Montreal inaugurates bike-sharing program

MONTREAL, May 13 (UPI) -- Montreal introduced North America's first large-scale bicycle-sharing program, where 3,000 bikes can be picked up and dropped off at 300 downtown stations.

The Bixi program is funded with user fees and run by the city to allow optimal coordination with the city's bus and subway system, Councilor Andre Lavallee said.

Subscription rates are $78 for a year, $28 for a month or $5 for a day. Owners of a yearly transit pass also get a 50 percent Bixi discount. Cyclists can sign up at www.bixi.com to receive a universal key in the mail.

"You just go directly to the bike, put your key in, unlock the bike and go wherever you want with it," spokeswoman Veronique Deslauriers told CTV Montreal.

"Then you lock it in another station and you can do this as many times as you want during the day," she said.

The Bixi system -- whose name combines the words "bike" and "taxi -- mimics similar bike-sharing programs in cities such as Paris and Amsterdam.

Such systems are touted as an environmentally friendly alternative to driving, CTV said. The components for the Montreal system, such as parking rack pay stations, are solar-powered. And because the pay stations need no electrical connections, they can be placed anywhere without any excavation, Deslauriers said.

The program's industrial designer, Michel Dallaire, also devised bikes that have a silver, boomerang-shaped frame.

"I think this is a synthesis of the state of the art today," he told CTV.