Bikes from other cities’ bikeshare programs have been showing up in our Bixi system recently. Did some Londoner on his cycle-for-hire get exceedingly lost on the way home from the pub? Have foreign two-wheelers come to steal our homegrown Bixis’ jobs?[briefbreak]
Not exactly.
“We decided to put these bikes in Toronto so that our members could feel like they are part of the Bixi family,” says Marie-Hélène Houle, a spokesperson for the program. “We did this in Montreal and Ottawa as well.”
In all there are two bikes each from London, Montreal, Melbourne, Minneapolis, Washington and Ottawa currently in Toronto’s system, and while they’re recognizable by their different colour schemes, Houle assures us that they are not just Toronto Bixis with a fresh coat of paint. They’ve been shipped in from their native cities, she says, and a few of our bikes are currently touring the streets of Ottawa and Montreal.
The visiting velocipedes all have slight design variations: the Minneapolis and Washington bikes sport a half-basket, and the seats on the Montreal bikes don’t go as high as on our own. Bixi had to switch the brakes on the London bikes before rolling them out in Toronto, because in Merry Old England the front and back brakes are on opposite handles from the North American configuration.
For reference, below is a colour guide. Happy Bixi-spotting!
Navy blue = London Barclay’s Cycle Hire
Grey = Bixi Montréal
Bright blue = Melbourne Bike Share
Green = Nice Ride Minnesota
Red and white = Bixi de la Capitale (Ottawa)
Red and yellow = Capital Bikeshare (Washington)
