Vancouver is on its way to bringing in a public bike sharing system, with 1,500 bikes available for temporary use downtown and in the central core.
The proposed plan was presented at a council meeting Tuesday morning, and calls for 125 stations holding about 20 seven-speed bikes each in the area bordered by Broadway, Arbutus and Main streets. The share system would be operated by a private company, but the city would need to chip in an estimated $1.9 million per year for things like exemptions from parking meter, permit and licence fees, as well as signage and marketing.
Erin O’Melinn, executive director of the HUB cycling coalition, called the plan a “really important step” for getting people out of their cars and onto bikes.
“The public bike share is meant in many ways to expand the transit trip or in many ways to help people that can’t walk that far,” she told CTV News.
Bike share systems are already in place in more than 300 cities worldwide, including Toronto, Montreal, New York, Barcelona and Paris, and many of those places have seen significant increases in the proportion of people using bikes for transportation, according to Vancouver staff.
But the people who make their living from bike rentals aren’t happy about the idea. Geoff Sharein of Spokes Bike Rental told council that he feared that bringing in a public bike share could be devastating for his business.
“In interviews I had with the owners of ... Montreal’s largest bike rental shop, it became clear that rental shops were directly targeted by the PBS [public bike share]. They described opening their doors shortly after implementation to find that a large PBS kiosk had been installed directly across the street from their business,” he said.
Proponents of the system, however, say that bike shares are really meant for short trips by commuters rather than long sightseeing trips by the type of people who usually frequent rental shops.
In Toronto, for example, a tourist would have to spend a whopping $115 for eight hours using the public bike share system, compared to Spokes’ rates of between $30 and $65 for a full-day rental.
An annual subscription to Toronto’s bike share system runs $95, while a single day costs $5. For subscribers, the first 30 minutes of bike use is free, an hour is $1.50, up to 90 minutes costs $4 and each half hour after that adds another $8 to the bill.
The one unsolved problem in Vancouver’s plan is how to ensure that bike sharers are using helmets. The city is proposing some form of “integrated” helmet system, which could include options like helmet vending machines with return depots, helmets included with every bike or even disposable helmets.
The plan is expected to go to council in the fall, and if approved would launch next spring.
During Tuesday’s meeting, councillors also voted to stick with the segregated bike lanes in the downtown core, originally brought in on a temporary basis.
