bike sharing

Come see what all this BIXI Toronto talk has been about!!

July 28 · 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Gladstone Hotel @ 1214 Queen St. West (near Dufferin)
Complimentary food and entertainment!

Blogger Daniel Harren provides us with a nice overview of Bixi use over a typical work day.

Have you ever been unable to find a bixi? Or unable to find a parking spot?

I’ve downloaded a map of the Bixi system every 5 minutes for the last couple weeks, and got to working on an animation.

As the morning progresses the residential stations empty and the downtown stations fill up.

(Photo: Jay the Commie)

A bike rental store owner is upset with Bixi in Montreal, claiming that Bixi, the public bike sharing service, is killing his business.

Does he have a case? Or is he full of it?

For those who hold that the terms "great expectations" and "TCAC" (Toronto Cycling Advisory Committee) have long since proven themselves mutually exclusive, the rumblings and ramblings emanating from Committee Room 2 of City Hall last Monday may give cause to reconsider. The regular bureaucratic tedium -- accountants' conventions are Roman orgies by contrast -- belied the significance and scope of the schemes underway. There is truly cause for (cautious?) excitement.

The Toronto Star is reporting that the City is considering starting up a new bike sharing program, similar to the Velib system in Paris.

"It will be announced sometime in the late fall and launched in the summer of 2009," Councillor Adrian Heaps said.

A number of cities are experimenting with "public bikes" or "bike sharing". In Toronto we had our own experiment with CBN's Bikeshare. Last fall, Toronto's city council directed the Chief Planner to investigating a public bike scheme and to look into starting up a pilot project for staff.

Metrolinx, our former GTTA, released two "green papers" today. Both of them take an active interest in cycling as a commuting mode in the Greater Toronto Area.

Sooner or later public bikes will return to Toronto. What type of public bike program would people like to see for Toronto?

November 4th will be the fourth bike swap put on by the Community Bicycle Network. The swap is a fundraiser for CBN bike recycling and education projects. This year CBN is fixing up a number of bikes for sale and so are the Bike Pirates. You can expect to find some nice, cheap bikes, plus people selling higher end bikes.

Chicago has made a request for proposals from companies offering a bike sharing program. The city is considering a 500 bike program and a 1500 bike program, quite a bit smaller than the systems in Paris and Lyon.

Mayor Daley is excited, and that matters. You've probably heard about his bulldozing of their island airport overnight. He has a way to influence things. As the Tribune puts it: