Bixi to expand to all city boroughs by 2028

Bixi will live on for another 10 years — and during that time, the service will expand to all Montreal boroughs.

Mayor Valérie Plante’s administration announced Wednesday it signed a 10-year extension of its agreement with Bixi to allow the bike-sharing service to continue.

The city will fund Bixi to the tune of $4 million per year, and the program will gradually expand from the 11 boroughs it currently covers to 19. Bixi is also available in Longueuil and Westmount.

The extension comes after the previous four-year agreement — reached in 2015 — came to an end. In the terms of that agreement, the first after Bixi emerged from bankruptcy protection, the city paid $2.3-million annually.

Speaking to reporters after the announcement, Plante said Bixi is becoming a popular and essential part of the city’s overall transportation picture.

Plante said Bixi is now only available in central boroughs where there are plenty of transportation options. The expansion will allow people in the less dense areas of the city to use Bixi for the first or last kilometre of their trip.

“I hope we can always go further to allow people to travel quickly, efficiently and at a low cost by bicycle,” Plante said.

The past season was Bixi’s 10th, and set a record with more than 5.3-million rides this year, an increase of 11.3 per cent compared with 2017.

I hope we can always go further to allow people to travel quickly, efficiently and at a low cost by bicycle.

Over the past decade, 1.3-million Bixi users have taken more than 38-million rides.

By next spring, Bixi will add 1,000 additional bicycles to its current number of 6,250 in the boroughs of Lachine, St-Laurent, Montréal-Nord, Anjou and St-Léonard. That will leave just Rivière-des-Prairies—Pointe-auxTrembles, Pierrefonds—Roxboro and Île-Bizard—Ste-Geneviève without the service.

There is no timetable yet for when those last three boroughs will get Bixis.