"Even so, Treat says PBOT is assuming the city will need to front money to purchase a bike share system"

How and when and by whom was that decision made?

Kudos to Dirk for even writing about this. Denis just avoids uncomfortable discussion that doesn't support his activism.

"Treat says PBOT is assuming the city will need to front money to purchase a bike share system while sponsorship dollars arrive in yearly installments."

Sigh.

Blabby: It's not a done deal, and would have to formally be approved by the city council if it happened. Treat characterized it to me as an assumption in PBOT's financial planning.

Ahh, I got it. Alta is going to end up purchasing / taking over Bixi's international operations with all the financial risk somehow born by the public.

Thanks Dirk.

BabyG, I can't figure out what will happen to Bixi. It has nearly $50 million in debt and the city of Montreal has lent it some $100 million to keep it going over the years. Those numbers are huge for what is basically a bicycle-manufacturing company.

Yeah, from my understanding, Bixi was set up and funded with loans from Montreal to supply / operate systems in other cities on the theory that the outside operations would fully fund the Montreal system. That was a huge failure and that Bixi is done.

I suspect its going to shed the international sales / service / operator side of things and just be the local Montreal bike share operator if it even if its allowed to stand as an independent entity (usually, bankrupts are not allowed to keep the same owners, the assets are sold and the company liquidated or the creditors get ownership shares or equivalents in the new reorganized debtor). Not sure how that general standard applies for non-profits or Canadian bankrupts.

They need to do a free bike share program only accessible by PIN numbers distributed to homeless drug addicts so the rest of us can keep the bikes we already have safe without having to carry around five pound bike locks.