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The City of Toronto is expanding its bike share program and adding more e-bikes this year after seeing an increase in ridership last year.
Bike Share Toronto had a 40-per-cent increase in individual riders in 2025 compared to 2024, according to its annual operating plan, which was presented to the Toronto Parking Authority board of directors on Wednesday.
The program also saw a 10-per-cent increase in total rides taken, with a total of 7.8 million trips last year, according to the report. About 231,000 people who used bike share last year were first time riders.
E-bikes delivered over twice as many trips-per-day as regular bikes in 2025, and this year 200 new e-bikes and 350 e-docks will be added to the city’s network, along with 750 regular bikes. The city will also add 1,200 new solar stations.
E-bikes may be particularly popular because they make longer-distance rides more accessible to new or beginner cyclists, says Raktim Mitra, an urban planning professor at Toronto Metropolitan University.
“Suddenly five to seven kilometres becomes a more reasonable distance to bike in a reasonable amount of time, without exerting much physical effort,” he said.
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Bike Share Toronto had about 231,000 first-time riders last year, a 39-per-cent jump from 2024, the report found. And the total number of trips this year is projected to rise to about 8.6 million.
Michael Longfield, executive director of cycle advocacy group Cycle Toronto, said the bike share program acts as a “gateway drug” for people to discover a love of cycling and he’s happy about the program’s success and expansion.
“I think it shows there’s just really a big demand for more people to get outside, to get biking, to have more options,” he told CBC Toronto on Wednesday.
Proper infrastructure key to growth, prof says
Mitra says proper infrastructure is key to growing the city’s bike share program, and city cycling in general.
The program’s expansion comes a few months after Toronto’s city council greenlit a plan to put in 20 kilometres of new bike lanes in the city. At the same time, the province is appealing a decision by an Ontario court to strike down a law that aimed to remove 19 kilometres of protected bike lanes in Toronto along Bloor Street, Yonge Street and University Avenue.
This year, the FIFA World Cup is expected to bring in thousands of visitors and increased car traffic to the city. The expansion of Bike Share Toronto could help ease congestion and get people around the city faster, Mistra says.
“Having access to these shared, micro-mobility systems can become particularly important in congested downtown settings where we have a public transit system that is already crowded, our roads are already congested,” he said.
The Bike Share Toronto expansion will cost just over $10 million. Last year, the program brought in $17.1 million in revenue, according to the report. That’s $2.3 million more than initially projected.