Bike rental failing in Montreal
Up that way, the city has voted to bestow a $108 million bailout package on the private company that's running bike sharing. At 5,000 bikes in the system, that works out to $21,600 per bike.
It's hard to believe we don't have this in Portland. It's obviously bikey, it privatizes profit potential while socializing risk, and its business model makes no sense. That's right up the Sam Rand Twins' alley. I guess none of the Goldschmidt people wanted to get into it.
| Posted at 11:45 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (8)
Jack, The key to the bail out is that Portland WILL buy into it:
"...another $71-million in loan guarantees to export and develop the system abroad."
And:
"... any financial assistance will be recuperated after Bixi systems are implemented in cities around the world."
Posted by dman | June 4, 2011 12:55 PM
That's impressive, it only took then two years to burn thru that much money.
Heck Gardiner and Glickman Jr took that amount of time and only blew $38M of our money at PGE Park thanks to Vera.
Posted by Steve | June 4, 2011 12:57 PM
Well, if one segment of PBOT gets its way, Portland will sooon have this.
Wednesday, june 1, PBOT ran a"hearing" on 5 potential projects to forward to Metro for funding as of 1 October 2013 under sometghing called "Regional Flexible Funds (RFF)" which com from the feds as opart of something called the Surface Transportation ct.
One of the projects is a 500 bike fleet for $ 4 million to be rented out downtown central city, and the city proposes, after buying the bikes with taxpayer funds laundered through the feds and Metro to hire a private operator to administer the program.
Sound familiar.
I asked the chief proponent to explain the failure of the old yellow bike system from 10 years or so ago and to tell me why this would be different. The basic answer: "Because I say it will be different."
It never ends.
Posted by Nonny Mouse | June 4, 2011 1:22 PM
New York City is going for it. That one is truly laughable.
Posted by Jack Bog | June 4, 2011 2:13 PM
One of the great benefits of little used, heavily subsidized bike share boondogle is it gives the authorities one more excuse to eliminate street parking spaces. Go by foot. Nah, just stay home.
Posted by Newleaf | June 4, 2011 3:54 PM
Let's start a pool on how long they will last.
Posted by pdxmick | June 4, 2011 11:29 PM
Ever get the feeling that Sam's entire city budget plan is based on too many viewings of "The Producers"?
Posted by Texas Triffid Ranch | June 5, 2011 8:58 AM
It is interesting that Montreal's BikeShare business is a failure and needs taxpayer bailouts. Then this same company is bringing their expertise to NYC and helping Bloomberg realize the GreenNYC and PlaNYC Initiatives.
But then think about the fact that Bloomberg brought our own METRO President David Bragdon to NYC to "green" NYC. That explains everything since Bragdon was involved in Portland's failed BikeShare program. Learning curve is a flat line.
Posted by lw | June 5, 2011 10:28 AM