Transportation
The Four Horsemen of the Bike Share Apocalypse
What kept Seattle’s Pronto! bike share program from thriving? Turns out it was several things.
Earlier this month, Seattle quietly put the brakes on its bike-share program, Pronto! (with appropriately Jeb! Bush-ian punctuation). The city also canned the idea of an e-bike replacement program.
The program’s failure might seem like something of a surprise: One of the bike-friendliest cities in the U.S. (ranked fifth by Cycling in 2016), Seattle seems a lot like the kind of affluent, outdoorsy place that should embrace bike sharing. Instead, Pronto! will come to an end in March. If bike sharing could successfully spread to 119 U.S. cities since 2008, why couldn’t it work in the Emerald City?