Friday, February 3, 2012
Montreal's BIXI anthem
Da Grytions rocks the casbah! Totally hilarious!!!
I only found out about this very recently, can you believe this? Well of course, when one does not watch TV, what can you expect...
By the way, this is *very* old news... They're talking about keeping BIXI as a year round thing. Now THAT's a really good idea to increase winter cycling... I would use it if it were available in the winter...
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So clearing bike paths in the winter is "nonsense," "stupid," and a "waste of money" but having the Bixis around all year isn't? I'm confused.
ReplyDeleteDon't be, it is very simple:
ReplyDeleteBIXI is a private company. If it decides to operate all year long, it will be on its own funds. See, they have an obligation to generate a profit, which, for the moment, they cannot achieve. Hence, the idea of having the bikes all year long to increase profits: see income is variable but costs are kind of fixed, you know, good old cost accounting 101.
Having all these BIXIs in the winter does not imply the city will clear the paths for them, let me tell ya!!! It just won't happen until there is a critical mass of winter cyclists. Now, maybe if enough people decide to ride in the winter because of BIXI's availability, but most important the fact that somebody else will do the cleaning, then maybe critical mass can be achieved in a few winters. Which brings the issue of how much BIXI is going to charge in the winter will all the cleaning they'd have to do, and would such price sustain continuing usage of the bikes. Cyclists are pretty price sensitive around here...
And by the way, the financial problems of BIXI are structural, and are the main reason why they have so aggressively conquered the world: they NEED the damn money. The cost of the program was a huge scandal that was quickly muffed. If they were integrated in the transportation system and viewed as one of the different modal options, then yes I would support BIXI. But no: they are a private company in the business of making money, so screw that!!