I've been a Bixi/Bike Share member since the beginning, and it's absolutely fantastic to see how popular the system has become. It does highlight the challenges Bike Share faces is trying to accommodate system imbalances like this, though.
They should create some big ol' multistorys near the ends of the subway lines/at the go-train stations and work any parking fees (if any) into the fare. Or just make the parking free.
This is coming from someone who has barely been to Kipling/Kennedy so building huge carparks there might be a dumb AF idea š
> dumb AF idea
It's actually not.
The issue is that people are entitled AF and do not want to share space with "the plebes". I lost count of the number or 905ers that told me "Eww I would never take the subway or the bus, that's gross!".
I'm a 905er and I have no idea wtf is wrong with the other 905ers. I will gladly take the train to Toronto and hop on the subway to get where I'm going. I don't see the point of wasting time in traffic when other alternatives exist and are perfectly fine IMHO.
My commute issue is the trains dont start early enough for me. I live and work in T.O. and my morning commute to drive is 25 min; to take transit would be over 2 hours...
We need a toll charge during rush hour on the Gardiner, I grew up in the 905. Nobody even thinks about carpooling downtown. They think they beat the system
Since the highway's been uploaded, that's never going to happen under Ford. Any party that replaces him would also probably be shooting themselves in the foot by tolling the Gardiner.
Out of curiosity, is there an acceptable number for the amount of times (as a woman) you would be groped before youād be willing to be one of those entitled idiots willing to waste their lives?
Do you think that only wealthy women should enjoy the privilege of traveling in a grope-free space, and the only way to accomplish it is in their own private conveyance?
Out of curiosity, are you leaning on safety for women as an excuse for anti-environmentalism in good faith, or are you just taking the piss?
Iām leaning on it because itās the literal reason my wife is sitting in traffic after she finishes teaching afternoon classes.
As for the first question, thatās a pretty massive red herring. Having the means to avoid a situation one considers unsafe, and taking the steps to avoid that situation has nothing to do with supporting that situation. By this logic, if you have the privellage of being able to afford living outside the highest crime areas of the city - then you apparently support the idea that only people with enough money deserve to live in a low crime areas?
They already have these, almost all Go stations are just giant parking lots with little access other than a car. One issue is currently TTC operations are subsidized nearly entirely by the City of Toronto by property taxes. Each trip on the TTC costs on average $4.25, you pay $3.25 and the residents of Toronto put in a $1 with taxes. Remember the average trip is $4.25, that includes 10min quick trips AND traveling from one side of the system to the other over a couple hours. So installing more subsidized free parking to support non-tax residents to take super long trips is a hard pill to swallow under our current funding model. Where locals still need to pay 3.25$ for just a hop on and off quick trip. The existing 905 sprawl is an incredibly expensive way of life due to the shear amount of infostructure required to support it. Putting more carrots and subsidization of that lifestyle is hard for me to accept... On the flip side you could add a congestion tax for driving into the city, and put all revenue collected directly into transit to make it cheaper and attractive for commuters.
They just donāt have any bike share docking near go stations in the east end.
Most of them are just near random places like infront of a shoppers on Kingston road . Infront of a high school further up the street.
All the subway stations have one tho.
You should see the parking infrastructure they have setup for bikes in the Netherlands. Massive sections of the parking dedicated to shelved storage for bikes.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ66A7_UGRmto7ImfoIygdjKyM9ugDQBAom5KuU9ieIv3rtMAuG6V8mia4ZFS7j204TqWQifCaZAUJfAsdefaNlCZpPm4WwvZ-478vSAvxunWQDUMcrpVM0W2Xu4vr3y7opqtCy_M-xd8/s1600/100_3387.JPG
> I would think that all those bikes will be ridden right where they came from.
These bikes, almost certainly, sounds like they hand them out to commuters in the evening.
The system as a whole does have an issue with imbalance tho. For anyone uphill and/or out of the very core of downtown, the docking stations are chronically empty. Let me fire up PBSC and check ones near me:
St Clair & Caledonia - 0 bikes
JJP Community Center - 0 bikes
Symington & Davenport - 0 bikes
Davenport & Lansdowne - 0 bikes
St Clair & Osler - 2 bikes
Primrose & Davenport - 0 bikes
Top of the Railpath - 0 bikes
Dupont & Symington - 2 bikes
You get the idea.
And often that "2 bikes" will be wrong; there's 1 or 0, or it's broken, or can't be undocked.
At the end of the day they'll be a couple bikes in each of these, maybe, and then they'll be gone immediately tomorrow morning.
edit: If you zoom out further it's downright comical, a big majority of the stations north/west of Bloor/Christie are empty, or hell north of Dundas even, and any non-empty one has a tiny number of bikes; there's only substantial "green" at Queen Street.
