With snow in the forecast, Montreal’s bike-sharing service started installing the docking stations for its Bixi bicycles on Thursday.
Bixi will gradually roll out its docking stations starting Thursday ahead of the April 15 beginning of its season. Signs prohibiting parking will be put in place in areas where the stations are destined to be placed
Bixi has 460 docking stations placed in the densest parts of the city during cycling season.
The company has 5,200 bicycles that can be used casually for one-way trips, or with a monthly membership in Montreal, Westmount and Longueuil.
Bixi is run by a not-for-profit company with $2.9 million in annual funding from the city of Montreal. It posted an $800,000 surplus in 2014. The results for 2015 are expected in June.
About 181,000 people used the bike-sharing service in 2015. Bixi said it would like to have an additional 1,000 users this year.
The number of casual users surged in 2015 after Bixi introduced a $2.75 one-way fare and brought back a $5, 24-hour membership. Bixi sold 257,986 casual trips in 2015 compared to 135,071 in 2014.
The total number of rides increased by 9.4 per cent, from 3.2 million in 2014 to 3.5 million 2015.
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