The referendum to bring Bixi Bikes onto Bishop’s campus terminated on Thursday, and to remain respectful to the losing side of the referendum, I will simply say that there were more against the notion than for the notion… that may perhaps be a bit of an understatement. Voting held place for two days, and the Student Representative Council (SRC) tried to get the majority of students walking by the kiosk to vote, which was set up in the student union building and Dewies meal hall throughout the day. The staff running the polling station had a list of all BU students to ensure that no one voted more than once. The loss of the Bixi bike referendum was an extreme disappointment for me, for multiple reasons. Keeping in mind that I was a member of the organization who lost the vote and also that I do not wish to start another online war, I will express my opinions about this referendum.
For those of you who are unaware, Bixi is the bike-rental organization that started out in Montréal. Locals of Montréal, or tourists to Montréal, simply have to insert a credit card into a podium at any of the many bike-docking stations dispersed throughout Montréal to pay for the rental. Once a credit card has been inserted into the podium, one of the many bikes at the docking station can be removed and driven wherever the driver so pleases. One can rent the bikes for any trip length, such as the five-minute bike from the Eaton Center to Royal Victoria hospital, or the lengthy trip from Trudeau International to the Bell Center. Once the driver of the bike is finished using it, he/she simply has to put it back into ANY docking station (not solely the one that it was initially rented from) and the rental will stop; the user will be charged accordingly, on a time of usage method. These bikes are equipped with a light for driving at night (powered by the user who spins the pedals) and with a GPS chip for tracking purposes, in case the bike goes missing. The bikes are built out of extremely strong and durable metal and are incredibly difficult to damage. Bixi bikes started in Montréal in 2009 with 3,000 bikes and 300 stations, and were such a hit that they now have over 5,000 bikes in Montréal. Bixi has also expanded to America in states such as Boston and Minneapolis, and has also planned to expand to other parts of the world such as Melbourne, Australia and London, England.
One place that Bixi will not expand to in the new future is Bishop’s University, unfortunately. ACE*Bishop’s came up with the idea to bring Bixi onto campus this past summer, the summer of ’09, and the president and vice-president of ACE*, Mike Lavigne and Phil Jennes, worked tirelessly on this project. They presented to multiple boards, got members of the administration on-board with the idea, created a flawless business plan and an attractive financial proposition for the project. Since Bishop’s is a much smaller scale than Montréal (obviously), the system would be slightly altered from that of Montréal. Firstly, instead of paying on a pay-per-use method, students would pay an additional $10 a semester in student fees. This would give them unlimited half-hour usage of the bike, non-cumulative. This means that if I picked up a bike at the docking station at Provigo, rode it to the sports complex in 28 minutes, then that ride would be included. After working out, if I took out another bike and rode it to Hamilton building in 14 minutes, that ride would be included. And so on and so forth. There would be charges after the first half-hour, but very minimal (e.g. 5 hours = $3). But, with multiple stations around the small town of Lennoxville, one would rarely need to use the bike for more than half an hour. The project would get started from a loan and a deposit from the school, which would be returned through advertising revenue on the bikes within five years. There would be many less bikes (due to the small population of the school) than in Montréal, but same sort of set up, with four docking stations and forty bikes to begin with.
The project did not succeed in coming to fruition this time. ACE* put on an information session, we got Bixi representatives themselves come to campaign on campus, had publicity from CBC and local newspapers such as La Tribune and The Campus. However, other school extra-curricular organizations, Facebook wars and misinformed students all attributed to the project only getting a 30% approval rate at the referendum. Almost 600 students voted, 70% of them saying NO to the Bixi idea. Not all is bad, because although the referendum lost this time, there is still potential to bring Bixi here in the future; it just would have been nice – in my opinion – to have it here ASAP.
I clearly must be missing something, because I thought the idea was so smart and had so much potential, and thought most other students would feel similarly. For ten dollars extra a semester, I would love to have unlimited access to a bicycle to get me to and from anywhere in Lennoxville. With my house being right beside the PML, I have a hefty walk (relative to Bishop’s campus, of course) to the academic buildings and would truly have benefitted from a bike. But BU students lost more than just the convenience of the bikes; they also missed out on an opportunity to give BU more publicity. There goes the recognition for being the first school to have the Bixi bike system… some of us had already gotten cocky and had imagined the Bishop’s name being embellished with compliments…
HOWEVER, on a happier note, the MacLean’s’ new 2010 student-rankings are out, where the judging of the universities is done by students (not external sources) from across the nation… guess my imagination didn’t wander too far from the idea of BU receiving rave compliments… take a look!
http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2010/02/15/2010-university-student-surveys-complete-results-2/4/
Hey all!! This is just an little introductory bio for the joyous blogs that will inevitably follow!