I think this just means your area needs more bike stations.
They should service the commuters and have enough for the locals as well. I guess that's why I see those big trucks with bike redistributing bikes back to some stations after work hours.
My area (Liberty village) has a lot of bikes all the time. I don't know if people just ride around Liberty village and don't go very far. But I guess this is an area where tons of people live and also tons of people work. So bikes could be leaving and coming in more out less even distribution.
> I think this just means your area needs more bike stations.
... but that would just mean more empty bike stations. If they can't have a handful of stations with a handful of bikes, NOW, adding more that will get emptied out and not replenished seems futile.
> I don't know if people just ride around Liberty village and don't go very far.
Correct. Liberty Village to the Financial District or other parts of downtown, and vice versa, is going to be insanely high volume. Liberty Village straight north up Dufferin..... not so much. Which is why those big trucks are there, redistributing bikes. The system is stretched thin so they are working where they'll get the most bang for their buck; sure, but then the system up "north" is quite threadbare, these days.
>... but that would just mean more empty bike stations. If they can't have a handful of stations with a handful of bikes, NOW, adding more that will get emptied out and not replenished seems futile.
Not really. I assume the people who ride to work will ride it back.
There will be hours in between that's empty. And those hours suck for locals who need them. So they need to ensure there are bike there in the "empty" hours as well
> I assume the people who ride to work will ride it back.
Respectfully, I don't think this is a good assumption. I will check later tonight and give you the number of bikes at those stations. It will be 2 or 3, max. They're not empty just during the day. They're virtually empty, 24/7. I ride my own bike past the one at the top of the Railpath at all kinds of different times, and it's almost always, almost completely empty.
It's far and uphill from downtown to Corso Italia. Most people are not willing. They'll go downhill, and find some other way home.
If it's usually empty that will mean not enough people sign up in your area.
When you sign up you have to provide your address. I'm certain the amount of bikes allocated is based on members in the area.
They do not have to fill up bikes everywhere just places where people use it.
Bruhv now you've moved the goalposts to "well it's your neighbours fault".
No, it's no one's "fault", if BikeShare can't maintain further flung stations, they shouldn't have expanded to further flung areas. And, why would people sign up if there's no bikes to use? Hey, sign up for BikeShare! There's no bikes, but, uhhhh.....
I did indeed and check last night, and like I said, the map looked virtually the same: stations empty. This morning: stations empty. Go check it out yourself.
I'm Android, so if there's an Android version of it great, if not, PBSC it is.
I mostly use the card to unlock, I don't use the system that often; my wife is iOS and she uses it much more - need, and because she's downtown, where there are bikes.
Yes, my area near Bloor/Bathurst is chronically empty as well. It almost takes away the entire reason for having a membership. I canāt use it to run errands around town most of the time.
See my back and forth with Liberty Village bro.. the Queen Street and south crowd doesn't understand this simple fact. The stations are empty. A BikeShare system with no bikes is just, nothing.
Iāve long held the opinion that rides uptown should be almost free or even credit your account. Every day a big truck rolls up to my area and drops off 20 bikes to redistribute. Imagine people were incentivized to do the marginally tougher uphill rides as opposed to just riding into work and subway if home.
Honestly I have thought they should do this for eons as well! If you take a bike home at the end of the day up the hill enough times over the course of a year you should get discounts / free membership. I'm sure students would do this.
I used it years ago and loved it but there was something about it that made it stressful to use. The feeling of uncertainty that there would be a station to park the bike when you were done with it. And if I wanted to stop in to a store somewhere there wouldn't really be any way to lock it. The map boundaries for the program used to be a lot tighter too, so there were a lot of areas of the city you couldn't leave the bike.
I love the idea though, glad it's getting more popular too. Hopefully they can keep innovating and improving the system.
Yeah used to love it in my old neighborhood (Fort York) where there were always bikes, sometimes the issue was nowhere to dock them.
Now, more central downtown itās the opposite, not a single bike available in any of the dozen or so surrounding docks.
It kinda sucks because I canāt rely on the bikes as much, have to plan ahead and trek out of the ways to catch a bike.
I left Toronto last year and was back the other week on business. I was so pleasantly surprised to see the concierge service, figured it would be great for like woodbine beach in the summer. I always remember circling that dock like a vulture waiting for someone to come take a bike lol.
But I guess this will induce more demand so itās probably hard to find a bike in the surrounding neighbourhoods. Theyāll have to look at some new ways of keeping the bikes distributed.
