Northern Light
Superstar
The City has a tender for bike rental services on the island. I haven't seen the contract, but I would assume there's a no-compete clause.
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Toronto Bike Share
- Thread starter kettal
- Start date
The City has a tender for bike rental services on the island. I haven't seen the contract, but I would assume there's a no-compete clause.
Avenue
Active Member
I think people taking bikes to the island and leaving them there would be too much cost operationally for too little benefit.
robmausser
Senior Member
They could ban the bikes on the ferries, so that the bikes on the island stay on the island and no more come across.
You'd put a bike share dock at the ferry docks on mainland, so people can dump off their bike share bike if thats how they so choose to get to the ferries, and then they can take a bike from a bike share dock on the island once they cross over.
Megaton327
Senior Member
There would probably be an insanely high level of demand requiring many huge stations, and you'd basically need a team onsite every day during the summer rebalancing bikes between them. Or you could just have one cluster of locations in one single area of the island to solve that problem, but that's not as good of a user experience as opposed to having some at Hanlan, top of Centre, bottom of Centre, Ward's, etc.
Then there's the general logistical difficulty of getting the stations there and of regularly driving a cargo van on the ferry to take bikes to and from the island (maintenance, occasional replacement, etc.), and then of having to drive around while on the island. And I wouldn't be surprised if there might even be some sort of restriction in place on bike rentals where the current shops have a monopoly on it--given the prices they charge, it's such a lucrative business one wonders why no competing bike rentals have become available in many years.
Didn't think of that, but yeah, people moving bikes to/from the mainland would make it an even bigger nightmare to balance the island bikes+docks. The only way I see it working is if there's an isolated fleet. But it's kind of tricky requiring the ferry staff to prohibit bikeshare bikes, and not a great experience for passengers...still probably the best option, though.
I took a bikeshare bike to the island once from the ferry docks station, I probably ended up paying about $20 for the rental for a few hours, it wasn't awful. Probably better than renting there.
rbt
Senior Member
The Island bicycle rental is a city contracted service; and it's not that lucrative. In their best year revenues were $435,000; before purchasing stock, repairs, staffing, or fees to the city. Fine as a family business but not nearly as attractive as running a Starbucks franchise.
There was a liquidation sale a few years back when they were expecting to lose the contract to another company.
LNahid2000
Senior Member
Today's bike share trip....I wonder if I'm the first person to do this. So close to 30 minutes too!
Northern Light
Superstar
Impressive! No way I'd be that fast. It looks like 10.4km to me! That's a run speed of ~20km/ph but with traffic lights, insane drivers, parked/stopped cars, and a couple of notable uphill sections too.
You must have seriously booked it on the straight-aways!
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Northern Light
Superstar
Pace of installation has slowed to a crawl.
But one new station today:
Lundy Ave / Étienne Brûlé Park
But one new station today:
Lundy Ave / Étienne Brûlé Park
Northern Light
Superstar
Found a usage map of Bikeshare Stations.
Interesting to see a couple of the far-flung new stations are getting high usage!
Edit to add: I see a few East York Stations and Beaches area ones have surprisingly low numbers.
Some of the E-Y ones are brand new.
But some, I question.
I know the Station beside Michael Garron was constantly out of bikes last year.
If there are no bikes all day, activity levels are artificially low.
Interesting to see a couple of the far-flung new stations are getting high usage!
Edit to add: I see a few East York Stations and Beaches area ones have surprisingly low numbers.
Some of the E-Y ones are brand new.
But some, I question.
I know the Station beside Michael Garron was constantly out of bikes last year.
If there are no bikes all day, activity levels are artificially low.
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LNahid2000
Senior Member
No new stations today 
I assume the slowdown in placing new starting is that they’ve cleared a backlog of completed ones and that the manufacturer can’t keep up with their ability to place them.
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Towered
Superstar
I'm planning to draft an email to Holyday's office to request bike share stations at specific locations in ward 2, though I'm a bit perplexed as to how I should word it given his less-then-favourable stance on such initiatives...
Northern Light
Superstar
I've never dealt w/Holyday.
But my 2 cents.
He doesn't want bike lanes, he probably doesn't care one way or the other about Bikeshare.
My instinct, appeal to his anti-bike lanes side.
Ask for stations along the Eglinton West Bike path, so you can connect to the Humber Trail, where there are existing docks at Scarlett and north at Lawrence.
You're telling him you'd like to bike recreationally, on trails, and stay off the damned road! LOL
Doesn't matter whether it's true, matters whether he believes you.
Stations/docks at each of Eglinton/Royal York and Eglinton/Islington is certainly a reasonable request and there's a good chance Bikeshare Toronto has 1 or 2 unallocated stations left (they did as of 2 weeks ago)
If the latter is true, it might not even mean spending any money. (right down his alley!)
Plus the City owns all the greenspace beside Eglinton, meaning it's no problem to find a spot, and no one's permission is required.
For the same reason, you'd like docks where the Humber Creek Trail runs between Islington, to the Westway and on to Royal York.
There you go, 5 docks, all on main streets, connected to the existing Bikeshare system; but appear to Holyday to avoid any need for bike lanes due to serving recreational trails.
Amare
Senior Member
Absolute genius thinking @Northern Light.
Good luck @Towered (and I dont mean it in a sarcastic way at all).
Good luck @Towered (and I dont mean it in a sarcastic way at all).
Towered
Superstar
Thanks NL, these are great recommendations! While I find him detestable and my inclination is to aggressively criticize his stance on many issues, I'm aware that doing so will not get me bike share stations in the ward. I agree with you that it's best to appeal to his instincts in a phony, manipulative way in order to get what I want (and what I think the people in the area can benefit from). If it yields results, I can live with making a little deal with the devil - sometimes the end justifies the means, even if the methods used are unappetizing!