TTC agrees not to take on Bixi — for now
Posted July 24, 2013 8:10 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Toronto Transit Commission has agreed with a staff recommendation that it not add the struggling Bixi bike-sharing program to its business and leave it to the city instead.
But the board also backed commissioner Alan Heisey’s motion to reconsider the issue if the city can’t find a “satisfactory resolution.”
A report presented at the regular board meeting on Wednesday says the TTC’s core business is providing mass transit and taking on Bixi would be a “distraction from the TTC’s already-challenging mandate.”
It also states Bixi’s financial model is not sustainable and the company is carrying a $3.9-million debt.
“The TTC is already forced to cut important transit-related capital projects, because of funding constraints, as well as limit service improvements owing to financial pressures,” the report says.
The report—requested by the board last April—recommends the city, with its cycling experts, is in a better position to manage Bixi. It highlights publicly-funded bike-sharing programs in Montreal, Chicago, and London, England.
Bixi launched in Toronto on May 3, 2011 and has 4,630 paid subscribers, the majority of which are annual memberships.
See the full TTC agenda here.
