After a first winter marked by some failures, BIXI Montreal is pulling out all the stops to improve snow removal at its stations while the service is preparing an expansion of its offering for the next cold season, we have learned. The Press.
In a call for tenders published a few days ago, the paramunicipal organization indicates that it “wishes to receive service offers for snow removal services in order to follow up on its self-service bicycle network during the winter period “. We learn that the number of stations will increase from around 150 to almost 200, which represents some 4,500 anchor points.
“Their specific location will be announced at the end of October at the same time as other new features related to the expansion for the 2024-2025 season,” says a BIXI spokesperson, Clémence Giroux-Tremblay, by email. .
“Measures will be in place related to snow removal following the pilot project which raised some factors to monitor. The very way of clearing snow from the equipment will be optimized,” continues M.me Giroux-Tremblay. Last winter, many users deplored the difficulty in parking their bikes, with snow blocking certain anchor points.
New criteria
To avoid such problems this winter, the call for tenders specifies that a “4-foot radius” must now be completely cleared around each station, as well as plates, platforms, bollards, carpets and anchoring areas. “The interior of the anchor points must be cleared and cleared of snow and ice,” writes BIXI, which also requests that “an entire pedestrian path parallel” to the station be cleared of snow, equivalent to approximately “the total length” of it.
“We are also adding this year the de-icing of the rods to make it easier for users to change the height of the seats,” explains the spokesperson.
If necessary, an abrasive treatment must also be applied to “the entire area adjacent to the station”, adds the organization, which also wants to remove “snow from all bicycle saddles, in order to ‘avoid freezing in the event of melting’. If a snow removal job is considered “unsatisfactory”, the company will have “an additional period of 24 hours to make corrections”.
In its first winter season last year, the use of BIXI proved very popular. In four months, some 53,000 people used the organization’s bicycles, for an average of 3,727 trips per day. This is much more than the initial projections.
A survey carried out in March among 3,400 users also showed that 24% of them renewed their subscription during the winter, while estimates pointed more towards 13%, at most.
“It shows that expanding the offering brings more people,” said BIXI’s general director, Christian Vermette, last spring on the sidelines of a press conference. According to him, the network overall “responded well” during the seven snow removal periods and the episodes of freezing rain that occurred during the winter, without “major issues”.