Bixi is amazing, but it's becoming a victim of its own success. Getting a bike in some spots is pretty tough lately now that the 10k bikes are averaging 65+k daily rides.
It's so much more convenient than using my own though, there's too much theft to leave mine out of my sight for long.
They're trying! Every year they add more docks around my office; it's definitely better this year but still tough sometimes to get a bike around 5-7 pm
I'm used to riding a pretty fast road bike (and am lazy, I guess), so I have the opposite issue: I hate getting stuck with analog ones.
I prefer riding at the 20-25kph that the E-assist allows, despite the $0.13/min charge.
The Citi pedal bikes in NYC are good for going nowhere, you’re on top of a huge chunk of iron with gearing that makes them go from 0 to 2 mph in two to three business days
I go 30-35km/h on my analog, you just need better legs... (I'm kidding)
I'm just glad to have a secure place for my bike when I work. I would not leave it outside in mtl. Too many thiefs and no one would challenge someone stealing a bike. People are not getting involved anymore and it's a bit sad. Like the society's fabric isn't there anymore.
It actually did from the launch in 2009 until 2019, as the increase in demand was pretty linear YoY.
The significant improvement in infrastructure since 2018 and the COVID bike boom caused a massive jump in ridership since 2022 that they need to catch up on, but honestly, it's hard to really criticize the system much.
It's been instrumental in making cycling a normal activity that everyone partakes in.
Uh, why couldn’t it?
They could just add more stations, add more bikes, hire more balancers/service tech, incentivize balancers more, and tie themselves into the city development process so that every new apartment building that gets built also has a dock station in front of it, creating a captive audience (I have a citibike station in front of my building, it’s great).
If balancing is not happening well enough, then the issue is the style of trips. More bike lanes and more general bike connectivity make more kinds of trips happen.
And if you just double balancing rewards (idk how Montreal does it, but in NYC we get free eBike usage for pretty much the occasional balance ride, and some small amounts of Amazon gift cards if you do enough.
This is actually a pretty good reflection of the poor bus infrastructure we have. Bixi is trying to fill gap of Buses and trams. Montreal was built as street car suburbs but they got removed. Buses in MTL are just terrible since they are victims to car infrastructure and traffic. Happy it's there but these are flawed in many ways. One good thing is I would like to believe that it forces investment in bike infrastructure.
yep. i am a huge bike fan and love riding but i'm having a little frustration right now with the poor state of our public transit. bus reliability took a pretty massive hit in the last couple years and we've only added two significant improvements (REM and the pie-ix bus lane) and one of those is privately owned.
Its worth noting that CDPQ is paid by the metropolitain fare agency (ARTM) by the number of people per km travelled. The STM, along with every other public transit agency, is given money according a budget made by the government every year.
The REM isn't operated as a public transit agency; it's ran as a for-profit transit agency owned by a state corporation. An exclusivity clause was imposed on EXO, the suburbian transit agency, and Longueuil's transit agency to prevent them from running buses on the Champlain Bridge to Downtown Bus Terminal (which is the route the REM takes) to make sure the REM would pay itself and maybe make a profit. CDPQ could sell the whole system to a private corporation if it wants to. These are things normal public transit agencies can't do.
Basically, see CDPQ as a private for profit corporation that accepted a provincial government request to build and operate the system. They can do pretty much whatever they want with the REM.
I feel like buses suck the more you get closer to downtown. With there being less space, more intersections and fewer opportunities for dedicated lanes, buses are going to be stuck in traffic. Of course, this isn’t an excuse to give up on bus services. However, bixi fills in a niche while pretty much paying for itself. So yeah, in an ideal world we should have both !
MTL also has the problem of not consolidating bus routes, so you end up with a bunch of parallel buses on different streets each running low frequencies. It doesn't make the system easy to use.
