bikesharing

We might still get the City to treat BIXI as public transportation. TTC Chair Karen Stintz will make a motion at City Council this week asking city staff to see if it would make sense for the TTC to take over the financially troubled BIXI Toronto. (Photo credit: Ian Muttoo)

“I absolutely see BIXI as being an integral part of public transit in the city,” Stintz said in an interview Sunday evening. “We’re having a discussion next week about the future of BIXI and I intend to move a motion to request a review of whether the TTC could actually take over the BIXI portfolio.”

Stintz said doing so might allow more BIXI bike share stations to be added at TTC stations to complement the existing transit system.

Stintz's strong stance on BIXI as public transportation is a breath of fresh air. The Mayor has taken the knee-jerk reaction that he'll have nothing to do with BIXI. It's the only proposal thus far that suggests a long-term plan for BIXI. Montreal's public transit agency, STM, is interested in absorbing BIXI, and the City of Montreal is giving direct funding to expand and cover shortfalls.

It's good that Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam is also offering some proposals, though they tend to center on getting small amounts of funding from the private sector (here and here), but it would be much better if she'd just show strong support for folding BIXI into the TTC. To look to developers to install a few stations here and there in underground parking as in Wong-Tam's proposal, will do little for BIXI's survival nor is it particularly practical. What BIXI needs for being viable is expansion on the scale of Montreal's BIXI.

Councillor Mike Layton had already managed to negotiate a deal with a developer for one station. But one new BIXI station a year would mean that it would take 350 years to reach Montreal's soon to be 450 stations! If BIXI Toronto were to reach 450 stations within the next five years (a reasonable hope in my mind) that means we'd need to make 70 deals with developers a year. It is unrealistic that we'd be able to do that, especially considering that only Layton has so far approached developers for BIXI stations.

It's a bit odd to see a left-winger look first to the private sector when a right-winger sees BIXI as an integral part of public transportation. BIXI could do a lot to relieve the pressure off of the crowded streetcars, subways and buses. It's good to see the TTC Chair take BIXI seriously and I hope that the centre and left of City Council can get behind Stintz's proposal. There's more hope for BIXI in the TTC than making small deals with developers.

UPDATE: A source has told me that Councillor Stintz will probably be making a motion at the next TTC meeting, May 24th, proposing that the TTC take over BIXI.

"Reaching the milestone of one million BIXI trips in 18 months is a significant achievement," said Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 34, Don Valley East), chair of the City's Public Works and Infrastructure Committee. "This is proof of the popularity of BIXI as a convenient, safe and practical option for traveling in the downtown core." (City News Release, Oct 2012. Image of Denzil Minnan-Wong from National Post)

BIXI opened 2 years ago with 1000 bikes. Montreal, on the other hand, launched with 3,000 bicycles in 2009 and expanded to 5,000 bicycles in the same year. Even more exciting, New York City's Citi Bike bikesharing system will open this spring with 10,000 bikes. Toronto’s system originally called for 3000 bicycles distributed between Dupont Street to the north, Lake Ontario to the south, Broadview Avenue to the east and High Park to the west.

Jared Kolb of Cycle Toronto notes that City data shows “the highest rates of use are on the periphery. If you’re going to make a proper investment, you have to have a larger network.” To that end Cycle Toronto launched a petition to Toronto businesses to have them express their support for a BIXI expansion. Many businesses see this as an easy win. Make it easier for customers or employees to get to their stores and they benefit.

But BIXI almost didn't open at all. Some City bureaucrats had advised Mayor Miller that BIXI would fail and weren't willing to recommend its eligibility for a loan guarantee. Miller eventually over-ruled those concerns when the cycling community made some noise.

BIXI Toronto operates on a shoestring. One only needs to compare the price tags among public transit options to see how cheaply BIXI provides flexibility to urban transportation, all without any real subsidy. The TTC capital expenses are 100% covered by the public purse. One subway train alone costs around $8.6 million (Star), which is more than the entire capital cost of the current BIXI Toronto system ($4.8 million). Yet BIXI Toronto has to pay all of its capital expansion costs, with only a small break in interest payments through the loan guarantee.

Toronto has made no expansion plans since BIXI's launch. The right wing administration is reluctant to support an expansion of BIXI. Denzil Minnan-Wong, the conservative chair of the public works committee, has been a reluctant champion of BIXI by posing for photo-ops when BIXI launched, saying "But now that it's here, you've gotta support it". Minnan-Wong more recently told Torontoist that “You want to get your finances done right. It may be more incremental, but what we want to do is ensure BIXI’s success, and that may require smaller steps than big leaps.” He noted that Montreal's BIXI ran into financial difficulties even with three times the number of bikes. “We don’t have a lot of extra money to put into any projects right now,” he added, citing a transportation department backlog “north of $300 million.”

What Councillor Minnan-Wong fails to mention, however, is that Transportation Services is actually incapable of spending the capital budget it is already allocated in any year. This is not intuitive so let me explain. The City has a capital budget for Transportation Services and the City will pay interest on that funding whether it gets spent or not for that year. The City, however, doesn't have enough planners, engineers and other staff to plan and carry out all the capital projects. So the money just sits there costing us interest. Why don't we, I ask, make good use of that funding to support BIXI expansion? As a turnkey operation it could quickly be expanded, would use existing capital budget thus wouldn't cost taxpayers anything extra. And it would pay dividends down the road by reducing transportation costs across the board.

BIXI is growing to be a key part of our urban transportation mix, extending the usefulness of public transit. Councillor Layton notes when traffic is heavy, riding his bike along King Street West is faster than going by car or streetcar. “I think if I park a BIXI next to these streetcar stops, people will get fed up and hop on a BIXI,” Layton said. “Then within six months they will have purchased a bike.” The investment hasn't matched that potential.

