As of today, Oct. 6, there are about 780 members of BIXI Toronto. The BIXI Toronto team is hosting a party to celebrate this accomplishment and help push the number over the top.
All Members are invited to bring a non-member to push us over the 1000 mark. So come to the Steam Whistle Brewery to eat great local food, and drink award-winning Steam Whistle beer. The only cost is your membership. Steam Whistle Brewery has kindly donated their venue for this great event.
The event will be at the Steam Whistle Brewery (next to the CN Tower), Monday October 18th, and doors open at 6:30pm. The event is free with a BIXI membership.
Send an RSVP to bixitoronto@toronto.ca Subject: BIXI Party.
By the way, if you see this image on the sidebar, copy it to your own blog or post it as your Facebook profile or Twitter profile. Include a link to toronto.bixi.com so people can find out more and sign up:
Comments
A.R. (not verified)
The drama of reaching 1000 members
Sun, 10/10/2010 - 14:00The city should have just forced some condo developer to provide all buyers with Bixi membership, like that University Avenue condo that's supposed to not have any car parking. Then there would be no need for the drama of whether or not it will make it to 1000 members. However, the drama does build publicity and in the end we want a lot of people willingly making the commitment. But if we were a little short of 1000, there are options.
jamesmallon (not verified)
A perverse hope
Mon, 10/11/2010 - 00:58It is perverse, but I almost want Bixi to fail. Sometimes you need a complete collapse in order to get a revolution. Diddling about as we do in Toronto does nothing for the status quo, nor a paradigm shift.
Antony (not verified)
The less dramatic philosophy
Mon, 10/11/2010 - 23:03The less dramatic philosophy is that change is slow, and unglamorous. Paradigm shifts take a lot of pressure and trust (for Vélib, Parisian traffic and governance respectively)
My guess is that a complete collapse of Toronto bikesharing would leave a giant political smoking crater that none would approach. Combine with a Rob Ford council and Toronto wouldn't see progress for 6 years.
jamesmallon (not verified)
Cycling is not the main issue: transportation paralysis is
Tue, 10/12/2010 - 07:19When it comes to Bixi, you are spot-on; however, though I ride very frequently, cycling is not the main issue that transportation paralysis is: by which I mean that not a single mode of transportation is both efficient or pleasant in our town. In truth, if I want to get out of my neighbourhood it is unpleasant to cycle, walk, take transit or drive. In all modes but transit my definitions of 'unpleasant' includes unsafe, as well as various meanings of disagreeable.
Cycling is one of the main solutions, as is better transit, and a more agreeable walking environment. All three solutions require infrastructure, but for all three much can be done with a few new traffic laws, and a lot more enforcement of those and the old ones.
Advocating cycling is 'pissing in the wind': advocate transportation improvement, of all types. Even an autohead might be made to understand that more money on the other modes of transit gets more people off of 'their roads' and out of 'their way' than a multiple of same spent on 'improvements' aimed narrowly at the driving public.
thomas owain
Bixi arguments
Tue, 10/12/2010 - 10:39I've decided that advocating cycling is very useful, especially in a case such as Bixi where it leads to a real project. Right now - and it's on a knife-edge - it looks possible for a change to take place. People will see Bixi, and get used to it. Then we work on another project, one similar to Bixi in being difficult but possible, and we succeed again, and people get used to that.
No one ever needs to be persuaded of anything difficult or intellectual. Torontonians just notice change, and become comfortable with it, grumbling all the way to pleasantness.
jamesmallon (not verified)
but they hate cyclists
Tue, 10/12/2010 - 23:23The Toronto attitude towards cyclists is so ignorantly negative, that advocating cycling in-and-of-itself does more harm than good.