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Toronto Bike Share

I was just on The Spit and suspect that the Bike Share station that was moved from the Welcome Pavilion parking lot to the Nature Centre last week was moved because they are now digging up the parking lot and, I assume, paving it. I suspect the bikes will return when it's finished.
 
I was there recently too but the cost of e-bikes seemed excessive to me. (Membership plus 10 cents a minute). I too saw lots in racks! I suggest both cities need to look at the pricing and conditions to try to balance tyhings better.

I wonder how feasible it would be to upgrade all of the bikes to e-bikes.

I rode one for the first time last month, and was amazed at how physically effortless it made cycling. It certainly seems like a thing that would get a lot of people hooked on cycling.

I have no idea how much these things cost to build or maintain, so excuse me if this turns out to be a bit of a ridiculous suggestion.

10 cents a minute isn't too bad, a typical 15 minute ride would cost $1.50. People are just cheap.

Electric bike shares are much more expensive because you not only need to buy the bikes, which are generally ~3x as expensive as a regular bike, you need to set up the charging infrastructure.
Okay so this idea is a bit out of left field, but I believe that Metrolinx should look into investing heavily into e-bike shares to address the "last-mile" problem at GO stations. Such a program wouldn't be unique to Toronto - it's quite normal for commuters to cycle to rail stations in Europe and Asia - but this idea hasn't been given much consideration in the North American context.

A cyclist on an e-bike can, with next to no physical effort, travel about 4.5 kilometres within 15 minutes. If all GO rail stations in Peel Region participated in the bike share program, we can see that most of the Region would be within the 15-minute-or-less cycling catchment:

Screen Shot 2021-09-18 at 5.47.19 PM.png


This would yield huge time savings when compared to the status quo where commuters either have to:
A) Wait 15 to 20 minutes to catch a bus that'll likely take another 15+ minutes to reach the GO station, or
B) Drive to GO stations, where they'll not only have to battle road congestion, but also spend a significant amount of time battling congestion within these massive GO parking lots as well.

To further encourage adoption, Metrolinx should look at making these bike shares free for commuters transferring either to or from the GO network or other Rapid Transit lines. That could save bike share users potentially thousands of dollars a year in local transit fares.

Would this "solve" the last-mile problem? No, absolutely not. E-bikes would not be an option for persons with mobility issues, usage would likely plummet in the winter, and certain commuters just wouldn't be interested in this option at all (I'm probably not going to cycle in a suit). But what this would do is free up space on our roads, parking lots and on local transit for other commuters to use, while making commutes for e-bike users a lot faster than any of the current options.

Other impediments to implementation would be the lack of a cycling network or existing bike share systems in the outer suburbs. But both of those problems are fairly easy to solve, and I suspect from a benefit-cost perspective, investments in suburban bike share systems would prove to be a far more lucrative option to address the last-mile problem than any of Metrolinx's current initiatives (eg, more parking lots, BRT, microtransit, etc...).

The nice thing about this idea is that we could get the ball rolling with a very small initial investment. Perhaps start with a trial run with e-bike shares in the neighbourhood of a handful of GO stations, and expand to additional stations if the program proves successful. This program doesn't need to solve the "last-mile" problem for all commuters - it would be a great success if we can even get even a fraction of GO commuters out of their cars.
 
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The problem with bikeshare as a last mile solution for the suburbs is that the morning rides all end in the same place, and the evening rides all start in the same place. So no one actually shares the bikes, meaning you need essentially one bike for every member of the program.

Maybe it's better than the current parking and congestion nightmares that most GO stations create, but it doesn't bring the main benefits of bikeshare to the community.
 
The problem with bikeshare as a last mile solution for the suburbs is that the morning rides all end in the same place, and the evening rides all start in the same place. So no one actually shares the bikes, meaning you need essentially one bike for every member of the program.

Maybe it's better than the current parking and congestion nightmares that most GO stations create, but it doesn't bring the main benefits of bikeshare to the community.
Yes, and you probably want to pick 'your bike' up each morning at your own home (or garage!) and return it there at night. Maybe you should just buy one!
 
Yes, and you probably want to pick 'your bike' up each morning at your own home (or garage!) and return it there at night. Maybe you should just buy one!
Yeah, if you want to spend public money to get people biking to GO trains, investing in some bike lanes to make it safe seems the best bang for your buck, rather than bike share. Those suburban streets are very inhospitable to cyclists.
 