Staff have been working hard to find ways to expand BIXI short of coming hat in hand to City Council. They've been investigating "creative funding tools" (Torontoist) including corporate sponsorships and Section 37 development funds as Councillor Mike Layton has recently accomplished with a development in his ward 19. Staff are working on a report to City Council that "will flesh out details on funding models and an expansion strategy, and include specific recommendations to city council for next steps."

Cycle Toronto hopes that City Council will become convinced of the economic benefits of BIXI and will listen to the many businesses that want it to extend to their neighbourhoods as quickly as possible. We need to get beyond saving our pennies to try to expand the system piecemeal when the potential economic benefit is so large.

BIXI is offering a special rate for those who renew or purchase new memberships before the end of March (renewals extend from your original end date).

If you're an Autoshare member you'll get an additional 20% off. Note that BIXI operates year-round so you can start using it as soon as you purchase your membership. Or even get a day pass before committing to a year. The yearly membership is still below $100, which is peanuts compared to a monthly Metropass or even the average of $7000 a year that Canadians are sinking into their cars. You may even come out far ahead!

Spring is rolling our way (and none too soon) and BIXI Toronto is wheeling out its Early Season Special rate.

If you sign up for a new membership, or renew your current Annual Membership now, you'll get it at 2012 rates.

If you're already a member and your membership expires later in 2013, you can still benefit from this preferential rate.

For example, if your membership expires on July 15, 2013, if you renew now, the 2012 rate will be applied and your membership will be extended until July 15, 2014.

Public Bicycle System Company, the maker of BIXI systems worldwide was required by the province of Quebec to be sold off in a loan agreement with the City of Montreal. CBC reports that Serco, a large UK-based multinational that operates a whole range of government services from air traffic control to prisons to London's bikeshare system, is interested in purchasing BIXI.

This won't affect the existing systems using BIXI bikes since all but Toronto's are run independently. BIXI Toronto is owned by the international wing so it would likely be also be owned by Serco. Dan Egan of Transportation Services says that this won't affect BIXI Toronto's service since the owner would assume the 10 year contract with the City.

Previously, Alta Bicycle Share had also expressed interest in purchasing BIXI. It's not clear if they're still in the running. Alta operates the bikesharing systems in Washington, Boston and Melbourne. They will also soon operate ones in New York City and Chicago.

Some local Quebec investors are also interested.

If BIXI must be sold, it would be ideal if the new owner was focused on creating extensive and efficient bikesharing systems. Given Alta Bicycle Share's one and only business is bikesharing it seems like their interests would align much better than Serco, which has its fingers in so many different pots.

Despite the repeated requests by people for more BIXI stations, there doesn't seem to be a lot of political movement in expanding BIXI Toronto right now. While BIXI Toronto is expected to be financially self-sustaining, it does need access to funds to expand. In answer to that yours truly, in conjunction with the Toronto Cyclists Union and The Urban Country, have launched a web tool for collecting your BIXI Toronto "wishlist" stations. wewantmorebixi.to allows you to add your suggested Bixi station locations to a map. You can also vote on existing suggestions made by other people.

We will keep BIXI Toronto informed of the popular spots as well as use the results as part of the Bike Union's campaign to increase the number of BIXI stations up from 1000 currently. There are no firm plans as far as we know for any major expansion, but hope springs eternal. And we do hope that we can make a dent into the car-centric mind of City Council which has so far been mostly unable to see how supporting cycling infrastructure saves us bundles of money in the long run. There is no more road capacity; we'll have to increasing rely on bikes, transit and walking if we want to move around.

BIXI Toronto and the city of Toronto will be relocating 17 stations to accommodate snow removal operations. BIXI is taking advantage of this to relocate under-performing stations to busier locations outside of the original service area to as far west as Euclid and far east as the Distillery District.

The locations moving:

BIXI Toronto will also expand the station at Phoebe Ave / Spadina Ave by adding 24 news docking points. BIXI Toronto area has 8 km2 and with these relocations, the area will now have 12 km2. BIXI Toronto will then enlarge its territory by 50%.

For the schedule, visit our website at toronto.bixi.com or follow our BIXI Toronto Facebook page.

BIXI Toronto Statistics

BIXI Toronto has 3936 members and is really proud to almost have 4000 members after only 6 months of service!

Since May 3rd, BIXI Toronto users have done 372 417 trips. Even if the temperature is slowly going down, the average number of trips per day has almost not decreased.

BIXI Toronto wants to remind all its users that the system is up and running all year around and is the first system open all year in Canada.

Poor Gordon. He was so happy at the convenience, but at some point in the morning reality dawned. I estimate from the pricing chart that Gordon paid at least $100 for that rental (assuming he kept it at his house for about eight hours).

I just received BIXI Toronto's July newsletter and these are the milestones they've reached in just over 2 months:

• Average time/trips (for members): 12 min. 54 sec.
• Average distance/trips (for members): 2.15 Km
• Number of persons who have tried the system so far: 17,903
• Busiest day: July 1st (with 2,907 trips made)
• Total distance travelled so far: 244 998 km (50 times the distance between Vancouver and Halifax!)
• Number of trips since launch (since May 3): over 100,000

I just got back from Montreal where BIXI was born. The bikes are a bit older, and some are a bit worse for wear, but they've stood up to some rigorous use. Montreal has some great separated bike lanes, which tonnes of bike traffic, but not every street is good for cycling. They too have many streets like Toronto's but with the large coverage of BIXI you see people biking even on the less friendly streets. In Toronto we've got fewer friendly bike lanes, but BIXI is just as popular and may reach its 1 millionth ride in less than one year. A big achievement in Rob Ford's Toronto.