I was in Toronto on the date of publishing and needed to go to a bar on college st but way east of the subway station. The problem with the street cars in Toronto during winter is that they were stalled (street parked cars were blocking them)! So I decided to walk and halfway there, I decided I should be “smart” and rent a bike. Bad idea, I wasn’t my time and my hands got cold!

The most egregious issue with bike share toronto is that the app did not accept my payment.

Here’s a full list of my issues.

1. Three different debit/credit cards of mine did not work. I tried Wise, WealthSimple, which I will admit are Debits, however even the NeoFinancial Credit Card did not work! I’ll have to add my BMO Business credit card
2. The QR codes are letters and not links.This is a bad implementation because if the QR code was a URL, the app would still be able to parse it and users without the app could be redirected to install the app! Someone who does not know English might not understand how to get a bike. Therefore, this isn’t just an incompetent implementation, there is also an accessibility issue.
3. The app asks for too much private information. For example my email, phone, and a password! Should be a simple OTP via email/phone, or none at all. Is the data of people who use these bikes being harvested?
4. Given that to pay you need to manually enter the card information, it’s stupid the app doesn’t accept Google Pay or PayPal. Lyft allows us to use PayPal. Why not something as simple as a bike rental app? I can’t wait till Monero improves their integration UX. Imagine being able to rent a bike anonymously! That’s the future I dream of!