Bixi Toronto launches with limited service, missing keys, rain—and optimism!

Bixi finally launched in Toronto yesterday, with much fanfare among latte-sipping cyclists, who can pick up bikes at one of 50 downtown stations, ride a (very) short distance, and lock up the borrowed bike once again. But while Bixi members—who total well over the 1,000 the service needed to get up and running last year—greeted the program’s much-anticipated arrival with happiness, the launch wasn’t exactly trouble-free.

Bixi’s problems so far include: members who haven’t received their keys yet; members who have received their keys, but the keys don’t work; and stations clustered so close together—and so exclusively in the city core—that the service’s utility is rather questionable unless you’re biking along the highly walkable corridor from Spadina to Yonge. But why let a few growing pains get in the way of a downtown pinko cyclist nirvana?

• Bixi launches with a spin in the rain [Toronto Star]
• Bittersweet moment for the city’s biking pinkos [National Post]
• Bixi bike share program up and running [CBC]
• Bixi bike sharing program begins [Globe and Mail]