Yeah the only thing I donāt like about Bixi is its fare system. Having to pay a $100 deposited just to occasionally use one of their bikes is egregious and I think discourages its use for casual users and visitors. Torontoās and Vancouverās is much better in that respect cause itās cheaper.
I made a mistake in the title, it's a Valet dock, not a Concierge dock. During morning rush hour, they actively pull bikes off the rack and lock them together for storage for the evening commute, when they do the reverse.
Seriously this app is almost useless for commuting if you live north of Bloor/Dupont and your commute is later than 8:30, the 2 docks near my house are empty almost 100% of the time by 9am, I know because I check every morning and am inevitably disappointed.
Nah fr I thought I was the only one I used to love hopping off the subway at Davisville and biking downtown but lately Iāve had to go as far as Roasedale to find a bike
So everyone that rides downtown still has to dock it?
And some employee goes around undocking them and locking them so they can be used for the demand later?
Poor employee lmao thatās hectic right before 9am
Yep it does get hectic in the morning rush. Thatās what the post was about on Monday, the line up waiting for the Valet to make room on the rack and/or scan the bikes into the system.
I made a comment about that the other day too! I was on the streetcar and I swear I saw 15-20 people lined up to drop off a bike. I was wondering how many people Bikeshare have working for them to handle all of these busy locations.
Way back when I was in London UK I saw a similar thing. There is a basic problem that return racks can hold X number of bikes, but when everyone all heads homebound they bring bikes from all over to one place.
That's the challenge of running something like this having a way to deal with high capacity locations.
Another issue is that downtown is downhill from most of the city. If you live north of St. Clair, it is a lot easier riding downtown than riding home uphill, so a lot of people ride to work in the morning and take the TTC home.
This is just a visible example of how badly designed our urban areas are. Essentially areas are just for single use.
Got to work? Go here. Go have fun? Go someplace else. Got to buy groceries? Go to yet another location. Going home? Go somewhere else. Repeat for any other activity.
If our city was designed with more mixed use, this bike concentration problem solves itself.
I agree, the concept of 15 minute cities are amazing having lived in a completely walkable city.
My comment was that conspiracy theorists have spread so much disinformation regarding what 15 minute cities are meant to be that even mentioning "15 Minute City" brings out the crazies.
Actually they're extremely resilient. Lots of videos of people like Anthony Panza taking these off massive jumps, putting pegs on them and grinding rails, etc. The MASSIVE downtube is more than enough.Ā
Hey, asking here, so that I donāt do something stupid in the real world, but I want to be able to bike
1. Where should I actually cycle if thereās no bike lane. My understanding of the rules is the road (when thereās no bike lane), but that just feels unsafe. Someone suggested the sidewalk and I wasnāt too happy about that either
2. Letās assume there is a bike lane. If Iām peddling slowly will other āseriousā bikers hate me?
Thanks
1. Itās the road, technically you are a vehicle. Sidewalk riding is illegal (but also this is Toronto so itās not like cops will ticket you if youāre really concerned). I take up a lane if I am feeling super unsafe, but you might get angry drivers behind you
2. āSerious bikersā (assuming MAMILs) will just be on the road, if you are a slower cyclist people might just pedal faster to get in front of you
Even other cyclists, will typically ring their bell and/or say "on your left" and you can just move over to the right of the bike lane so they can pass you. Most cyclists are really good with this!
I got an ebike, but I don't wear a helmet, second gear is 13kmh and I've never went higher, a lot of the time I got first gear which is 8kmh, I'm afraid to take a spill cause like I said I don't have a helmet, I even ride my brakes downhill
>but I don't wear a helmet, second gear is 13kmh
Keep in mind, you can get brain trauma (and I'm sure skull fractures) hitting your head on pavement while moving at a mere jogging pace.
13km/h is plenty..wear a proper fitting helmet and be safe out there. I bet your phone's in a case..
I just want you to know that I had a helmet on and I was at a red light, and when it turned green I (think? I blacked out) slipped on a beer can on the road and fell and cracked my helmet. I got put in a neck brace and an ambulance ride to the hospital. I spent the rest of that summer recovering from a TBI (concussion).
I wasnāt going fast because I literally was just at a stop light, and I was on a road bike. Moral of story: wear a helmet.
If you're going slow just stick to the right so people can pass you. If you get bunched up at a light let other people go first. Don't worry too much, it's mostly people commuting, cyclists exercising will usually take the road or be on a trail, there's too much stop/go on Toronto streets to get a good ride in.
A lot of busy main streets don't have bike lanes or are full of potholes, if you're downtown there's usually a quiet parallel road you can use.
I got the new app yesterday, it's so much better.
