Bixi stations on the move
U of O pays NCC to get Chinatown, Little Italy racks
The University of Ottawa has bought two Bixi bike-sharing stations, paying the National Capital Commission $15,000 to move them to its downtown campus from Little Italy and Chinatown.
The move this week puts the first stations in Sandy Hill but leaves Chinatown with no Bixi station and one at Dow’s Lake as the closest one to Little Italy. Except for the Dow’s Lake outpost and one right next to the Canadian War Museum on LeBreton Flats, there are no Ottawa Bixi stations west of Lyon Street or south of Pretoria Avenue.
Moving the stations, rather than adding new ones, was the NCC’s decision, said commission spokeswoman Emily Keogh. “We looked at the other stations that weren’t necessarily performing as expected,” she said.
The station in Chinatown, which was at Somerset and Arthur streets, never saw much use, and the one in Little Italy was meant to be a backup for one at Dow’s Lake but turns out not to be needed. Moving the stations someplace where they’ll get more use is good management.
“When the sustainabletransportation department at the University of Ottawa contacted the NCC, we saw this as a great opportunity to maximize service,” Keogh said.
Lori Mellor, the executive director of the Preston Street merchants’ association, said her first reaction was that she wasn’t too sorry to see the Bixi station at Preston and Carling move after just a few months.
“Unless there’s a festival, there aren’t that many people around there, especially after dark,” Mellor said.
But she also said that Bixi station was just a few metres from the Carling O-Train station, which has been closed for the Bixi station’s whole short life while the city upgrades the tracks. It’s due to reopen in a couple of weeks. “I think it might have seen better use once the O-Train is back up and running.”
Mellor has always thought a Bixi station a few blocks north, close to the Preston Square offices of Adobe and Xerox, would have been much better placed. Not useful enough for the merchants to subsidize it, but definitely busier, she said. She said the NCC never asked what she thought, though.
The executive director of the Somerset Chinatown Business Improvement Area didn’t respond to the Citizen’s request to talk.
The NCC’s Bixi program is in its third year, though its 25 stations and 250 bikes make it the smallest of its kind in the world. It’s mostly used by tourists, though in other cities it’s become an addition to the transit system. Regular users can grab a bike close to home, ditch it at a transit station, then pick up another one for the last leg of the trip to work. That requires a dense network of Bixi stations, though, which Ottawa lacks. A feasibility study the NCC commissioned in 2009 to see whether the idea was worth trying advised starting with 50 stations. Neither Ottawa nor Gatineau has invested in it, as the study assumed would happen.
As was always the plan, the NCC is looking to sell the system to someone, though it was supposed to be bigger by now. The study expected users would take well over a million rides in a year; last year there were fewer than 50,000. The system lost $76,000 last year.
One of the bike stations installed on the University of Ottawa is located at the north end of the campus on Waller Street near Hagen Hall. The second is on the south side of the campus at King Edward Avenue near the Minto Sports Complex.
As back-to-school special, Bixi is offering a 30-day subscription for $10 off the usual $30.25 price. The deal is open to anyone, not just students.