Toronto Bike Share

[wopchop]

Now I am confused as well.

Right?

In any case, it seems pretty clear to me that the company needed to expand in order to generate enough ridership to be viable. Unfortunately, they were unable to expand because they didn't have the capital to do so (it seems like they thought that the City of Toronto might pay, as other cities had done), and what little revenue that they were taking was just barely covering their operating expenses, and doing nothing for the debt.

I'm trying to understand how the current Bike Share is structured, but am failing. It sounds to me like they've adopted it as a public service, with a private operator. They've made comments about the system being "self supporting", and that growth will come as the system can afford it. If the current system isn't making any money, then how can this ever happen? So what does that mean? And now they need to invest a lot more money into new infrastructure before expansion, which doesn't give me much hope of seeing expansion anytime soon.

Hopefully they view this more as public transit, and realize that investment in cycling infrastructure is a great low-cost way to service ridership demand.

 

[Napoleon]

Hopefully they view this more as public transit, and realize that investment in cycling infrastructure is a great low-cost way to service ridership demand.

Indeed, bolding mine. Cycle stations, even if they are losing some amount of money, are such a cheap way to invest in moving people around. Far cheaper than roads, far cheaper than transit, and truly zero emissions.

 

[PinkLucy]

I saw lots of people riding Bixi bikes yesterday along the Waterfront (not just on Queen's Quay but elsewhere). Imagine how many more people would use them if there were more stations -- and imagine the sticker shock when those riders returned their bikes after a couple of hours.

 

[dowlingm]

The Parking Authority ended up with Bixi for no reason I can see beyond that they have cash (and thus Bixi / Toronto Bike Share subsidy not having to be allocated from property taxes) rather than any synergies. Perhaps I'm missing something.

 

[rbt]

The Parking Authority ended up with Bixi for no reason I can see beyond that they have cash (and thus Bixi / Toronto Bike Share subsidy not having to be allocated from property taxes) rather than any synergies. Perhaps I'm missing something.

There were 2 reasonable reasons for the Parking Authority to take Bixi. First, PA has all the land downtown which Bixi might use (both on-street and lot parking spaces). Second, PA lots are rarely next to the destination of the user with some of their outer cheaper lots being a couple km from where the person is actually going so Bixi might act as a downtown circulator for them.

Of course, what you describe is what actually happened; that and PA had back-office stuff (payment backend, accounting, etc.) which does bring the cost of Bixi operations down a bit.

Bixi would become very interesting if every single parking payment machine had a small (2 bike, one on each side) docking station built into it. It would be interesting to see a cost breakdown of the Bixi docking station terminal versus the single bicycle dock; I bet most of the cost is in the terminal which isn't all that different than the PA payment machines.

 

[Napoleon]

Bixi would become very interesting if every single parking payment machine had a small (2 bike, one on each side) docking station built into it. It would be interesting to see a cost breakdown of the Bixi docking station terminal versus the single bicycle dock; I bet most of the cost is in the terminal which isn't all that different than the PA payment machines.

Probably not practical for the space that most parking machines occupy, but that is quite a clever idea. If one thought a bit more about where to put a hybrid parking machine/bike station, it could be a great way to spread them out.

 

[dowlingm]

Better late than never:
http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/156...king-authority-partner-to-expand-bike-sharing

TORONTO, July 6, 2015 /CNW/ - Today, Metrolinx and the Toronto Parking Authority (TPA) announced a partnership to expand Bike Share Toronto. The expansion will more than double the size of the current network to allow more people to take advantage of seamless transportation options. This is a significant step in advancing the TPA's commitment to create a world-class bike sharing system for Torontonians.

The majority of the expansion is slated for the City of Toronto, but the agreement also provides for some bikes and docking stations to be set up in a willing host municipality within the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. This part of the agreement is a two-year pilot program to be implemented by December 2017.

As part of the partnership, the TPA will source and deploy the bikes and docking stations while Metrolinx will own them. The TPA will continue to operate Bike Share Toronto as it currently does.

 

[Tuscani01]

This is in addition to the 20 new docking stations that were supposed to be deployed by the Pan Am Games, but were delayed. Fantastic news!

 

[P23]

Double in amount of stations? Double in area covered? A combination of both? I skimmed the article but didn't see any specifics.

 

[Napoleon]

Double in amount of stations? Double in area covered? A combination of both? I skimmed the article but didn't see any specifics.

I haven't been able to find any specifics either. In reality, they need to both double the area covered and double the density of stations, which would mean quadruple the stations.

 

[ChesterCopperpot]

taking the bikes east of the Don would be nice

 

[PinkLucy]

Details apparently won't be available until the fall.

 

[andrewpmk]

Riding a bicycle on busy roads is dangerous with or without bike lanes. There are just too many hazards such as parked cars opening their doors, streetcar tracks, trucks, etc and most people who are crazy enough to ride a bike in Toronto have their own bike. Why is the province wasting money on this? The city recently published a report basically stating the obvious that bike lanes and "sharrows" are unsafe <http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2015/hl/bgrd/backgroundfile-81601.pdf>, and they have no data on "separated bike lanes" that are supposedly safer, and city council and the province continues to waste money on dangerous bike lanes and the bike sharing fad. It's not like "Bike Share Toronto" is at all successful, "Bixi" nearly went out of business and was bailed out by TD for a few years. Bike share systems pretty much everywhere are getting into trouble because hardly anyone uses them because riding a bike is dangerous.

 

[P23]

Riding a bicycle on busy roads is dangerous with or without bike lanes. There are just too many hazards such as parked cars opening their doors, streetcar tracks, trucks, etc and most people who are crazy enough to ride a bike in Toronto have their own bike. Why is the province wasting money on this? The city recently published a report basically stating the obvious that bike lanes and "sharrows" are unsafe <http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2015/hl/bgrd/backgroundfile-81601.pdf>, and they have no data on "separated bike lanes" that are supposedly safer, and city council and the province continues to waste money on dangerous bike lanes and the bike sharing fad. It's not like "Bike Share Toronto" is at all successful, "Bixi" nearly went out of business and was bailed out by TD for a few years. Bike share systems pretty much everywhere are getting into trouble because hardly anyone uses them because riding a bike is dangerous.

Pure, unfounded hyperbole. Riding a bike in Toronto is risky but so is walking:

http://torontoist.com/2014/01/torontos-bad-year-for-traffic-fatalities/

And why does a bike share system need to be profitable? It's a form of public transit. If anything, bikeshare should reduce it's fares to encourage more cyclists.

 

[andrewpmk]

The report clearly shows that riding a bike is much more dangerous than walking. Keep in mind that there are orders of magnitude more pedestrians than cyclists. In most parts of the city pedestrians are everywhere but there are only a handful of cyclists; only a tiny minority of the population rides a bike on busy roads in Toronto. Sure most bike accidents aren't actually fatal but the number of people who end up in the hospital is pretty large. Also you can clearly see from the map showing dots for bike accidents that bike lanes are unsafe, there are many bike accidents on roads like College St and Harbord St that have them. The statistics clearly show that riding a bike is the second most dangerous method of transportation (only motorcycling is more dangerous).

We need to spend money on real methods of transportation (i.e. subways and GO train electrification) not this nonsense. Bike lanes and bike sharing are a fad. Until 5-10 years ago they are pretty uncommon in North America even though bicycles have been around for a lot longer, and now we seem to have this craze where large numbers of cities all over the world are wasting money on this nonsense. In practically all of them, only a tiny minority of the population rides bikes because the vast majority of the population is too scared to ride a bike and practically all bike share systems have gotten into financial trouble because few people use them.