The city of Boston has chosen the company that runs Montreal’s Bixi program to implement bike sharing in the Hub. It’s like Zipcar for bikes — bikes would be stationed at racks throughout the city, where a user would swipe a card to rent a bike, which they could return at a station near his or her destination. The AP reports:
Boston officials are hoping to reach a decision with the Public Bike System Co. in the next 60 days to install a network of 2,500 bikes and 290 stations across the city by next summer, with the option of expanding to a 5,000-bike system encompassing the neighboring communities Brookline, Cambridge and Somerville.
It might be good news for bike-enthusiasts, but it’s a setback for BikeNow, a Boston University spinout which had been hoping to do the same thing. Amy Trus, a co-founder of the BU $50K Business Plan Competition finalist, said via email she knew BikeNow had a 50/50 chance at the contract.
BikeNow’s plan included a lower rental rate subsidized by advertising, which the city of Boston didn’t want, Trus said. Plan B for BikeNow, which based its service on Paris’ Velib program, and would act as local operators for the B-Cycle organization’s technology, is to roll out the service in Baltimore, said Trus, a Maryland native.
Posted by Brendan Lynch
Tags: Baltimore, bike-sharing, BikeNow, Bixi, Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Montreal, Paris, Somerville, Velib, Zipcar
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Great idea. Portland and Minneapolis have great bike cultures with their less than “San Diego” climates. Why not Boston?