Council to vote on cutting fees for bike-sharing companies using public city land
More bike-share stations could pop up in Ottawa this summer if council agrees to make it cheaper for those companies to use public land.
The transportation committee on Wednesday endorsed the fee break, allowing bike-share companies to expand their services without paying a hefty bill for encroachment fees.
CycleHop, the company that runs the VeloGo bike share in Ottawa and Gatineau, has been meeting with city officials in recent months about expanding the service. Under a pilot program for 2018, ending on Nov. 15, the company and the city would work on new locations for the bike stations.
The committee voted unanimously to knock the regular encroachment fee down to $250 per station, per year, and $1 per bike, per month.
There is no encroachment fee specifically for bike stations in the city’s bylaw, but the city quotes a rate of $1.52 per square metre, per day if the station is on the sidewalk, or 65 cents per square metre, per day on a boulevard. The average station is about 14 square metres, so companies would need to pay thousands each season to offer a hub-based bike-share program on a sidewalk. The city tacks on a $59.20 processing fee. There is no cost per bike.
Council needs to sign off on the fee reduction next Wednesday.
Coun. Keith Egli, the chair of the transportation committee, said the same deal would be available to other bike-share companies.
The VeloGo bike share has operated stations on lands owned by the National Capital Commission and the City of Gatineau since 2015. The rental service allows people to reserve bikes and return them to hubs scattered across the region.
The City of Ottawa plans to suggest new regulations for bike sharing and bike parking in 2019 during a review of the municipal parking strategy and encroachment bylaw.
Bike-share business models have gone beyond the hub system of short-term bike rentals.
Afraj Gill of Dropbike told councillors about his company ’s model, which allows people to find a Dropbike bike through a smartphone app and return it to a lock-up location. The service currently operates in some Canadian cities, but not Ottawa. Gill received no questions from councillors during the committee meeting.