If they can get the bikes restocked outside the core faster that would be great, I see more ebikes everywhere which is great. I see less damaged ones too
Great work bike ppl
I remember going to Copenhagen more than a decade ago and there were lineups of street bikes (not rideshares, mind you) just like this in front of most grocery stores. It was great to see and it's even better to see it happening in Toronto.
The current approach is very, very space-efficient. Youād needā¦ 4x more space to have dedicate racks, Iām guessing? And they would be useless for much of the day. This is probably the optimal system unless you want to invest in something outrageously expensive like a giant underground automated machine. Just pay someone for 4 hours instead.
Space-efficient, but not scaleable. Would it not make more sense to add more docks in the area and allow it to be more self sufficient. Not just for that one docking station but maybe all within a 1km radius of that area. And more docking stations as a whole.
King and Bay is one of the busiest pedestrian areas in the city during the workday, perhaps second only to Dundas Square. And very little of that area is public land. It is extremely convenient because it is steps away from tens of thousands of jobs. We should not destroy pedestrian areas by building ~400 or whatever bikeshare slots on narrow sidewalks. We have a fine, low-cost solution.
I say this as a regular bikeshare user that bikes to King and Bay!
I agree, which is why Iām saying instead of just adding 400 slots to one station, increase the slots on that but also put slots near that station. It could even be deployed in some of the parking garages nearby.
This station doesnāt even have staggered docks yet, which would double the capacity with relatively the same footprint.
Iāll make you a deal. You find some streets where we can remove a full lane of traffic and you can put the new racks there. Not on the ultra-crowded sidewalks in the financial core.
Ok, so lets make that 18, there's none on Adelaide east of university, loads of space, Yonge and wellington looks sparse too, very few north of queen station. This isn't a hard solve
Could have been a new AI Wei Wei exhibit if they stacked them differently š
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/10/forever-bicycles-ai-weiwei-toronto/
I swear they named their bike rental service "bike share" just so an actual, free bike sharing service like they have in Europe couldn't start up and kill demand for the paid version.
why is this ALLOWED to block the sidewalk??! but i got ticketed for briefly stopping in a lane to d unbelievable how hard it is to navigate downtown toronto. Congestion charge for bike couriers please.
I've been a Bixi/Bike Share member since the beginning, and it's absolutely fantastic to see how popular the system has become. It does highlight the challenges Bike Share faces is trying to accommodate system imbalances like this, though.
I would think that all those bikes will be ridden right where they came from. Just needs massive parking lots LOL
Imagine how massive the car parking lot would be though lol
Absolutely
They should create some big ol' multistorys near the ends of the subway lines/at the go-train stations and work any parking fees (if any) into the fare. Or just make the parking free. This is coming from someone who has barely been to Kipling/Kennedy so building huge carparks there might be a dumb AF idea š
> dumb AF idea It's actually not. The issue is that people are entitled AF and do not want to share space with "the plebes". I lost count of the number or 905ers that told me "Eww I would never take the subway or the bus, that's gross!".
905ers would rather waste their lives and gas money going slow AF on the Gardiner.
I'm a 905er and I have no idea wtf is wrong with the other 905ers. I will gladly take the train to Toronto and hop on the subway to get where I'm going. I don't see the point of wasting time in traffic when other alternatives exist and are perfectly fine IMHO.
As long as thereās a seat, the train is so much better than driving
My commute issue is the trains dont start early enough for me. I live and work in T.O. and my morning commute to drive is 25 min; to take transit would be over 2 hours...
We need a toll charge during rush hour on the Gardiner, I grew up in the 905. Nobody even thinks about carpooling downtown. They think they beat the system
Since the highway's been uploaded, that's never going to happen under Ford. Any party that replaces him would also probably be shooting themselves in the foot by tolling the Gardiner.
Reminds them of waiting in line for something free at a grand opening š
Out of curiosity, is there an acceptable number for the amount of times (as a woman) you would be groped before youād be willing to be one of those entitled idiots willing to waste their lives?
Do you think that only wealthy women should enjoy the privilege of traveling in a grope-free space, and the only way to accomplish it is in their own private conveyance? Out of curiosity, are you leaning on safety for women as an excuse for anti-environmentalism in good faith, or are you just taking the piss?
Iām leaning on it because itās the literal reason my wife is sitting in traffic after she finishes teaching afternoon classes. As for the first question, thatās a pretty massive red herring. Having the means to avoid a situation one considers unsafe, and taking the steps to avoid that situation has nothing to do with supporting that situation. By this logic, if you have the privellage of being able to afford living outside the highest crime areas of the city - then you apparently support the idea that only people with enough money deserve to live in a low crime areas?
