Bixi Chosen by London & Boston

Montreal’s Bixi bike system has been selected as the technology to use for the bike sharing programs what will be implemented in Boston and London.

London will have 6000 bikes distributed over 9 districts
Boston will use Montreal’s call centre.  Luckily, for the success of the system, helmets are only mandatory for children under 16 in Massachusetts.

Some of the announcements:
The Gazette
Transport for London
Boston Announcement

There are competitors to our bixi however :
B-cycle has a pilot system in Denver

Here’s a very favorable review in the Boston Globe

Bike share seems to be sweeping over the continent!

Trams to return to Vancouver

Trams will make a special appearance during the Olympic games in 2010 from January 21st to March 21st.

Brussels Flexity Tram

A special demonstration line will run from the new Canada line station on Cambie Street to Granville Island. It will be 1.8km of single track line with a passing loop ½ way (the red part in the image below). STIB, the public transport operator in Brussels, will provide two of their new Bombardier Flexity trams. The best part – it will be free!  If successful, the system could be expanded to go to Stanley Park via the skytrain stations of Main Street and Waterfront (the blue part).

Street car route

The participants of the demonstration project are:

• City of Vancouver
• CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation)
• STIB (Société des Transports Intercommunaux de Bruxelles)
• Bombardier

As the pictures on Bombardier’s web site show, this is definitely a temporary installation. The catenary poles are just normal telephone poles! It does appear that even though there is an existing rail line, the entire track is being renewed.

With a passenger capacity of 178 (seated + 4 pers/m2 standing) and 6 doors per side, this vehicle will show to Vancouverites what can be done with modern transportation systems.

More information:
http://olympichostcity.vancouver.ca/gettingaround/publictransit/olympicline.htm

Quebec increases funding for Mass Transit

Some good (but vague) news from Quebec.

500M$ over 5 years to increase usage of Mass Transit