Weather or Not to Bike-share

Snow-covered London's Barclays Cycle Hire

Is it ever too cold to bike-share? A rather mild North American winter and a pretty rough Central European winter is causing a lot of thought on whether or not to bike-share in winter weather.

As was posted here on December 12, 2011, many bike-sharing systems around the world went into hibernation in December. A notable exception is Canada's Toronto bIXI. It has stayed open and enjoyed the milder winter. Last month, Toronto celebrated the "Coldest Day of the Year" bike ride. It was not very cold and one can see the bike-share bikes are right up front in the photo below.

According to the Gazette, the spokesman for both the Montréal and Toronto bIXI systems, Michel Philibert, indicated that they will watch Toronto's experience, as that city embarks on its first winter with a bIXI service to determine if Montréal should stay open through winter as well. He also had respectable usage numbers for Toronto's system on the winter days that are above freezing. The most northern systems in Asia are the Tianjin Binhai New Area Public Bicycle and the pilots programs in Beijing, China which are open and operating in the winter cold. Although the most northern system in Europe, Trondheim, Norway's Bysykkel is in winter hibernation, the northern German city of Hamburg has StadtRAD rolling. Even in winter with snow or just cold, it seems there can be bike-sharing in the world's upper latitudes.

bikeMi in Milan, Italy this month

Anyone can ride in the winter 

Not only latitude, but altitude also effects the weather. At the foot of the Rocky Mountains at 5,400 ft (1,650 m) above sea level, Colorado's Boulder B-cycle has left two of its stations open for the winter. The locations near the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research will test how the stations, bikes, and users fare in the extreme temperatures. They hope the lessons learned will allow year-round service. 

As for bike-share users, here is a link on tips from ICEBIKE for the winter cyclist. Enjoy riding in the snow, if you have some!

images: Barclays Cycle Hire, The Torontoist, bikeMi on CNTV, Rider from Flickr: comedy_nose

Russell Meddin    bikesharephiladelphia.org

Toronto closer to being the 2nd major Canadian City with Bike-sharing

Last night, Autoshare Car-sharing brought Toronto, Canada closer to Bixi Bike-sharing by buying 100 yearly subscriptions to fulfill one of the city government's requirement that 1000 pre-subscribers sign up before proceeding with a bike-sharing program for May 2011. The Toronto plan is to start with 1000 bikes and 80 stations within the Central Business District. Now only another $150,000 CDN ($145,500 US) in yearly sponsorships for each of the next three years must be secured on top of the generous ING three year commitment to fulfill the last requirement before the program can begin.

It will be good to see bike-sharing once more in Toronto!

image: Toronto Bixi

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

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The Bike-sharing World this Week

North America

Toronto, Canada just might finally get a new bike-share system. After on again - off again negotiations for over a year, the Toronto City government is close to signing an agreement with Public Bike System (PBS) of Montréal, Canada to set up a 1000 bike, 80 station program to start a year from now in May 2011. According to cyberpresse.ca, Public Bike System will pay the $4.8 million to install the system and cover the $1.3 million projected yearly operating cost. In return, PBS is asking for Toronto to guarantee the investment until usage fees and advertising revenue cover the initial cost. After that, all revenue from the system, above the operating cost, would be shared between Toronto and PBS.

Also in Canada, Montréal wakes up its BIXI system from its winter hibernation earlier than originally planned. More than half of the system's stations will be operational on April 20, 2010 in anticipation of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.

Europe

This week bike-sharing began in Valence, France and announced in Valence, Spain.

Libélo began service to Valence and it’s surrounding towns in the Sud Rhône-Alps part of France. The system has two parts: Regular bike-sharing with 160 bikes in 18 stations using the Smoove “Key” system (Bike-sharing Blog September 21, 2009) where the first 30 minutes usage is at no charge. The daily rate is around US$ 1.35 and the yearly subscription is US$ 20. Long-term bike-sharing is available with 200 bikes which can be kept for 3 to 11 months at a charge of around US$ 15 per month. These bikes are not available at the stations.

Valencia, Spain (Valence in French) signed an agreement with JCDecaux to begin a 2750 bike program with 275 stations. This Cyclocity bike-sharing system is tied to a new 20 year street furniture advertising contract with the city. This is the 5th Cyclocity system for JCDecaux in Spain.

