City urged to explore dockless bike sharing to save space

The city needs to revisit its approach to bike-share parking, as the bulky stations are taking up too much space, says one city councillor.

Trinity-Spadina Councillor Mike Layton introduced a proposal at Tuesday’s public works and infrastructure committee asking staff to explore the possibility of introducing dockless bike-sharing technology. Currently, the city’s Bike Share pro- gram relies on the use of large docking systems, which can be a big inconvenience in a city as dense as Toronto, said Layton.

“The stations are big and that has actually been a barrier to the rollout,” he said, noting the docking stations can be two metres wide and 12 to 15 metres long.

“Finding a space that can accommodate that is tricky. We have areas in my ward, which has an enormous population of cyclists, but we have difficulty putting the stations in.”

Last month, Bike Share Toronto added 70 stations to its stable, upping the total number of stations to 270 with a fleet of 2,750 bikes.

The multimillion-dollar program has been increasing in popularity, now counting as many as 9,500 active members who each pay a $90 annual membership fee. Last week Bike Share reached a million rides this year, putting it on course to eclipse last year’s record of 1.1million.

But Layton said bike-sharing technology has been evolving quickly, with new startups across the world offering bikes with locks that do not require big and costly docks.

In Toronto, the private company DropBike rolled in earlier this summer for a pilot project. After a little more than eight weeks, the project reports more than 5,000 rides by about 1,400 users.

The item was referred to city staff for further review.