.

[I_Like_Spam]

Climate and topography are a weak excuse. Pittsburgh is similar enough to Seattle in those features, yet has a thriving bike share program started by our ultra progressive mayor, Mr. Peduto.

Peduto had the foresight to open up bike lanes all over town, in spite of the hassle it would cause motorists.

[kvanbrunt2]

But it had to deal with a challenging environment — a hilly, rainy city with a mandatory helmet law and a downtown area clogged with traffic and with few protected bikeways.>>> seems to be working in philly and i did notice some in DC. They are everywhere and there must be 1000 bikes just from the locations that i observe or know about. Philly is flat and semi bike friendly with no helmet law. I saw one in the middle of the vine street/ben f bridge/i95 access area crunched. i bike to work and use bike lanes and sidewalks were the buses and taxis are nasty.

[Paladin2]

They should transfer the bikes to some dry, warm, flat city.

[kvanbrunt2]

Like those bikes won’t be stolen in a heartbeat>>>
they don’t seem to be and i thot that as well. I’m not sure they have gears. they are so funky/junky looking that i don’t think any one would steal them cuz they couldn’t sell them.

[kvanbrunt2]

That was $8,500 per bike, including the stations. No wonder cities are broke.>>> no way for the bikes they must be about $400. they look like little girly bikes. the price must include the stations which are state of the art — credit card kiosk with some kind of lock or docking mechanism.

[oldplayer]

“They should give the bikes to the homeless.”

I should have thought of that. AND, to the illegals . . . I mean undocumented immigrants.

[Vlad The Inhaler]

They local Touchy-Feely democrat city government tried bike sharing.

In just a few weeks the expensive bikes were gone.

Liberals never learn.

[BenLurkin]

How much taxpayer money was squandered on the Pronto boondoggle?

[W.]

The article said they were going to add electric bikes, but I bet a dollar to a donut they would have all disappeared in short order!

[aquila48]

"Scott Kubly, the city’s transportation director, argued that a city takeover would allow Seattle to build a bigger, broader network that would attract more riders. In January 2016, the city was told that Pronto was insolvent and would shut down if the city didn’t buy it. The city complied in March 2016, buying Pronto for $1.4 million. Kubly, in his previous job, had been president of the company that operated Pronto. He later admitted to an ethics violation and agreed to a $10,000 settlement for failing to get an ethics waiver or recuse himself from the city’s launch and purchase of Pronto." And the guy is still Transportation Director?? The holier-than-thou crowd is as corrupt as TV preachers.