Seattle Pulls the Plug on its Bikeshare System

Seattle's bikeshare system, known as Pronto!, will shut down in March.

1 minute read

January 15, 2017, 1:00 PM PST

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Pronto Bikeshare

Joe Mabel / Flickr

"Seattle’s city-run bike-share program is dead," report Daniel Beekman and Jessica Lee.

The city had been planning to supplement the Pronto! bike share system with electric bikes, but "Mayor Ed Murray on Friday said millions of dollars allocated for the new system will be spent instead on bike- and pedestrian-safety projects," according to the article.

The system launched in October 2014, but by March 2016, the city had to spend $1.4 million to bailout the troubled system.

"This officially ends a frustrating era for bike sharing in Seattle, making the city one of very few in the world where a modern public bike system has failed," writes Tom Fuccoloro in a separate article for the Seattle Bike Blog.

Friday, January 13, 2017 in The Seattle Times

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