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Yeah, if you want to spend public money to get people biking to GO trains, investing in some bike lanes to make it safe seems the best bang for your buck, rather than bike share. Those suburban streets are very inhospitable to cyclists.
It's a mix of both.

Bike share won't work in pure suburban areas, but in "mid suburban" areas (think Plains Rd in Burlington), it would probably work fairly well. if the network was relatively robust enough, combined with some decent cycling infrastructure, you would probably see people use bike share for a mix of local trips and connecting trips to the train.
 
The TPA seems to have plans to further expand the Bike Share System - this from their Capital Budget Report to their Board on 29 September. http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2021.PA26.2

Critical projects identified within our strategic framework for 2022 include Talent Development, Health and Safety, fast tracking the deployment of Toronto Parking Authority's Electric Vehicle Charing Infrastructure, accelerating expansion of the Bike Share program, and development and execution of our asset management plan.
 
The TPA seems to have plans to further expand the Bike Share System - this from their Capital Budget Report to their Board on 29 September. http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2021.PA26.2

Critical projects identified within our strategic framework for 2022 include Talent Development, Health and Safety, fast tracking the deployment of Toronto Parking Authority's Electric Vehicle Charing Infrastructure, accelerating expansion of the Bike Share program, and development and execution of our asset management plan.

DSC beating me to it................

But I can still build on the above a bit, from the report:

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1632318779741.png


Oooh, 38 docks is next year.....but that's on only 2M and change........expansion is proposed over 4 years to the tune of 17.125M!

1632319007366.png


But it's mostly back-loaded to 2024/25

1632319189351.png
 
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A quick look at those numbers:

Whereas 2.125M is said to equal 38 docks and 700 bikes

The additional 15M (not factoring in inflation) would translate to ~ 266 docks and 4.900 bikes. * (some of those bikes are surely replacements, not net new)

So, subject to confirmation, it looks like the plan, inclusive of the year ahead is for something in/about 300 docks and well over 5,000 bikes over a 5-year period.

That would bring us too something in the range of 925 docks.
 
500 e-bikes?

Do we have a sense of how many are in the network at present? Because it feels like I haven't seen one in 6+ months.

There's exactly one this morning, if you want to race over to Broadview and Dundas to enjoy it! LOL
 
Unrelated to the expansion (which is very exciting, indeed), posting here the details of a frustrating experience I had last week in case others run into the same problem. A couple weeks ago, both I and my wife got new phones, which of course meant that we had to re-download (or at least sign back into) our bike share accounts through the PBSC app.

Neither of us could successfully sign into the app, nor could we use it to purchase single ride or day passes to take out some bikes. We tried three different credit cards, password re-set, whole kit and caboodle, but nada. And then I realized that, even though I had downloaded the app directly from the link on the Bike Share Toronto website, there was a small logo I didn't recognize on the interface (which looked otherwise identical to how it normally does): Chattanooga, Tennessee.

So I emailed Bike Share TO and said, "Hey, here's this problem and also what's up with the Chattanooga, Tennessee logo?" Their answer was, "Oh, yeah you just have to click on the Chattanooga logo and then scroll through the list of bike share providers until you get to Toronto in the list, then select that one, easy!"

Hard pressed to think of a dumber/less initiative UX, but there you have it. Missing the Transit App these days, I am...
 
Unrelated to the expansion (which is very exciting, indeed), posting here the details of a frustrating experience I had last week in case others run into the same problem. A couple weeks ago, both I and my wife got new phones, which of course meant that we had to re-download (or at least sign back into) our bike share accounts through the PBSC app.

Neither of us could successfully sign into the app, nor could we use it to purchase single ride or day passes to take out some bikes. We tried three different credit cards, password re-set, whole kit and caboodle, but nada. And then I realized that, even though I had downloaded the app directly from the link on the Bike Share Toronto website, there was a small logo I didn't recognize on the interface (which looked otherwise identical to how it normally does): Chattanooga, Tennessee.

So I emailed Bike Share TO and said, "Hey, here's this problem and also what's up with the Chattanooga, Tennessee logo?" Their answer was, "Oh, yeah you just have to click on the Chattanooga logo and then scroll through the list of bike share providers until you get to Toronto in the list, then select that one, easy!"

Hard pressed to think of a dumber/less initiative UX, but there you have it. Missing the Transit App these days, I am...
I've had to re-log in a few times lately too. Including yesterday morning. And checking the app again right now, sure enough....log in required again. Fortunately my password manager mostly takes care of that, but it still annoying and slows down the process of checking out a bike.
 

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