BIXI Bikes: Failure is not an option

For BIXI, Toronto’s two-year-old bike sharing system, there’s good news and then there’s bad news.

First the good news. According to a report released at city hall last week, the BIXI system “has been very successful” from an operational perspective, with 4,630 paid annual subscribers and 1.3 million generated trips. Studies have shown it makes people more likely to cycle.

But here’s the bad news: per the same report, BIXI Toronto is in severe financial distress. It hasn’t made a payment on its $3.9 million outstanding city-backed loan since November of last year. As far as the money is concerned, the wheels have fallen off.

So what next? When news of the troubles broke last week, politicians quickly started to take sides, pushing to either nix or fix BIXI.

For his part, Mayor Rob Ford immediately ruled out consideration of a financial bailout. But TTC chair Karen Stintz was more circumspect, arguing that some subsidy from the city might be worth pursuing.

Stintz is right. Failure is not an option. With all eyes in the GTA on high-priced plans to tackle gridlock and congestion, bike sharing can represent a low-cost piece of the solution. It’s already paid dividends, introducing active mobility for thousands of people who would have travelled by subsidized rail or road.

BIXI’s entire capital outlay to date would, at most, pay for a handful of articulated buses or part of a single streetcar. With the high cost of moving people via other means, BIXI represents a bargain — even with some public subsidy.

That said, there are a lot of things BIXI should do better. The puny coverage area is the biggest failing, as the zone omits a huge number of residential areas that bike-loving urbanites call home.

Then there’s the sponsorship angle. The Daniels Corporation made a splash when they sponsored a new BIXI station outside their Regent Park condo project.

But we haven’t seen many other developers do the same, which makes me wonder if the BIXI company has really done all they can to push these opportunities.

Virtually all the condo dwellers I know would rather see BIXI at their door than other flashy amenities.

Hotels offer a similar opportunity. Why not make it easy for tourists to access conveniently located (and sponsored) BIXI stations outside the place they’re staying? Sightseeing by BIXI sure beats a crowded tour bus on a nice day.

The important thing is to not fall back and erase any progress made over the last two years. In the coming decades, this city will spend billions of dollars fighting traffic congestion.

Our BIXI bikes can be a small but important piece of that fight — but only if we keep the wheels spinning.