Montreal’s bike hire makes 50 best inventions list

4 comments
By Richard Peace | Monday, Nov 10, 2008 4.49pm

Time magazine’s 50 best inventions of 2008 include the Large Hadron Collider, an invisibility cloak, a new way of serving in table tennis and Bixi, (from “bicycle” and “taxi”) which is Montreal’s impending public bike hire system. It actually came in at number 19, just behind the planet wandering New Mars Rover.

So why is it a Time best invention? “The modular bike-rack stations are web-enabled and solar-powered. The bicycles are designed with tons of sealed components to resist the savage beatings they will undoubtedly receive, and they’re equipped with RFID (radio frequency identification) tags so they’re easily trackable.”

From the spring of 2009 - when the snow’s gone - 2,400 bikes will be available at 300 stations in the city. Recently, Bixi Bike Squads have been out and about giving people the chance to check out the bikes and the pay stations – the system allows users (you need to have paid a membership fee) to pick up a bicycle from a self-service station on the street and return it to any one of the other stations in the city. The first half hour is free.

Being solar-powered, like Montreal’s car parking stations, the bike stations are not just environmentally sound. They can more easily be moved around to meet changes in demand.

Unlike many public bike hire systems, Bixi is not funded by an advertising company. Funding has been organised by Stationnement de Montreal, the company which looks after the city’s car parking. Membership fees help pay for the system. Currently they’re set at $78 a year (about £42.00) with the option of monthly or daily membership if you prefer. The bikes are home-grown, having been designed and manufactured in Quebec.

Sadly, the harsh winters mean that Bixi will only operate from mid-April to mid-November.

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User Comments

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  • With public money behind it, of course they had to re-invent the bicycle.

    I wonder what the real cost of the bikes is. Most hire fleets get turned over each year to save of the labour costs of replacing components with limited life remaining.

    The Bixis are obviously designed to be retained so it would be interesting to know what measures they have taken to sort this and what weight they are. I see they still have an exposed chain run which is surprising in a bike designed to be low maintenance.

    Answering my own question - just did a bit of Google research. The bikes weigh 20kg abt 44 pounds, and there will be 2,400 of them. Public money invested is $15,000,000 which gives a unit cost of $6,250 per bike. They expect an annual maintenance cost of $1,500 per bike. There's no way they will ever recover that cost, and it will be then held up as an example of the failure of the bicycle as a viable alternative.

    It's a load of subsidised bollocks.

  • You underestimate the propensity to publicly fund deficitary programs in Canada, and especially in Quebec. If it's seen to be for the greater good, which this project is right now, it'll keep getting funding. Also, having actually seen the bikes, most of that 6250$ by bike you calculate is in the parking station. The bikes looks indestructible, and weigh as much as a small SUV. My concern is more about expecting non-cyclists to negotiate Montreal's sometimes steep inclines with a 44-pound bike. That's like when I ride around town on my DH bike: extenuating. Time shall tell how it all works out in practice.

  • Financially viable? Depends on takeup. Yearly costs would be the 1500 + interest on 6250, say 5%, plus setaside for replacement, say 20% for a 5-year life, so 25% of 6250 is 1562.5 - call it $3,000 total per bike per year. So for each bike, you would need 38 subscribers @$78/year. Over a prime period of 10 hours, they could each have a bike for about 15 minutes. Of course, many will not use it every day, or take shorter trips. Not unreasonable.

    But the big savings are on taxes. More bikes => fewer cars => fewer roads, less wear and tear => less taxes. The biggest expense cities have is roads, making and reparing them. Car drivers are subsidised by taxpayers! Getting people out of cars saves taxes.

  • Thank you all for your Valuable info Definitely very helpful!

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