Screw walking

For the summer months, it is up to you, Capitalions, to ensure the bike-share movement becomes a permanent fixture in Ottawa.

Through the month of September, Bixi is operating a test-run of a service that is super-popular in other cities around the world, and mad-handy if you are on-foot and would rather not be. There are four stations in the area – two in Gatineau and two in Ottawa – where the rental of a bike is very affordable and easy to use.

After a $250 returnable hold on your credit card and a $3 initial fee, the first half-hour is free, the next two are $3 and the fourth and any more after that are $6. You get 24-hours of use each time you accept the rental agreement, even though the stations are only open 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

So – if you rent a bike at 9 p.m., you have unlimited use of the system until nine o'clock the next night, only required to pay the half-hourly rate when you are using it. And each time you take a bike in the 24-hour period, the first half-hour of still free. And, if you want to return your bike after closing time, you may. All the bike docks at the stations will accept bikes around the clock, but you cannot take a bike while the stations are closed.

This is a great plan for an urban landscape like ours. Instead of trying to navigate two transit systems to get to either side of the river, a quick rental will get you across a bridge faster than the bus will, and there are no schedules to follow.

Bixi started in Montreal this May, operating 300 stations instead of Ottawa's four, as well as offering annual memberships ($78) with half-price discounts for transit-pass holders. The Ottawa-Gatineau project seems more intended to ease car traffic on the Alexandria and Portage Bridges (stations strategically placed close to either end of both), where as Montreal's network is very dense and spread out (a station on every other corner of a large swath of the city), making maneuvering the downtown core easier than in a car and faster than on foot. Vancouver is also considering the project for their city.

image courtesy of deletiondistortiongeneralization.com

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