[URBAN NOTE] "Should TTC take over Toronto’s Bixi bike program?"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star's Tess Kalinowski introduces the idea of the TTC taking over the Bixi bike-sharing program. I have to say that while the idea does appeal to me thematically--why not integrate all of Toronto's transit networks?--I wonder whether the TTC can really take on Bixi with its debt of four million dollars. Noteworthy is the fact that the mass transit agency of Montréal, the city that introduced Bixi to Canadians, has chosen not to take on that city's Bixi network despite its higher ridership (and, apparently, its own debt).

[Toronto Transit Commission chair Karen] Stintz said she will make a motion at this week’s council meeting requesting staff explore the idea.

“I absolutely see Bixi as being an integral part of public transit in the city,” the councillor for Eglinton-Lawrence told CP24 on Sunday.

It’s a natural fit, said Jared Kolb of Cycle Toronto.

“When you look at trips within our city, what public bike systems like Bixi do is they fill in the gaps for trips that are too short to take transit or too far to walk – that two-kilometre sweet spot,” he said.

Once the Presto fare card is launched across the TTC – something that’s supposed to happen by the Pan Am Games in 2015 – it could also be used to access Bixi bikes, suggested Kolb.