BIXI goes into hibernation. Montréal’s harsh winters and the threat of snow remove bike-sharing from the streets of the city for five months. Yesterday was the last day of BIXI in 2009. Their press release stated, "Currently, it is no longer possible to rent a bike, but users can continue to bring their bikes to the various stations still available in the coming days." This video explains the station removal process.
StadtRAD is rolling strong in Hamburg, Germany. This Call a Bike affiliate has 1,000 bikes, but is a bit different because it has 85 stations all with self-serve kiosk. Customers may sign up and rent through the kiosk or the regular Call a Bike telephone method. This hybrid system has been very successful with 223,000 trips having been taken in the first three months.
Handlebar lock on Breezy Rider
The winds of mid-October brought Breezy Riding bike-sharing to Daejon, Korea. This is the second program in South Korea. For a city of 1.5 million, this is a very small system with 200 bikes and 20 stations, but the electronics on these bikes make it very big in interest. The bikes have an electronic locking system on the handle bars. Registration is on-line and the city's value added transit card can be used for payment. A good overview of the system is at Breezy Riding One and Breezy Riding Two. According to the Korea Times, now even Seoul is considering bike-sharing for 2011.
