You have to give the bike-share zealots who love Pronto this much – they refuse to take no for an answer. Sort of like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.
Especially when they aren’t spending their own money.
Thus, even though the Seattle City Council sort of came to its senses and is pursuing a new potential bike-share program partner, the folks who like Pronto’s bulky green bikes are protesting the possibility that the program might be closed before a new one is up and running. Here’s the bureaucratic logic coming from the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) for throwing more good taxpayer money after bad:
“With a goal of kicking off the new system in the summer, SDOT is hoping the council approves $200,000 to keep running the old system during the first quarter of this year, arguing that shutting it down now will flummox existing users and undermine the city’s ability to get a blockbuster sponsorship on any new system.”
That’s right, you sure wouldn’t want to confuse the users who haven’t been using the current system – that’s it’s failing after all – while at the same time trying to confuse some “blockbuster” sponsor to throw away some of their own cash.
Perhaps those who want to waste more taxpayer money on Pronto should instead head the thinking of Tim Burgess, who asked the right question which Shift reported on back in August, “Quite frankly, I don’t know why we don’t shut down the system today.”
But that type of rational approach may be too much to ask for from the Seattle City Council.
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