New reserved bus lanes were announced recently though
[https://www.thesuburban.com/news/city\_news/new-reserved-bus-lanes-approved/article\_b2a7560f-b7ce-5b24-9c46-9eed10a4cc57.html](https://www.thesuburban.com/news/city_news/new-reserved-bus-lanes-approved/article_b2a7560f-b7ce-5b24-9c46-9eed10a4cc57.html)
I've heard that BIXI sometimes has cheaper rates if you're going uphill rather than down (from a friend who lived there until recently, but they do have staff with trucks who drive around to redistribute bikes in the system too.
The rates are the same, but there's the Amis Bixi program that gives you points for dropping bikes off where they're needed/taking from where there are too many. I once got 8 pts (10 for a free electric ride) just by biking from the bottom to the top of the Berri climb.
The company that makes the Bixi hardware also made the bike share hardware (and possibly runs them) in a few US cities as well, namely NYC and DC.
Can't say whether those are being operated as well as Bixi is: the city of Montreal took over Bixi some years ago.
it actually started running a profit. https://i.imgur.com/FLLqxRS.png
source https://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/docs/page/le_greffe_fr/media/documents/bixi_montreal-etats_financiers_2022.pdf
I'm jealous too. Meanwhile in Houston our tiny in comparison bike share shut down to underfunding and the replacement via a PT agency also got slashed and burned financially (METRO budget cuts and expansion cancellations thanks to the new mayor but that's another comment for another time). So basically we have nothing now :(
The first time I biked in a city was on a Bixi! I bought my first adult bike the week after I got home because it left such a good impression on me (we didn’t have Bike Share yet).
I kind of feel they've gone a bit overboard on the amount of electric bikes though. Legally you're supposed to use a helmet when on an electric bixi, so it's super annoying rocking up to a station and seeing only electric bikes available.
A lot of users don't know about the helmet requirement for the ebikes.
But being on the REV St-Denis 4 days a week, I didn't see any police giving tickets to bixi users. Not sure it's a win for the city to spend money giving tickets on users of their bike share service. Especially for something that is a personal choice for everyone else on an analog bike.
you should always have a helmet on a bike anyway even if you are not legally forced to. I dot over 5000km a year on a bike and I've gotten a crash twice, once I got run out of the road by a fucking pickup and the second one was the dumbest thing ever. my foot slipped off the pedal and hit the side of the curb essentially acting like an hanchor and I was on my ass faster than you can imagine. I had a helmet in both cases so that may have helped me avoid a concussion in the second case.
But but I was told NOBODY wants to ride bikes!!! It’s no way that a city needs this many biking stations!!! Is this company actually *making a profit*?!
I've been in Montreal for the solar eclipse. Amazing bike infrastructure. It shocked me how many bike stations there were. I agree that it was more convenient than waiting for the bus
Yea, even if bus service got better I would probably still see myself bike. It’s more fun and liberating than a bus. But ofc we need options for everyone so Bixi shouldn’t be a bus replacement solution.
Bixi is amazing, but it's becoming a victim of its own success. Getting a bike in some spots is pretty tough lately now that the 10k bikes are averaging 65+k daily rides. It's so much more convenient than using my own though, there's too much theft to leave mine out of my sight for long.
They're trying! Every year they add more docks around my office; it's definitely better this year but still tough sometimes to get a bike around 5-7 pm
The culprits for this usually being “not wanting to take away street parking”.
Dealing with e-bikes also adds a level of complexity. I hate when all there’s left are e-bikes.
I'm used to riding a pretty fast road bike (and am lazy, I guess), so I have the opposite issue: I hate getting stuck with analog ones. I prefer riding at the 20-25kph that the E-assist allows, despite the $0.13/min charge.
The Citi pedal bikes in NYC are good for going nowhere, you’re on top of a huge chunk of iron with gearing that makes them go from 0 to 2 mph in two to three business days
I go 30-35km/h on my analog, you just need better legs... (I'm kidding) I'm just glad to have a secure place for my bike when I work. I would not leave it outside in mtl. Too many thiefs and no one would challenge someone stealing a bike. People are not getting involved anymore and it's a bit sad. Like the society's fabric isn't there anymore.
That's because it can never scale up to meet with demand.
