Bixi
Seen a great number of Bixi bikes around this weekend.
A fair number of those were places I was very surprised to see Bixi bikes: Ashbridges, Centre Island.
For those unaware, Bixi's model is point-to-point travel. You pay a fee for borrowing rights ($5 for 24 hours), and you can borrow from any rack and return to any rack. Rides less than 30 minutes carry no surcharge. Rides more than 30 minutes cost an increasing amount, capping out at $8/half-hour, which is reached after 90 minutes.
So quite clearly, taking one of these for a pleasure trip, a day at the beach, or similar, is going to become expensive. There are places where pleasure rentals are much cheaper (Centre Island has places that rent bikes for $7/hour, for example)
Now I realize I'm having one of my misanthropic moments, but part of me dreads Toronto is about to see some sort of backlash of people that stopped reading the fee chart at "$5 for 24 hours" and don't understand why they now owe forty bucks for their bicycle jaunt.
I mean possibly these folks had figured they'd spend only an 90 minutes or so at the beach and would for the premium price of about $20, only 25% over the competition at that point, save themselves the hassle of lineups at the bike rental shops. I guess there are scenarios where it makes sense, but there's a part of me that thinks I'm giving out too much credit. :(
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