Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
After lots of anticipation, City Hall has taken another baby step on the path to realizing a large-scale bike-sharing program. More than two years after the Community Bicycle Network–run BikeShare stopped operating and eight months after Councillor Adrian Heaps, chair of the Toronto Cycling Committee, first mused out loud that a new bike-sharing program would be launched this year, the City finally put out a Request for Expressions Of Interest (REOI) in the Toronto Public Bicycles Project late last week.
The REOI offers a peek into the potential bike sharing program that organizations will be bidding on when the Request for Proposals is released later this year. Slated to start in spring 2010 with three-thousand bikes, the project would initially see bike stations located 200–300 metres apart in the downtown area bounded by Parkside Drive, Dupont Avenue, Broadview Avenue, and Lake Ontario, with provisions for future expansion.
With stipulations both that "no advertising may be placed on sidewalks and boulevards" to support the program and that it must be provided without cost to the city, it's most likely to be funded by membership fees. Given the "no advertising" provision and that Councillor Heaps mistakenly believed that Astral Media had the right of first refusal on any bike-sharing program, it looks like Astral turned up its nose at the idea.
According to the outline set forward in the REOI, bikes would be free for the first thirty minutes for users with monthly or annual membership cards, but occasional users would also be able to swipe credit cards at any of the bike stations. The system would run twenty-four hours per day year-round, allowing for unspecified off-season shrinkage. The City will also allow potential proponents to bid solely on providing the infrastructure, leaving the day-to-day operation to another organization to be selected later.
We assume that the requirement for the operator to "share surplus benefits" from the program with the City means that whoever ends up running the program won't be able to hoard all of the healthy people, reduced car traffic, cleaner air, and general happiness of the city's inhabitants. Oh, and profits, too.
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So, the idea is that people with credit cards will pay a monthly fee to use a bike every now and again? Or they'll pay a one-time fee for a single ride?
Why wouldn't someone just spend the $100 on a used bike and own it? Which would be exponentially cheaper in the long term; guessing at what the fee's would need to be in order for this to be worthwhile for any company.
On that note, this is supposed to be a for-profit venture opportunity for a company? Which would then have to maintain the fleet of bikes, as well as the parking stations, as well as contend with the fact that people will just plain steal the bikes. But, they're not allowed to use advertising as as revenue stream. Not to mention the start-up costs in an economic climate where even good ideas can't get proper funding. So, what exactly is the profit model for this?
This idea seems far-fetched and near-sighted even for city council. I'd be more inclined to applaud a Unicorn-sharing program.
Sometimes all you can do is shake your head and cry at the stupidity broadcast from that building.
Occasional users would be able to pay by the ride instead of having a membership. Details would be determined by whoever ends up running the program, but think of it as paying a cash fare on the TTC versus buying a wad of tokens at a discount.
As for why someone would join a bike sharing program rather than buying a used bike, there are lots of reasons: maintenance, storage, security, theft, and convenience, just off the top of my head.
I see what you're saying Val, they're all the same points that you'll find in support of this type of program; based on successes in Europe. However, it still makes no sense to me.
The only argument I can find for using this type of program over buying a used bike is storage, which I don't think is much of any issue for anyone, even with the scarcity of square footage in Toronto. The other points: maintenance, security/theft, and convenience aren't really incentives to spend the cash. Maintenance is air in the tires maybe once every three weeks at most, which is about 25 cents. Security could be a concern but a decent lock and a used bike go a long way in preventing that; this might be the only workable angle at all though. The convenience argument is already kinda shot taking into account what's happened in Europe so far, lack of available bikes in the morning rush-hour plus lack of places to "park" them in popular destination points. Not to mention that it's hard to argue a bike stand 500M from my house is more convenient than my bike at my door.
But, aside from the clear lack of demand for something like this, I don't see how any company would go anywhere near this. Keep in mind, the successful programs in Europe have all allowed the corporate operators to place advertising space on their equipment, thus enabling them to actually make money.
Also, the infrastructure with regard to bike lanes isn't in place to support the initial success of this program, let alone any sort of boom in the amount of bicycle traffic on the road.
It would be lovely, it really would. But, I really believe that if anyone wants to ride a bike they do, there's no major hurdles keeping people off bicycles except for road space, which this doesn't address. So really it's just another glaring example of how short-sighted and clueless city council really is. Remember this when the program launches with a tax on the milage so Miller can stick his finger in the dam of his drunken economics again.
(Sorry for the shitty writing, it's been a long day.)
"The only argument I can find for using this type of program over buying a used bike is storage, which I don't think is much of any issue for anyone, even with the scarcity of square footage in Toronto."
You're considering frequent cyclists, not infrequent cyclists. As with car-sharing (which I do, shout out to AutoShare here!), this makes sense for irregular users.
Storage space is in fact an issue for me, as I suspect it is for many (would-be) occasional cyclists. My basement apartment lacks anywhere to lock bikes in the nearby outdoors, so my wife keeps her bike inside. This is doable, but there is not room for two bikes inside, especially when I would only be using a bike perhaps a dozen times per year. So I have no bike, and those times when we might go ride somewhere together just don't happen. If I could snag a bike for a few hours for a few dollars, I probably would do so several times per spring/summer.
It all depends on how much the membership and usage fees are. They might not be as high as you seem to assume.
Sadly, if Astral Media isn't involved, this project is likely doomed to succeed.
Awesome news. :)
Toronto will also have the benefit of seeing how Bixi (Montreal's Bikesharing system, starting this spring) fares, and what problems it runs into.
AJB:
A large portion of the people who use Velib (the Paris bikesharing system) are tourists. Sure, most Parisians who want to cycle already own their own bikes... but tourists *love* them... what better way to see a new city than by bike? :)
Parkside to Broadview? Suck on that, east end!
Broadview is on the east end. It's also one of the nicer places to ride a bike, because of the view.
You could also say "suck on that Etobicoke," which has roughly the same population density as the East end.
Yeah, as an east-ender myself, it's disappointing that the Danforth, Riverdale and Leslieville are being ignored (for now)... but that's what expansion plans are for. :)