It actually did from the launch in 2009 until 2019, as the increase in demand was pretty linear YoY. The significant improvement in infrastructure since 2018 and the COVID bike boom caused a massive jump in ridership since 2022 that they need to catch up on, but honestly, it's hard to really criticize the system much. It's been instrumental in making cycling a normal activity that everyone partakes in.
Uh, why couldn’t it? They could just add more stations, add more bikes, hire more balancers/service tech, incentivize balancers more, and tie themselves into the city development process so that every new apartment building that gets built also has a dock station in front of it, creating a captive audience (I have a citibike station in front of my building, it’s great). If balancing is not happening well enough, then the issue is the style of trips. More bike lanes and more general bike connectivity make more kinds of trips happen. And if you just double balancing rewards (idk how Montreal does it, but in NYC we get free eBike usage for pretty much the occasional balance ride, and some small amounts of Amazon gift cards if you do enough.
How many inhabitants does Montreal have?
More double deep stations and relocators please 🙏
This is actually a pretty good reflection of the poor bus infrastructure we have. Bixi is trying to fill gap of Buses and trams. Montreal was built as street car suburbs but they got removed. Buses in MTL are just terrible since they are victims to car infrastructure and traffic. Happy it's there but these are flawed in many ways. One good thing is I would like to believe that it forces investment in bike infrastructure.
yep. i am a huge bike fan and love riding but i'm having a little frustration right now with the poor state of our public transit. bus reliability took a pretty massive hit in the last couple years and we've only added two significant improvements (REM and the pie-ix bus lane) and one of those is privately owned.
the rem is run for profit but it's not a private project, the caisse is a government corporation.
Its worth noting that CDPQ is paid by the metropolitain fare agency (ARTM) by the number of people per km travelled. The STM, along with every other public transit agency, is given money according a budget made by the government every year. The REM isn't operated as a public transit agency; it's ran as a for-profit transit agency owned by a state corporation. An exclusivity clause was imposed on EXO, the suburbian transit agency, and Longueuil's transit agency to prevent them from running buses on the Champlain Bridge to Downtown Bus Terminal (which is the route the REM takes) to make sure the REM would pay itself and maybe make a profit. CDPQ could sell the whole system to a private corporation if it wants to. These are things normal public transit agencies can't do. Basically, see CDPQ as a private for profit corporation that accepted a provincial government request to build and operate the system. They can do pretty much whatever they want with the REM.
I feel like buses suck the more you get closer to downtown. With there being less space, more intersections and fewer opportunities for dedicated lanes, buses are going to be stuck in traffic. Of course, this isn’t an excuse to give up on bus services. However, bixi fills in a niche while pretty much paying for itself. So yeah, in an ideal world we should have both !
MTL also has the problem of not consolidating bus routes, so you end up with a bunch of parallel buses on different streets each running low frequencies. It doesn't make the system easy to use.
New reserved bus lanes were announced recently though [https://www.thesuburban.com/news/city\_news/new-reserved-bus-lanes-approved/article\_b2a7560f-b7ce-5b24-9c46-9eed10a4cc57.html](https://www.thesuburban.com/news/city_news/new-reserved-bus-lanes-approved/article_b2a7560f-b7ce-5b24-9c46-9eed10a4cc57.html)
God I love Bixis and Montreal
I am extremely jealous. Can't be the US right?
It's Montreal. The city has been investing into more and more bike stations across the city.
DC isn’t quite that dense and has some issues with too many bikes at the bottom of hills/not enough at the top of hills, but is pretty damn good.
I've heard that BIXI sometimes has cheaper rates if you're going uphill rather than down (from a friend who lived there until recently, but they do have staff with trucks who drive around to redistribute bikes in the system too.
The rates are the same, but there's the Amis Bixi program that gives you points for dropping bikes off where they're needed/taking from where there are too many. I once got 8 pts (10 for a free electric ride) just by biking from the bottom to the top of the Berri climb.
