Bikesharing changes cities - Montreal's experience with Bixi

Bixi has changed Montreal, according to the Gazette. Can it change Toronto?

And there is something about the Bixi - something that has captured the imagination, the hearts and the civic pride of Montrealers. And made the Bixi popular enough that it garnered more than one million rides in its first season and, within months of its launch, had been sold to at least four cities on three continents. Clearly, more cities are in the offing: the solar-powered, wireless modular Bixi system, with its stations that can be installed and removed relatively simply, just might be Montreal's best-known export these days.

"The Bixi was an instant success," said Manon Barbe, the city of Montreal executive committee member responsible for transportation. "There was the fact that it was developed here in Quebec, that the design was a Quebec design and that it used materials from here. That it created jobs here. ... It is an extraordinary Quebec success story. And the people who made it a success are the cyclists themselves."

Part of it was the way they seemed to take to the system - almost to bond with it. Calls would come into Stationnement de Montréal - the city's parking authority developed Bixi and runs it - from people "saying they'd seen Bixis and they were not where they were supposed to be," Barbe said. Some would take the bikes home so that they'd be safe until they were picked up by a Bixi truck. Last summer, someone called to say he'd spotted several Bixis in a truck on the road to Ottawa - unaware that it was a Bixi truck and that the bikes were headed to the region as part of a pilot project. "People came to feel responsible for the condition of the Bixi," she said.

Certainly Bixi is creating a cultural shift. But instead of capturing those who genuinely love the service on film, someone out there seems to have created a rap video instead. BikeSnobNYC:

While knowledge can be difficult to imbibe by itself, it goes down much easier when it's dissolved in the delicious beverage of entertainment. Or, you can just funnel it down people's throats in the form of some Auto-Tuned swill, as is the case here.

It would have been better to avoid the whole Auto-Tuned swill altogether and stick with slick promotional videos like those coming out of London. Yet it's still entertaining to watch a bunch of white guys in Montreal Expos jackets rap while riding Bixi bikes.