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After years of hemorrhaging money — and with city halls no longer willing to bail it out — Bixi, the Montreal-created standard-bearer of the bike-sharing revolution, announced Monday it was filing for bankruptcy protection.

“If Bixi can be saved, it is through the Bankruptcy & Insolvency Act,” said Denis Coderre, the city’s mayor.

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“It is not up to the taxpayers to assume the financial risk involving a business plan.”

He tersely rejected any talk of a Bixi bailout, in stark contrast to three years ago when Montreal city council greeted the bike sharer’s looming bankruptcy with a $37-million loan and another $71-million in financial guarantees.

With most of that $37-million likely lost forever, Mr. Coderre said injecting more city money into the operation is “out of the question.”

Monday’s announcement is by no means a surprise, even if members of Montreal’s executive committee were fervently promising as recently as September “Bixi is not going into bankruptcy.”