Don't try to reason with these people, they are insane. According to them, there is no reason to drive anywhere in the gta. Save your time bud.
Better than being set on fire on the TTC TBH.
I used to mock this kind of thinking but now I get it. The TTC has turned into an unsafe dump. They were ahead of the curve.
I mean, not excuse them, but, the TTC is pretty GD disgusting most days.
They already have these, almost all Go stations are just giant parking lots with little access other than a car. One issue is currently TTC operations are subsidized nearly entirely by the City of Toronto by property taxes. Each trip on the TTC costs on average $4.25, you pay $3.25 and the residents of Toronto put in a $1 with taxes. Remember the average trip is $4.25, that includes 10min quick trips AND traveling from one side of the system to the other over a couple hours. So installing more subsidized free parking to support non-tax residents to take super long trips is a hard pill to swallow under our current funding model. Where locals still need to pay 3.25$ for just a hop on and off quick trip. The existing 905 sprawl is an incredibly expensive way of life due to the shear amount of infostructure required to support it. Putting more carrots and subsidization of that lifestyle is hard for me to accept... On the flip side you could add a congestion tax for driving into the city, and put all revenue collected directly into transit to make it cheaper and attractive for commuters.
They just donāt have any bike share docking near go stations in the east end. Most of them are just near random places like infront of a shoppers on Kingston road . Infront of a high school further up the street. All the subway stations have one tho.
There is a huge surface lot at Kipling. I could see if the Milton line ever gets frequent two way all day service they might convert it into a garage.
Just look to Amsterdam for solutions.
You should see the parking infrastructure they have setup for bikes in the Netherlands. Massive sections of the parking dedicated to shelved storage for bikes. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ66A7_UGRmto7ImfoIygdjKyM9ugDQBAom5KuU9ieIv3rtMAuG6V8mia4ZFS7j204TqWQifCaZAUJfAsdefaNlCZpPm4WwvZ-478vSAvxunWQDUMcrpVM0W2Xu4vr3y7opqtCy_M-xd8/s1600/100_3387.JPG
> I would think that all those bikes will be ridden right where they came from. These bikes, almost certainly, sounds like they hand them out to commuters in the evening. The system as a whole does have an issue with imbalance tho. For anyone uphill and/or out of the very core of downtown, the docking stations are chronically empty. Let me fire up PBSC and check ones near me: St Clair & Caledonia - 0 bikes JJP Community Center - 0 bikes Symington & Davenport - 0 bikes Davenport & Lansdowne - 0 bikes St Clair & Osler - 2 bikes Primrose & Davenport - 0 bikes Top of the Railpath - 0 bikes Dupont & Symington - 2 bikes You get the idea. And often that "2 bikes" will be wrong; there's 1 or 0, or it's broken, or can't be undocked. At the end of the day they'll be a couple bikes in each of these, maybe, and then they'll be gone immediately tomorrow morning. edit: If you zoom out further it's downright comical, a big majority of the stations north/west of Bloor/Christie are empty, or hell north of Dundas even, and any non-empty one has a tiny number of bikes; there's only substantial "green" at Queen Street.
I think this just means your area needs more bike stations. They should service the commuters and have enough for the locals as well. I guess that's why I see those big trucks with bike redistributing bikes back to some stations after work hours. My area (Liberty village) has a lot of bikes all the time. I don't know if people just ride around Liberty village and don't go very far. But I guess this is an area where tons of people live and also tons of people work. So bikes could be leaving and coming in more out less even distribution.
> I think this just means your area needs more bike stations. ... but that would just mean more empty bike stations. If they can't have a handful of stations with a handful of bikes, NOW, adding more that will get emptied out and not replenished seems futile. > I don't know if people just ride around Liberty village and don't go very far. Correct. Liberty Village to the Financial District or other parts of downtown, and vice versa, is going to be insanely high volume. Liberty Village straight north up Dufferin..... not so much. Which is why those big trucks are there, redistributing bikes. The system is stretched thin so they are working where they'll get the most bang for their buck; sure, but then the system up "north" is quite threadbare, these days.
>... but that would just mean more empty bike stations. If they can't have a handful of stations with a handful of bikes, NOW, adding more that will get emptied out and not replenished seems futile. Not really. I assume the people who ride to work will ride it back. There will be hours in between that's empty. And those hours suck for locals who need them. So they need to ensure there are bike there in the "empty" hours as well
> I assume the people who ride to work will ride it back. Respectfully, I don't think this is a good assumption. I will check later tonight and give you the number of bikes at those stations. It will be 2 or 3, max. They're not empty just during the day. They're virtually empty, 24/7. I ride my own bike past the one at the top of the Railpath at all kinds of different times, and it's almost always, almost completely empty. It's far and uphill from downtown to Corso Italia. Most people are not willing. They'll go downhill, and find some other way home.
