It looks like Toronto’s widely-anticipated large-scale bike sharing program is getting underway. A Request for Expressions Of Interest (REOI) in the Toronto Public Bicycles Project was posted for potential bidders on the City’s web site late last week. This is the first step in the process that will see a Request for Proposals issued later this year. If all goes well, the program will launch in spring 2010 with 3,000 bikes located at dozens of stations in the area between Parkside Drive, Dupont Avenue, Broadview Avenue, and the lake. Stations are to be about 200–300 metres apart througout the entire area, with expansion planned for the future. Torontoist has more details about the framework the City has established for the project.

Some people feared that Toronto would wade timidly into bike sharing, starting with too few bikes at too few locations.  But staff have obviously done research on what works elsewhere and have applied that knowledge to kickstarting Toronto’s project.

Although the initial scope of the project just barely reaches across the Viaduct into Wards 29 and 30, we believe that there would be sufficient demand along the Danforth to justify positioning stations at least as far as Pape during or soon after the official launch.

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