A new petition calling for the return of bike sharing to Ottawa is gaining traction as advocates and city officials debate what a future system should look like.
Cycling advocacy group Bike Ottawa recently launched a campaign urging residents to support bringing bike sharing back after a feasibility study by Mobycon found that a public system could work in the city.
“We would love to see bike share come back to Ottawa,” said Zoë Wind, a Bike Ottawa board member. “It’s safe, it’s convenient, it’s affordable, it’s accessible, and it really helps to bridge those gaps that we have in our current transit infrastructure.”
Wind said the petition had already gathered 300 signatures.
A 2014 file photo of VeloGo bikes.
Bike sharing disappeared from Ottawa in 2018, when Miami-based CycleHop pulled its VeloGO bikes. Earlier attempts at pay-and-go bike networks also struggled.
Capital Coun. Shawn Menard said those earlier systems were too focused on tourists and weren’t designed around how residents actually moved through the city.
“I think the program here failed mostly because this was a for-profit venture that focused mostly on tourism and was not in areas associated with residents connecting to transit, to LRT,” Menard said.
The Mobycon study suggested a future system could begin as a three-season operation in Ottawa and Gatineau with 1,200 bikes distributed across 115 docking stations.
The report commissioned by the City of Ottawa estimated that launching the system could cost up to $10 million, with additional annual operating costs depending on factors including the use of e-bikes and sponsorship revenue.
Menard argued the proposed price tag was modest compared to other transportation spending.
“Ten million dollars is exceptionally affordable to get a system like this up and running,” Menard said.
But not everyone is convinced a publicly backed bike-share system would benefit the city.
Harry Musson, owner of RentABike Ottawa, said he believed a city-supported bike-share network would hurt his local rental business.
“It would take money away from us, there’s no question,” Musson said.
RentABike Ottawa, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2026, offers bike rentals and both guided and self-guided cycling tours from its location under the bridge over the Rideau Canal near the Fairmont Château Laurier hotel.
Musson said his business saw a roughly 50-50 split between tourists and local customers, with many residents renting bikes when family or friends visited the city.
“What you find is people using these, it’s a bit like the scooters: a lot of them might be tourists,” Musson said. “They’re using them as tourists. They’re not using them as a means of transportation necessarily.”
Musson said he was skeptical a bike-share system would significantly reduce traffic.
“I don’t think it’s going to take one car off the Queensway,” he said.
Still, Musson said, if the city moves ahead with a system, bikes should be limited to locals and placed strategically in areas where residents could realistically use them.
“It has to be an intelligent placement of these bicycles that will be used as a means of transportation instead of the car,” he said.
Menard said a future system should work more like public transit, with the city helping to support the infrastructure.
“What we’re really hoping a bike-share program would be is more for city residents themselves, not just tourism,” he said.
Menard also said he hoped e-bikes would be included as part of the fleet to help make the system more accessible and encourage more residents to use it.
Cassie Smith, strategic lead for transportation at Ottawa-based non-profit EnviroCentre, said cities with the most successful bike-share systems typically treated them as a form of public transportation.
“The bike-share system is treated like public transportation, very much like OC Transpo and the trains and buses in the city,” Smith said.
EnviroCentre was one of the partners in the feasibility study.
Smith said bike sharing would give residents another transportation option at a time when many people were frustrated with congestion and transit reliability.
“The time is really now to start building towards a city that works better and where people aren’t stuck in their cars every day in congestion,” Smith said.
City staff are expected to report back to the public works and infrastructure committee in 2027 with recommendations on implementing and funding a bike-share system.
Menard said that timeline likely meant a system would not launch until 2028 at the earliest.
Bike Ottawa board member Zoë Wind says bike sharing is safe, convenient, affordable and accessible, “and it really helps to bridge those gaps that we have in our current transit infrastructure.”
Wind said she hoped the city would take action on bike sharing as soon as possible.
“This is a very achievable policy goal in Ottawa,” Wind said. “It would have a real material impact on peoples’ lives.”
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