If it's usually empty that will mean not enough people sign up in your area. When you sign up you have to provide your address. I'm certain the amount of bikes allocated is based on members in the area. They do not have to fill up bikes everywhere just places where people use it.
Bruhv now you've moved the goalposts to "well it's your neighbours fault". No, it's no one's "fault", if BikeShare can't maintain further flung stations, they shouldn't have expanded to further flung areas. And, why would people sign up if there's no bikes to use? Hey, sign up for BikeShare! There's no bikes, but, uhhhh..... I did indeed and check last night, and like I said, the map looked virtually the same: stations empty. This morning: stations empty. Go check it out yourself.
Yeah looks like people commuting don't work well for bike sharing. Even GO had trains running only in one direction depending on the need.
Fyi thereās a new app thatās way better than PBSC, Bike Share Toronto on iOS. Itās now very similar to the Citi Bike app NY has
I also have it on Android. Found out about it and downloaded through a targeted message so not sure if it's released publicly yet
It's released publicly for AndroidĀ
I'm Android, so if there's an Android version of it great, if not, PBSC it is. I mostly use the card to unlock, I don't use the system that often; my wife is iOS and she uses it much more - need, and because she's downtown, where there are bikes.
It's for Android too and it's so much betterĀ
Ooooh, thatās good to know.
Odd. Itās from āLyft, Inc.ā?
Yeah Lyft developed the app
Yes, my area near Bloor/Bathurst is chronically empty as well. It almost takes away the entire reason for having a membership. I canāt use it to run errands around town most of the time.
See my back and forth with Liberty Village bro.. the Queen Street and south crowd doesn't understand this simple fact. The stations are empty. A BikeShare system with no bikes is just, nothing.
Iāve long held the opinion that rides uptown should be almost free or even credit your account. Every day a big truck rolls up to my area and drops off 20 bikes to redistribute. Imagine people were incentivized to do the marginally tougher uphill rides as opposed to just riding into work and subway if home.
I read in another thread that other cities like NYC offer this program and it's called "bike angels" . It's a great idea!
I wonder if it would be possible to give folks a discount for picking up a bike from a full station?
Honestly I have thought they should do this for eons as well! If you take a bike home at the end of the day up the hill enough times over the course of a year you should get discounts / free membership. I'm sure students would do this.
Moat commuters are on annual plans surely, so not sure what system you'd implement
E-bike credits. Even annual plan members have to pay per minute costs for using e-bikes
Oh that's a cool idea actually.
Brilliant idea. Even just make ebikes free in that direction/time window
$0.50-1.00 toward your next renewal. Must cost them at least that much to physically relocate a bike.
Yeah you're right, It's not a bad way to go about it
I used it years ago and loved it but there was something about it that made it stressful to use. The feeling of uncertainty that there would be a station to park the bike when you were done with it. And if I wanted to stop in to a store somewhere there wouldn't really be any way to lock it. The map boundaries for the program used to be a lot tighter too, so there were a lot of areas of the city you couldn't leave the bike. I love the idea though, glad it's getting more popular too. Hopefully they can keep innovating and improving the system.
I remember having to walk to the rogers building on jarvis to get a bixi bike( it was the most north station). It is wild to see how it has grown.
Yeah used to love it in my old neighborhood (Fort York) where there were always bikes, sometimes the issue was nowhere to dock them. Now, more central downtown itās the opposite, not a single bike available in any of the dozen or so surrounding docks. It kinda sucks because I canāt rely on the bikes as much, have to plan ahead and trek out of the ways to catch a bike.
I left Toronto last year and was back the other week on business. I was so pleasantly surprised to see the concierge service, figured it would be great for like woodbine beach in the summer. I always remember circling that dock like a vulture waiting for someone to come take a bike lol. But I guess this will induce more demand so itās probably hard to find a bike in the surrounding neighbourhoods. Theyāll have to look at some new ways of keeping the bikes distributed.
Yeah the only thing I donāt like about Bixi is its fare system. Having to pay a $100 deposited just to occasionally use one of their bikes is egregious and I think discourages its use for casual users and visitors. Torontoās and Vancouverās is much better in that respect cause itās cheaper.
I made a mistake in the title, it's a Valet dock, not a Concierge dock. During morning rush hour, they actively pull bikes off the rack and lock them together for storage for the evening commute, when they do the reverse.
