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!

Sneek Peek at the NDG-CDN Bike Path Proposal

Although the NDG bike path will be publicly announced on June 19th, a look at the city’s official ‘Plan de Transport’ (approved on June 11th) gives a sneek peek.

Here are the main projects for the NDG area (there are others for CDN as well):

1. Complete the de Maisonneuve bike path from DeCarie to Claremount to travel through Westmount.

• The CHUM mega-hospital project needs to start and the CP Decarie overpass needs to be modified.  This won’t be ready until at least 2010.

2. Cavendish from de Maisonneuve to St-Laurent

• Requires the Cavendish over pass to be completed before it can go further than Cote-St-Luc

3. From Concordia North on W. Broadway until Fielding and then east until Ellerdale and then to Isabella to eventually arrive at UdeM.

• Can be implemented now

4. Terrebonne from Concordia University to Girouard.

• Can be implemented now

5. Grand Blvd (not 100% sure but it makes sense since it is so wide) up from de-Maisoneuve until Fielding

• Can be implemented now

6. Girouard (& Clanranald/Earnscliffe) from de Maisonneuve all the way up to Ferncroft where it turns east to use Barclay/Plamondon until Wilderton.

• Can be implemented now

The full map can be seen on page 107 of (this link)  (40MB download – high quality maps)

The other question is what kind of paths will they be?  Here are four types with their evaluation according to Projet Montreal (page 26 of this document)

Happy Cycling!

UPDATE (July 1): The official Presentation from the City
Avid Cyclist Peter McQueen of Projet Montreal has his comments

We Need Bike Storage Lockers at Metro Stations

Many people never even think to ride their bike to the metro because they don’t think that the storage lockers are safe. Bicycle lockers could be used to allow people to make part of their commuting trip by bike.

Translink in Vancouver uses bike lockers like these that seem to work quite well.

Admittedly, the lockers would be significantly less used in the winter but perhaps with a bit of encouragement (reseau blanc) people would use them.

How it works:

1. You inquire if there are available lockers at the metro (or other location) where you want to store your bike.
2. If there is space available, you can sign up for the use of the locker on a seasonal or monthly basis.
3. You get a key and a dedicated and secure parking space (covered) for your bike (and all your expensive accessories) whenever you want it.
4. Once the rental contract is over, the lock is changed by the transit operator and a new renter can use the space.

The idea is in the Plan de Transport (page 82) and works well in Vancouver!