Toronto’s Bixi in trouble
The city's bicycle-sharing program can't cover operating costs
Toronto’s two-year old Bixi bike-sharing program is in financial trouble, as it has struggled to cover its operating costs. The company that owns Bixi is divesting and the city of Toronto is now considering a restructuring of its 10-year business plan of the program.
Chair of the city’s public works committee, councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, says the city is thinking of private-sector options to protect its financial interests, chiefly, a $4.8 million loan guarantee. Toronto’s manager of cycling infrastructure, Daniel Egan, says the city doesn’t want to kill its bike-sharing but to “[move] forward with the intention of improving the Bixi program in Toronto.”
Bixi anticipated that the program would grow to 3,000 bikes by the third year of its existence, but has only 1,000 machines on the road.
The program has suffered from operating through the winter, unlike Montreal’s Bixi, which goes into hibernation in the cold, dark months. The city of Montreal had to bail out its Bixi program in 2011 to the cost of $108 million.
