Got Presto? Bike Share has a deal for you
Card holders will get up to half off on a one-year membership, part of a move to end the “first mile/last mile” dilemma.

thestar.com
By Ben Spurr
Sept. 1, 2016

Bike Share Toronto is offering Presto card owners a hefty discount on new memberships in a bid to boost subscriptions and strengthen the link between public transit and cycle share use.

Under the terms of the deal, which Bike Share launched Thursday, transit riders who use a Presto fare card will pay half price if they sign up for a new one-year membership, which normally costs $90 plus tax.

Card users will be eligible for a 40 per cent discount in the second year of membership, a 30 per cent discount in the third year, and so on, until the fifth year, when they would get a 10 per cent markdown.

Presto fare cards are accepted by 10 transit agencies in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, including GO Transit and portions of the TTC, which plans to make its entire system Presto-ready by the end of the year.

“We view a lot of synergy between both TTC and GO, and Bike Share,” said Marie Casista, vice president for real estate, development and marketing for the Toronto Parking Authority, which oversees Bike Share.

“(Bike Share is) becoming more accepted, and a more important part of the transportation framework for the inner city.”

The program currently has 4,778 yearly members, up from 3,885 last July. It also sells passes for shorter-term use.

The deal does not mean that people will be able to pay for Bike Share by tapping their fare card, as they do on public transit systems, or at least not yet. Casista said Bike Share’s goal is to eventually allow customers to pay for the service using Presto.

The discount offer is the latest co-operation between Bike Share and Metrolinx, the regional transit agency that operates Presto as well as GO. This past summer, Metrolinx backstopped a major, $6-million expansion of Bike Share that added 120 new stations and 1,000 new bicycles to the network, more than doubling its size. Many of the new cycle-share stations were installed outside TTC subway stops.

Increasing active transportation and linking it to public transit is one of the key priorities of Metrolinx’s regional transportation plan, known as the Big Move.

Metrolinx spokeswoman Anne Marie Aikins said the partnership with Bike Share makes sense because transit riders can use the bicycle program to make the final, short trip from a transit station to their destination. Finding efficient ways to move passengers at the beginning and end of their journeys is known in transit circles as the “first mile/last mile” dilemma.

“You can’t really look at each transportation option in isolation of all of the others, because the reality is that people use a variety of ways to get from point A to B,” Aikins said.

Aikins said roughly 20,000 GO customers already use Bike Share, and almost half of Bike Share users have a Presto card.

A report on the future of mobility in the GTHA released last month by the University of Toronto recommended integrating public transit systems and shared mobility services such as Uber and cycle-share programs, and allowing users to pay for them in a single place.