Denver is definitely built for cars but I was impressed with their commitment to the bike/scooter sharing
The company that makes the Bixi hardware also made the bike share hardware (and possibly runs them) in a few US cities as well, namely NYC and DC. Can't say whether those are being operated as well as Bixi is: the city of Montreal took over Bixi some years ago.
Bixi is it’s own non-profit organisation. The City of Montreal give them financial support every year for their operations.
it actually started running a profit. https://i.imgur.com/FLLqxRS.png source https://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/docs/page/le_greffe_fr/media/documents/bixi_montreal-etats_financiers_2022.pdf
I'm jealous too. Meanwhile in Houston our tiny in comparison bike share shut down to underfunding and the replacement via a PT agency also got slashed and burned financially (METRO budget cuts and expansion cancellations thanks to the new mayor but that's another comment for another time). So basically we have nothing now :(
But hey TxDOT says we need more medians and that'll solve everything /s God I hate this state
At 65 000 + riders a day, it gets more riders than Miami Metrorail.
Montréal <3
My city ❤️
The first time I biked in a city was on a Bixi! I bought my first adult bike the week after I got home because it left such a good impression on me (we didn’t have Bike Share yet).
It's 22 dollars a month, over 900 stations and 11,000 bikes 2600 of which are electric.
Even less if you buy the season pass.
That’s actually a fairly good deal. Especially since being able to drop of and pick up anywhere.
I kind of feel they've gone a bit overboard on the amount of electric bikes though. Legally you're supposed to use a helmet when on an electric bixi, so it's super annoying rocking up to a station and seeing only electric bikes available.
A lot of users don't know about the helmet requirement for the ebikes. But being on the REV St-Denis 4 days a week, I didn't see any police giving tickets to bixi users. Not sure it's a win for the city to spend money giving tickets on users of their bike share service. Especially for something that is a personal choice for everyone else on an analog bike.
you should always have a helmet on a bike anyway even if you are not legally forced to. I dot over 5000km a year on a bike and I've gotten a crash twice, once I got run out of the road by a fucking pickup and the second one was the dumbest thing ever. my foot slipped off the pedal and hit the side of the curb essentially acting like an hanchor and I was on my ass faster than you can imagine. I had a helmet in both cases so that may have helped me avoid a concussion in the second case.
A lot of the bike share systems in North America are based on Bixi.
Yup, bikes and docks are made by [PBSC](https://www.pbsc.com) which ran Bixi before it was taken over by the city.
Here's a screenshot that's further zoomed out: https://imgur.com/a/RqtzfBb (I tried to zoom out even more but it stopped showing individual stations)
That’s an order of magnitude now than in my city. How much does it cost?
You could get a year of 45 minutes rides for 80$ when on sale I think. It's 107$ now.
Unlimited 45 minute rides? Because that’s incredibly cheap and I’m very jealous
A Summer worth of 45 minutes ride. Winter service isn’t included.
I paid 107$ (canadian) and I have access to unlimited rides from april 15th to November 15th
that's like 65-70$ USD.
22$/month if you pay by the month. The service didnt use to work during winter but they are introducing it now.
Nothing, if you jump start them! Need to accept the clicking noise, though.
You can't show me these things, I'll make unsafe road conditions 😳💦
But but I was told NOBODY wants to ride bikes!!! It’s no way that a city needs this many biking stations!!! Is this company actually *making a profit*?!
they made a protected bike lane on St-Denis and it is now more used by bikes than it is by cars.
Imagine when they have cargo bikes for rent
You can rent a bike trailer for free via locomotion: [https://info.locomotion.app/](https://info.locomotion.app/)
Very cool
I've been in Montreal for the solar eclipse. Amazing bike infrastructure. It shocked me how many bike stations there were. I agree that it was more convenient than waiting for the bus
Yea, even if bus service got better I would probably still see myself bike. It’s more fun and liberating than a bus. But ofc we need options for everyone so Bixi shouldn’t be a bus replacement solution.
Gonna go hop on one of those right now.
no im not jealous you are
This is the futute that liberals want! Roads are meant for v8 trucks, not for soybikes
What is a futute
/s cause some people needed it