Comment 112678

By mdrejhon (registered) - website | Posted July 08, 2015 at 19:32:07

Press is occuring. And Toronto needs to notice.

"What does success look like for hamilton bike share", July 6th http://raisethehammer.org/article/2645/w...

"Hamilton’s SoBi bike-share hits 5,000 members", July 5th http://www.thespec.com/news-story/570933...

"The surprise success of SoBi Hamilton", July 9th http://www.hamiltonbusiness.com/dir/2015...

Metrolinx is giving Toronto $4.9M to just add only 1000 BIXI bikes to their system. Instead, unprofitable BIXI should be scrapped -- Metrolinx should spend $4.9M on 2000-3000 cheaper SoBi bikes Lakeshore-to-Toronto, instead of adding 1000 expensive BIXI bikes.

•SoBi costs less than half as much average cost per bike

•SoBi serves at least 2-3x bigger area per bike

•SoBi provides more stations more cheaply

•SoBi reduces bike rebalancing costs (people can dock anywhere, full docks aren't a distaster), crowdsourced bike rebalancing is available

With $4.9 million, Toronto can simply scrap the whole BIXI-derived system (resell to another city that needs a bikeshare expansion), and switch completely to a SoBi system. Based on the fact that Hamilton serves more users in a less-bike-friendly city in a mere 6 months, over a larger area with fewer bikes, the SoBi system has about 2-3x city coverage for the same number of bikes. Now double or triple the bike fleet, and you can have 6-9x coverage.

That means, for the Metrolinx $4.9 million, you can scrap BIXI completely, and have a much larger SoBi system stretching all the way from Liberty Village to the Beaches. Operating costs would even actually go down, especially if crowdsourced bike rebalancing features are activated.

Toronto should scrap BIXI and go cheaper SoBi that gives more for less.

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