Asia

In preparation of the Shanghai Expo 2010 “Better City Better Life,” the Shanghai bike-share & bike rental system, Rent Me a Bicycle, is expanding for the May opening of the Expo. At least 40 new stations or “Bicycle Hot Spots” will be near the Expo area to service the nearly 70 million expected visitors. The bikes are accessed by a stored value RFID (radio frequency identification) card which serves as a deposit and gives 100 ride credits for around US$ 30. Very short rides, after re-docking the bike, are rewarded by adding credits to the card conversely, keeping the bike for longer periods will subtracts credits. The Shanghai Rent Me a Bicycle system plans to expand to 3500 “Bicycle Hot Spots” throughout the entire city by 2012.

Image credits: ibiketo, Libélo & RentMeBike

Russell Meddin - bikesharephiladelphia.org/

Toronto Bike-sharing Forum

Following the lead of other clean transportation activist groups from around North America, the following is a press release, hot off the virtual presses, from the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation:

"On Thursday, September 18th, The Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation, the Clean Air Partnership
and the Community Bicycle Network will bring together a series of exciting presentations focused at sparking community discussion on public bike sharing in Toronto. We are excited to screen the short film Bike Share in Paris by Streetfilms, exploring the Vélib bike sharing revolution in Paris. Following the short film screening, we will be engaging the community in a stimulating discussion through a series of three presentations. Veolia Transportation’s David Boyce will give a presentation on the history of bike sharing systems and the OYBike street-based bicycle rental technology that is accessed via mobile phone. From a local angle, the Community Bicycle Network’s Herb van den Dool will offer an historical perspective on bike sharing in Toronto. Finally, Alain Ayotte will offer some insights on the challenges of
starting to implement North America’s largest and most promising bike sharing program in Montreal.

"This community forum will be coupled with a follow-up stakeholder roundtable, and a summary of both consultation
sessions will be submitted to the City of Toronto as a research report that will feed into the City’s process for planning a public bike sharing system.

"WHAT: Bikes as a Public Good: What is the future of public bike sharing in Toronto?
WHEN: Thursday September 18th, 7:30 pm
WHERE: Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto
(northwest corner of St. George Street and Sussex Avenue)
WHO: David Boyce, Veolia Transportation, USA
Herb van den Dool, BikeShare, Community Bicycle Network, Toronto
Alain Ayotte, Montreal Public Bike System, Stationnement de Montreal
Hosted by Dave Meslin

"For more information contact: Fred Sztabinski, Project Coordinator, Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation
(TCAT), 416-392-0290, info@torontocat.ca.

"For the full list of speakers, podcasts, and PowerPoint presentations visit: http://torontocat.ca/main/publicbikes."

Toronto Going for Green

According to an article in Canada's Globe and Mail, Toronto Councillor Adrian Heaps "expects to announce the rent-a-bike program by the end of October" with a Summer 2009 launch.

The term "rent-a-bike" is the article author's terminology. Calling bike-sharing "rent-a-bike" is like calling a fine California wine "grape juice". Rent-a-bike is what bike shops do. Bike-sharing is what cities and universities do. One is recreation, the other is transit.

The article continues, " '[The bike-sharing service] should be privately run. I'm of firm belief [the city] should have no role in running it, though we certainly should be setting the standards,' Mr. Heaps said.

"But lack of funding has blocked at least one similar endeavour. Toronto's Community Bicycle Network bike-share program sank in 2006 after they it find the funds, said mechanic co-ordinator Sherri Byer.

"The network charged membership fees of about $35 and relied on grants, she said, but it wasn't enough. Still, the market is there."

The Community Bicycle Network ran Toronto Bikeshare, a great 2nd generation program operated by highly dedicated individuals. Registered customers could access bikes by speaking with the shop owner, University of Toronto staff member, or other individual who had a key to unlock the bikes from a rack just outside of the respective organization's building. These were yellow utilitarian bikes and wheelbender racks. It wasn't high tech to be sure, but for a low budget program it was a good economical idea that worked for many years.

When I visited Toronto Bikeshare a few years ago I was impressed with Toronto's bike infrastructure and bike mode split. I'm sure bike-sharing will do well there. I imagine the tender for an operating would be out next month. Stay tuned Torontonians.

photo credit: urbanmkr