{"id":531131,"date":"2026-03-12T09:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T09:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/531131\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T09:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T09:47:09","slug":"bike-share-toronto-adding-more-e-bikes-charging-docks-as-demand-goes-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/531131\/","title":{"rendered":"Bike Share Toronto adding more e-bikes, charging docks as demand goes up"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Estimated 3 minutes<\/p>\n

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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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuddenly five to seven kilometres becomes a more reasonable distance to bike in a reasonable amount of time, without exerting much physical effort,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Bike Share Toronto’s high demand causing issues:\"\"<\/p>\n

Bike Share Toronto says it’s a victim of its own success. It’s looking to NYC for help<\/p>\n

In the latest part of our series ‘Toronto Explained,’ CBC’s Chris Glover breaks down flaws within Bike Share Toronto’s program amid high demand \u2014 and how New York City’s popular bike sharing program might pave the way for solutions.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Michael Longfield, executive director of cycle advocacy group Cycle Toronto, said the bike share program acts as a \u201cgateway drug\u201d for people to discover a love of cycling and he\u2019s happy about the program\u2019s success and expansion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it shows there’s just really a big demand for more people to get outside, to get biking, to have more options,\u201d he told CBC Toronto on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Proper infrastructure key to growth, prof says<\/p>\n

Mitra says proper infrastructure is key to growing the city’s bike share program, and city cycling in general.<\/p>\n

The program’s expansion comes a few months after Toronto\u2019s city council greenlit a plan<\/a> to put in 20 kilometres of new bike lanes in the city.\u00a0At 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<\/a> in Toronto along Bloor Street, Yonge Street and University Avenue.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-531131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}