Bixi Comes to SF
Montréal’s successful Bixi bike sharing program came to San Francisco… but only for a day.
The Brandenburger Foundation, an organization working to spread the Bixi Bike Sharing System, brought a small set of seven bikes and a solar-powered pay station to Golden Gate Park this past weekend to promote bike sharing in San Francisco. From an article in the SF Chronicle:
Sunday’s event was run by the Brandenburger Foundation of Newport Beach (Orange County), which is working to spread Bixi – a mix of the words “bike” and “taxi” – from Montreal, where it was launched by that city’s parking authority. Its representatives are on a tour of West Coast cities including Long Beach, San Jose and Portland, Ore.
It’s estimated a one-year bike sharing subscription under Bixi would run approximately $120. The ultimate goal is to have pay stations at many parks throughout the city, with subscribers picking up and dropping off bikes at their leisure. Under this model, the system would eventually be financially self-sustaining.
8 Responses to “Bixi Comes to SF”
Your timing is great. I just got a message from a former coworker who has a friend working on a story about bike sharing. Her question to me was, “Does it work anywhere?”
I had to tell her that I’d have to post the question to some folks who might know.
Hey Alan:
As someone who truly has left his heart in San Francisco, I don’t see much agreement between these very simple (although eye-catching) Velib-style bicycles and the intriguing terrain of metro San Fran.
A sturdy single-speed speed bicycle doesn’t offer much hope of getting up Russian Hill … or any other of those hills. So it seems you would always be walking it uphill, and then praying that the brakes work on the downhill side.
I’ve always considered San Francisco to be more of a scooter town.
… Nate (Salt Lake City)
@Nate
I was wondering about that too; some of the hills in SF are downright frightening.. LOL. I’d love to hear from some SF locals about how they deal with the sometimes steep terrain.
Bike sharing would be an excellent addition to any city, including SF. Although geared bikes would be useful for a hilly city, the huge number of fixie riders in the city prove that biking with a single gear is possible. I wonder if internally-geared hubs would be durable enough to withstand the abuse shared bicycles face.
The Vélib system in Paris has an insentive to encourage people to bike up hills: you get free time if you take a bike from one location and return at a location of a higher altitude. A similar program could be instroduced in SF.
Ottawa has recently introduced a pilot project using Bixi bikes to test the viability of bike sharing in the capital region. I hope this is successful and doesn’t get stalled for a decade like Ottawa’s lightrail plans.
Now it’s BC’s turn. Vancouver and Victoria would be great cities for bike sharing due to the excellent climate. The mandatory helmet law would make it difficult, unfortunately.
Plenty of people with Bixis use them to climb Mount Royal, Montreal’s only serious hill (although there are others as well).
I’m actually amazed that the Bixi has been as successful here in Montreal as it has been so far; I see them everywhere, which is not at all what I predicted since bike ownership in Montreal is already the highest per capita in North America. With so many people owning their own bikes, I couldn’t really see why anyone would take a Bixi. But they’re pretty convenient, and you don’t have to worry about locking them or where to store them in winter. Tourists are definitely one of the big groups of users, but I see quite a few commuters in business suits on Bixis as well.
It’ll be interesting to see whether the popularity sustains itself after the novelty wears off, but so far I’ve been impressed with the amount of ridership.
PS The Bixi bikes are 3-speeds, I think. Glad to hear it’s popular, Brad.
I was downtown this evening so stopped by a Bixi stand and can confirm definitively that they are indeed 3-speeds.
That’s actually adequate for anything you’d encounter in Montreal. My own city bike is a 7-speed and I only rarely use the very lowest or very highest gears.
Here’s one Chronicle columnist’s thoughts on the bike rental program in S.F
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/06BALH193SRN.DTL