BIXI Bikes & Neighborhood Bike Sharing

I was up in Montreal at the end of July this year and all around the city I saw these:

BIXI Bike Sharing in Montreal

In a short half hour walk around town (in a sad attempt at bar hopping while dead tired) I saw at least 5-6 bike stations. This was no half-baked bike sharing system. In fact, the map of BIXI stations is quite impressive. There are 300 stations setup currently and another 100 in progress (phase 2).


Intrigued, I checked out their website (English) and joined their facebook group once I was back stateside. Little over a week and a half later, I was surprised by an announcement that BIXI was going to roll out a similar bike sharing system in Boston. Seeing how I have my own bike(s), I don't know how much I personally will be using the service, but I think this is a great development for the city in general. There have been many instances where I've had to walk my bicycle solely because I wanted to be able to walk with my friends who were traveling bike-less. And of course, if I ever find myself without my bike, a BIXI bike would probably be my top choice amongst riding the T or walking.


In addition to using the bike share program around here, it would be excellent if they could include rentals in other BIXI cities. Maybe for a nominal fee (say an additional $12/yr on top of a $78/yr membership) include rentals in other cities. For someone like me, that would probably be the most interesting aspect of the service.

BIXI bike sharing will hopefully be in service in Boston in 2010. In the meantime...

Eventually there will be a picture
of all my bikes here

I lend out bikes whenever my friends are visiting from out of town as it's just a very convenient way to get around. I recently had a friend drop by from Chicago and touring the city on bike really allows you to cover a much larger area each day. Additionally, I've also lent out bikes to strangers on craigslist in the past. Of course, most of the time I gave them the bike I cared the least about (it still rides fine, but I won't be heartbroken if it's stolen). That made me wonder though, "Why isn't there a website out there that facilitates the sharing of bikes within a community?"

In my mind, I see this as some sort of hybrid between craigslist, couch surfing, and a forum/BBS. In fact, in the simplest scenario, this could just be built up on a dedicated forum with posts of "rental wanted" and "bike to share." Similar to couch surfing, one could build up a reputation based on other people's experiences with them. Of course, theft is always an issue with something like this. I'd like to think that humankind as a whole is still quite trustworthy, but of course even I'm still not going to lend out a bike with a value much higher than say $50. Even with its kinks, I think something like this is quite feasible, especially in Cambridge.

I don't want to force our local bike shops out of the bike rental business. I would just like to get more people on their bikes, but while there are people who are willing to ride a bike around the city, the rental rates are unconducive to this agenda. At $30/day and $150/wk rental rates, renting a bike for your one week visit puts you halfway to the cost of a decent new commuter bike. People want to ride bikes so bike rentals should be an alluring hook to catch new cyclists.