Bixi brought bike share to a sliver of the downtown core this spring, but the majority of Toronto residents are still reliant on their own wheels to get them from place to place. Meanwhile, there is one Etobicoke community that already has its own bike-share program, of sorts. Alexander Labayen, 35, operates it out of his home garage.

Toronto, as we have learned in the last few weeks, loves its new Bixi bikes. After six weeks of operation, ridership stats are strong, and so far the biggest problem is that some destinations are so popular that there aren't any available slots to dock the bikes at certain stations. Hoping to capitalize on the momentum, the Toronto Cyclist Union is launching a campaign to expand the bike sharing program.

SPOTTED BY: Andrea Toole. WHERE: On Bay Street, across from City Hall. WHEN: This afternoon. WHAT: At 3:06 p.m, Toole tweeted: “Male driver jumped curb, ran over @bixitoronto bike row on Bay St. across from City Hall,” and included links to two photos of the crash’s aftermath (see more photos here). A few minutes later, [...]

“Today we are celebrating the introduction of an amazing new piece of cycling infrastructure into our city’s portfolio.” With those words, Toronto Cyclists Union director of advocacy and operations Andrea Garcia gave her blessing to the long-awaited official launch of Bixi Toronto yesterday morning. Despite the rainy conditions, cyclists and media descended upon Gould Street [...]

A screenshot of Bixi Toronto’s newly updated website, as it appeared earlier this morning. Bixi Toronto is scheduled to launch exactly one week from now, on May 3. Until Monday night we still had doubts, because there were no new details on how, specifically, the rollout was going to work. But the Bixi Toronto website [...]

Bixi’s initial service area. Screencap from the Bixi Toronto website. After a long period of silence, Bixi Toronto announced today via Twitter that it will, in fact, be launching on May 3. Daniel Egan, manager of cycling infrastructure and programs for the City, says the public can expect to find out the exact future locations [...]

Some Bixi Montreal bikes, locked in a bike station. Photo by spcbrass, licensed under Creative Commons. Bixi was tentatively approved by City Council in May, but its eventual arrival is still not quite a certainty. The bike share service has strict pre-launch targets to meet before the City will allow it to go forward, and [...]

It's (almost) all bikes, all the time, in today's Urban Planner: Car Free Day in Queen's Park, a freebie concert at Yonge-Dundas Square, BIXI dreamin', The Future of GTA Transit, and some art.

Bixi takes over the Gladstone, last night. If you’ve paid Montréal a visit lately, you’ve probably seen a Bixi bike. The bulky, vaguely European-looking public cruisers have been gracing the streets of La Belle Ville since last spring, when the program launched to the tune of twenty thousand subscriptions. Last night, hundreds of keen bike [...]

Photo by chewie2008~, from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Toronto just ordered a thousand new bikes, then nixed plans to install bike lanes on one of the City’s most central thoroughfares. UPDATE: And it was all a terrible mistake. The thousand new bikes are courtesy of Bixi, which passed Council on Tuesday night, meaning the public [...]

University Avenue in 2005. Photo by Property of Parkdale, from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Spring has apparently sprung for Toronto’s cyclists. Today saw the release of the agenda for April 20′s Public Works and Infrastructure Committee meeting, and it’s full of excellent news about Bixi and bike lanes (subject to Committee and Council approval, of [...]

Bixi-riding in Montreal. Photo by jonny.hunter. Rumours have been flying about the impending launch of Bixi, the public bike sharing service, in Toronto. Now, the long-anticipated local rollout appears to be in jeopardy. This morning, blogs I Bike T.O. and The Urban Country posted calls to action, citing insider knowledge that “someone in the City [...]