Montreal's Bixi rental bikes are rolling

Montreal's new self-service bicycle sharing program is open for business.

The$15-million Bixi program was officially launched Tuesday at city hall, where Mayor Grald Tremblay took the first ride.

"It was conceived and fabricated in Montreal, in Quebec," he told a crowd of onlookers gathered for the Bixi launch. "It's a unique product that should make us proud."

Three-thousand bikes are available for short-term rental around Montreal's downtown core.

The bikes, which cost $2,000 apiece, are made of aluminum and are theft-proof, according totheir designers.

The bikes contain a GPS chip, andif rented and not returned will "slow down, and the brakes will lock automatically," explained Julian Joseph, a Montreal high school student who's part of a team hired by the city to repair the bike fleet.

Some 300 stations have been set up to store and pick up bikes.

Cyclists can subscribe to the service at a cost of $78 for a year, $28 for a month or $5 for a day. The first 30 minutes of each rental are free.

Bixi, a term coined from "bike" and "taxi," is modelled on bike sharing programs in Europe, most notably the Vlib networkin Paris.

The city of Montreal has patented its model and hopes to sell it to other cities, Tremblay said.

The mayor saidhe firsthopes the program will be so successful in Montreal that more bikes will be needed.