Launched as BIXI, rescued by the city after its operator went broke
Bike Share Toronto
Toronto's bike-share system nearly died in 2013 when its Montreal-based operator couldn't repay a city loan. The Toronto Parking Authority took it over instead of shutting it down — and it's grown every year since.
Advertisement
Toronto's public bike-share system launched in May 2011 under the BIXI brand, operated by the Montreal-based company behind Montreal's BIXI system. It started with 1,000 bicycles at 80 stations concentrated in the downtown core. The system quickly ran into financial trouble: by 2013 it was on the brink of collapse, unable to repay a $3.9 million startup loan from the City of Toronto.
Municipal takeover and growth
In 2014, the Toronto Parking Authority — a municipal agency — took over ownership and management of the system, and it was rebranded Bike Share Toronto as it became a fully public operation. Under Toronto Parking Authority management the network expanded steadily, with a particularly large expansion in 2020 that grew the system to 625 stations and 6,850 bikes. By 2023 it had reached 756 stations and 8,970 bikes, including 1,815 e-bikes.
Advertisement
Sources
Continue reading
Union Station
Toronto's grand 1927 train hall is the single busiest piece of transportation infrastructure in the country —…
Exhibition Place
Our CNE guide covers the annual fair itself. The 197-acre grounds it happens on host BMO Field, the…
Connaught Labs
A University of Toronto lab founded in 1914 to make diphtheria antitoxin became, within a few decades, the…
Markham
A 19th-century farming village named for an Archbishop of York became Canada's self-declared "high-tech…