Tuesday marked the unveiling of the Bixi bike system in Toronto with 1000 bikes being installed at 80 stations sprinkled about the downtown core. This system already in use in cities like Montreal, Washington, and London allows the user to pick up a bike from one of the stations and leave it at any other station in the network at the end of the ride. Hopefully it will be a success and will be expanded across the city. This station near Spadina and Queen was almost full yesterday but I passed others that were nearly empty!
13 comments:
Can you use them for free?
Steffe - I think that you can buy a membership for 1 year, 1 month, or 1 day and then the 1st 30 minutes are free with small charges for longer rides. They are trying to encourage biking for short commutes and errands.
I think this is a wonderful idea and I hope it takes off. And that we get more and better bike lanes through it.
and I am glad the bikes are not some outrageous yellow or something like the rented bikes were in Amsterdam!
My fingers are crossed that this system works well!
What a great idea. I didn't know Washington had it in place. I hope it works well.
A wonderful idea -- makes me want to move (at least temporarily) to a big city. We don't even have very good public transportation here.
Go GREEN! What a great eco-idea! Many large cities are jumping on this rental bike option!
am so glad this is here. are you planning on taking advantage?
I think these shared-ride plans are good ideas. When my daughter worked in Washington, she already had a bicycle, but she did use their Smart Car system frequently.
I think every city should have them. Nice photo.
I agree. Such a neat idea.
They've had them in Melbourne for over a year now, but it's been very slow to take off because helmets are mandatory here. So it's a bit tricky if you're a visitor to the city... and if you're a resident with a helmet, you probably have a bike already! So they're now selling helmets for $5 in every 7-11 in the city and you even get $3 back if you return it after your ride!
I saw loads of these in Lyon (France) in the autumn. By coincidence I posted a bike picture today - must be something in the blogging air!
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