Bixi – Corey Burger

The Montreal bike-sharing program is coming to Vancouver, for one day at least. The Georgia Straight is reporting that this Friday through Monday there will a test of the bikes on the seawall near Science World as part of Bike Month in the Vancouver region. You can see a map and the hours on the City of Vancouver’s official page about the program.

This isn’t the only place Bixi is spreading its wings to. Ottawa and Gatineau are also getting pilot projects, albeit a slightly more substantial one. This is run by the National Capital Commission (NCC) and comprises only 50 bikes right now. It is expected that if the pilot is successful, a larger rollout could come as early as 2010.

Given we have our own version of the NCC here in Victoria, the Provincial Capital Commission, and we such a tourist destination, where is the bike sharing project for Victoria? A few stations around downtown including at the cruise ship docks would allow tourists to discover all the great biking facilities here in Victoria and also maybe help the poor James Bay residents sleep better at night by cutting down on the diesel exhaust from buses.

Montreal’s pioneer bike sharing program, the first in Canada, has just launched with 3,000 bikes spread across 300 stations. This is only a small part of a very ambitious plan of stations across Montreal. Just take a look at the map of stations to get an idea. Like it’s inspiration Velib,the first 30 minutes are free, the rest of the day is $5 and frequent users can get monthly or yearly rates. They both also share cute contractions for names, bike + taxi in the case of Montreal and velo + liberte for Paris. Lastly, Velib is also not “dying”, so ignore all the hysteria.

In other good yet tragic news, Daniel Marc Akerley has been sentenced to just over a year and half of jail time for his hit-and-run of Byron Harris in Port Alberni. Sadly he only got convicted of one count of criminal negligence causing bodily harm. Sorry, but this was attempted murder or at a very least, assault with a deadly weapon. Why, when they charged him with attempted murder, did they let him plead guilty to such a minor offence? And more importantly, will this guy ever be let back behind the wheel? I am not exactly holding my breath for that. But I have beat this drum in the past.