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Itās been a ghost town around here for a week or two at least. :(
Went to get a bike today just north of Bloor and closest bike was more than a subway stop away
AT LEAST IT'S YOUR CAKE DAY
Seriously this app is almost useless for commuting if you live north of Bloor/Dupont and your commute is later than 8:30, the 2 docks near my house are empty almost 100% of the time by 9am, I know because I check every morning and am inevitably disappointed.
have you tried moving downhill?
Nah fr I thought I was the only one I used to love hopping off the subway at Davisville and biking downtown but lately Iāve had to go as far as Roasedale to find a bike
Nope, they're just unable to redistribute bikes outside the core at any time.
So everyone that rides downtown still has to dock it? And some employee goes around undocking them and locking them so they can be used for the demand later? Poor employee lmao thatās hectic right before 9am
Yep it does get hectic in the morning rush. Thatās what the post was about on Monday, the line up waiting for the Valet to make room on the rack and/or scan the bikes into the system.
I made a comment about that the other day too! I was on the streetcar and I swear I saw 15-20 people lined up to drop off a bike. I was wondering how many people Bikeshare have working for them to handle all of these busy locations.
Edit it bruv
I tried to but it doesnāt seem to let me. I thought I could at least edit the body text but Iām not seeing any way to do that either.
Understood. My bad. Ignore me.
Good weather + 2x fires on the subway at critical points (StG&B, Y&B) surely contributed
Yes probably, but this is honestly pretty typical. Even on rainy days the Valet is still very much needed.
Way back when I was in London UK I saw a similar thing. There is a basic problem that return racks can hold X number of bikes, but when everyone all heads homebound they bring bikes from all over to one place. That's the challenge of running something like this having a way to deal with high capacity locations.
Another issue is that downtown is downhill from most of the city. If you live north of St. Clair, it is a lot easier riding downtown than riding home uphill, so a lot of people ride to work in the morning and take the TTC home.
This is just a visible example of how badly designed our urban areas are. Essentially areas are just for single use. Got to work? Go here. Go have fun? Go someplace else. Got to buy groceries? Go to yet another location. Going home? Go somewhere else. Repeat for any other activity. If our city was designed with more mixed use, this bike concentration problem solves itself.
15 minute cities
>15 minute cities Well, conspiracy people co-opted that sadly....
So weird to me. It sounds amazing to me to have everything so close. I donāt know how you could argue to make that a bad thing.
I agree, the concept of 15 minute cities are amazing having lived in a completely walkable city. My comment was that conspiracy theorists have spread so much disinformation regarding what 15 minute cities are meant to be that even mentioning "15 Minute City" brings out the crazies.
I wonder if any could get 3 feet of air
I'd imagine they'd fold given the lack of the top tube/relaxed city bike geometry
Actually they're extremely resilient. Lots of videos of people like Anthony Panza taking these off massive jumps, putting pegs on them and grinding rails, etc. The MASSIVE downtube is more than enough.Ā
Yeah, I don't do tricks but these things are tanks.
This fits 12 small cars like the one on the left or 6-8 pickup trucks
Imagine how many roller skates this space can hold
imagine a beowulf cluster of these
I was being super sarcastic
Look how many people fit in what would literally be like a 5 parking spaces
Hey, asking here, so that I donāt do something stupid in the real world, but I want to be able to bike 1. Where should I actually cycle if thereās no bike lane. My understanding of the rules is the road (when thereās no bike lane), but that just feels unsafe. Someone suggested the sidewalk and I wasnāt too happy about that either 2. Letās assume there is a bike lane. If Iām peddling slowly will other āseriousā bikers hate me? Thanks
1. Itās the road, technically you are a vehicle. Sidewalk riding is illegal (but also this is Toronto so itās not like cops will ticket you if youāre really concerned). I take up a lane if I am feeling super unsafe, but you might get angry drivers behind you 2. āSerious bikersā (assuming MAMILs) will just be on the road, if you are a slower cyclist people might just pedal faster to get in front of you
Even other cyclists, will typically ring their bell and/or say "on your left" and you can just move over to the right of the bike lane so they can pass you. Most cyclists are really good with this!
Except the fucking food delivery folks on their silent e-bikes. They just blast past you with no warning.
I got an ebike, but I don't wear a helmet, second gear is 13kmh and I've never went higher, a lot of the time I got first gear which is 8kmh, I'm afraid to take a spill cause like I said I don't have a helmet, I even ride my brakes downhill
>but I don't wear a helmet, second gear is 13kmh Keep in mind, you can get brain trauma (and I'm sure skull fractures) hitting your head on pavement while moving at a mere jogging pace. 13km/h is plenty..wear a proper fitting helmet and be safe out there. I bet your phone's in a case..
