MONTREAL -- The first electric bike-sharing station in Montreal was launched on Wednesday in the Riviere-des-Prairies-Point-aux-Trembles borough – thus allowing cyclists to rent a fully-charged bike at any time.
Key players involved in the launch made the announcement in front of CEGEP Marie-Victorin, where the station is located.
“We are extremely proud to inaugurate the first of many power stations that will be offered to the population,” said Eric Alan Caldwell, who is responsible for urban planning and mobility on the city’s executive committee. “BIXI has always been able to innovate and this project is further proof of that.”
There are now 1,000 electric Bixis on Montreal streets – making the city’s fleet the largest in Canada and one of the largest in North America as a whole.
The first 160 bikes in the fleet were first generation and were launched last September. Bixi and the city said they quickly won over cycling enthusiasts, who used them 75 per cent more often than they used the regular bikes in their fleet.
The second-generation bikes offer a minimum range of 70 kilometres and can travel at a maximum speed of 32 km/h. Bixi said one of the advantages of these bikes is that the battery levels are displayed – so users can always know how much juice they’ve got left.
A Hydro Quebec subsidiary called Hilo is a new partner for the city’s fleet of electric Bixis.
“While BIXI contributes to Montrealers' quality of life by promoting an active mode of transportation, Hilo offers turnkey services aimed at helping its customers move towards responsible energy consumption,” said Hilo president and CEO, Sebastien Fournier. “This complementarity will bring a whole new dimension to urban mobility.”
As of 2020, Bixi's network includes more than 7,000 standard bikes, 1,000 eletric ones and 611 stations across the city.
