Raise the Hammer

I signed up for a year of Bixi here in Toronto, even though I have two bikes - a winter beater and a lighter hybrid that I use for the summer and for longer excursions. The idea of Bixi was appealing for those days that I wanted to bike, but only a one-way trip; cycling is always faster for me than the streetcar. But I let my annual membership lapse as the bike station closest to me (two short blocks) was moved to Queen West. There was not just the small coverage area (roughly Bathurst to Parliament and south of Bloor) and the low number of bikes, but the poor spacing of Bixi stations downtown that made it difficult to find bikes in the evening and drop them off in the morning. When you're stuck looking for a spare dock with the next closest station two blocks away, you're going to be a less likely repeat customer.

Toronto - where commuter/utilitarian cycling has become more popular - should have started with a minimum of 3000 bikes in a somewhat larger area - west to Dufferin Street (serving Little Italy, Trinity-Bellwoods, Liberty Village, Dufferin Grove), north to at least Dupont (properly serving Annex, Seaton Village) and east to cover Riverdale and Leslieville, with double the downtown bike docks.

But Hamilton is a much smaller city with a less-established utility cycling culture, so 750 bikes to start seems about right. Offering reservations - like car-sharing - seems like a great idea. The minimalist bike corrals make a lot of sense as well - hopefully there is a good surplus of spaces to prevent having to find another spare one farther from the destination. I hope SoBi succeeds as a model for smaller cities elsewhere (looking at you, Kitchener-Waterloo) to introduce bike sharing. Hopefully a phase two expansion takes it east, at least as far as Kenilworth, to feed the Cannon Street bikeway.

Finally, it would be nice to see a safe way to get from Downtown to Westdale/McMaster (which seems to be a focus of this initial phase), without going around via the TH&B trail.