BiXi Launched

Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay (standing) poses for pictures with the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë (sitting on the bike). Delanoë can rightfully take credit for promoting public bike rental systems in cities. (Image: BiXi) The moment has finally come! After many months in the making, the much-talked-about Montreal public bike rental system, Bixi, has launched. Over the past few weeks the city has installed a number of automated bike rental stations and launched a web site allowing users to see availabilities in real time (both the number of available bikes and available docking slots).

Although the system is geared mainly towards residents of the city, tourists can take advantage of it as well, with monthly and even daily tariffs available.

Once you have your membership, the first 30 minutes of bike use are free and the counter starts ticking increasingly fast afterwards. The system is designed to encourage short trips and discourage bike hoarding.

As of the time of this writing (May 2009), the membership costs are as follows:

• 1 year: $78
• 30 days: $28
• 24 hours: $5