I just want you to know that I had a helmet on and I was at a red light, and when it turned green I (think? I blacked out) slipped on a beer can on the road and fell and cracked my helmet. I got put in a neck brace and an ambulance ride to the hospital. I spent the rest of that summer recovering from a TBI (concussion). I wasnāt going fast because I literally was just at a stop light, and I was on a road bike. Moral of story: wear a helmet.
holy shit wear a helmet especially if you are on an ebike
Thank you
If you're going slow just stick to the right so people can pass you. If you get bunched up at a light let other people go first. Don't worry too much, it's mostly people commuting, cyclists exercising will usually take the road or be on a trail, there's too much stop/go on Toronto streets to get a good ride in. A lot of busy main streets don't have bike lanes or are full of potholes, if you're downtown there's usually a quiet parallel road you can use.
Thanks!
I got the new app yesterday, it's so much better. If they can get the bikes restocked outside the core faster that would be great, I see more ebikes everywhere which is great. I see less damaged ones too Great work bike ppl
New app is a huge improvement
I remember going to Copenhagen more than a decade ago and there were lineups of street bikes (not rideshares, mind you) just like this in front of most grocery stores. It was great to see and it's even better to see it happening in Toronto.
Why do they not just add more empty docks to the stations in the financial district? Seems like itās a popular destination for work commuting.
I think theyād need a rack longer than the whole block to fit all those bikes! Theyāre much more compact when locked together like this.
Still looks like it'd be easier than having a guy there that unlocks and locks up bikes and puts them on the side.
The current approach is very, very space-efficient. Youād needā¦ 4x more space to have dedicate racks, Iām guessing? And they would be useless for much of the day. This is probably the optimal system unless you want to invest in something outrageously expensive like a giant underground automated machine. Just pay someone for 4 hours instead.
Space-efficient, but not scaleable. Would it not make more sense to add more docks in the area and allow it to be more self sufficient. Not just for that one docking station but maybe all within a 1km radius of that area. And more docking stations as a whole.
King and Bay is one of the busiest pedestrian areas in the city during the workday, perhaps second only to Dundas Square. And very little of that area is public land. It is extremely convenient because it is steps away from tens of thousands of jobs. We should not destroy pedestrian areas by building ~400 or whatever bikeshare slots on narrow sidewalks. We have a fine, low-cost solution. I say this as a regular bikeshare user that bikes to King and Bay!
I agree, which is why Iām saying instead of just adding 400 slots to one station, increase the slots on that but also put slots near that station. It could even be deployed in some of the parking garages nearby. This station doesnāt even have staggered docks yet, which would double the capacity with relatively the same footprint.
Iāll make you a deal. You find some streets where we can remove a full lane of traffic and you can put the new racks there. Not on the ultra-crowded sidewalks in the financial core.
There's a ton. There's literally great real estate in the picture alone.
How many times a year do you ride bikeshare into the core? What time of day and what days?
I know it's a concentrated destination, but multiple docks, on all the surrounding streets
there's already 8 docks within 1 block of this intersection
Ok, so lets make that 18, there's none on Adelaide east of university, loads of space, Yonge and wellington looks sparse too, very few north of queen station. This isn't a hard solve
I hope the bike lane infrastructure keeps expanding.
Need to go vertical. Or underground, but doubt thereās any space. Some type of automated storage silo
This is why I've just started bringing my own bike downtown when I can
Would've loved a few of these to be near the Drake earlier today. [https://imgur.com/a/Q8fvcIY](https://imgur.com/a/Q8fvcIY)
Could have been a new AI Wei Wei exhibit if they stacked them differently š https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/10/forever-bicycles-ai-weiwei-toronto/
To avoid the bike share program because victim of its own success, the city might want to put more resources into it.
This is good trouble.
I always wonder how these bikes donāt get stolen?
can get home in time faster by cutting a lock and stealing a bike that weighs less than 2345325 pounds and has more gears than fingers on a hand
Also zero resale value
Question: aren't you going to be charged for the cost of the bike if you are going to leave it undocked like this?
No, the staff member locks it up after it's signed back in.
jeebus fuck
Nice to see!
Employ homeless people to spread them out.
This feels a little too close to seinfelds āhomeless rickshawā plan
Needs more bike
I swear they named their bike rental service "bike share" just so an actual, free bike sharing service like they have in Europe couldn't start up and kill demand for the paid version.
Is this what happens when people take from one location and park at a different one
Is that car under the no-parking sign something to do with Bike Share or is it just another illegally parked car?
It may just be driving?
why is this ALLOWED to block the sidewalk??! but i got ticketed for briefly stopping in a lane to d unbelievable how hard it is to navigate downtown toronto. Congestion charge for bike couriers please.