Montreal's Bike-Sharing Program

Montreal Inaugurates Continent’s Most Ambitious Bike-Sharing Program

“The user takes a bike from one of the stations, pays at an automated pay station, and drops the bike off at any pay station in the network. The bike becomes another mode of urban transport unto itself, a practical, economical, ecological and healthy alternative to energy-guzzling vehicles.”

Bixi is nothing if not ambitious. The service is starting out with 3,000 of the specially designed bicycles distributed among 300 closely-spaced stations in its downtown core. But while it was directly inspired by Vélib, the service that started in Lyon, France, before moving to Paris, Bixi differs in many respects.

Chief among them was a decision by the city to run the system itself, rather than use an outside operator, and to fund it with fees from users rather than relying on advertising. André Lavallée, the municipal politician who championed the Bixi, said that the advertising opportunities are more limited in Montreal, while city ownership allowed greater coordination with the city’s bus and subway system.

Read the rest of the story at the New York Times...