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The City of Kelowna wants people to have bike and scooter sharing opportunities, but both modes of transport are facing challenges.
Remember the year of the DropBike? During the summer of 2018, people seemed to embrace them, but the company pulled out of Kelowna. Now the city is hoping the offer of exclusivity can bring back something similar.
"We've brought to council a way forward for changing our current program to allow for an exclusive e-bike share provider," said the City of Kelowna's Matt Worona. But so far, there doesn't seem to be a lot of reason for optimism.
"Specifically pedal bikes and e-bikes, we just haven't gotten a lot of market interest in that," acknowledged Worona. In fact, there isn't a single city in the country where these kinds of rentals are available without some kind of government subsidy.
E-scooters emerged in 2019 in Kelowna, But restrictions on where they were allowed to travel left them as little more than a waterfront novelty.
Worona said there have been promising talks with provincial officials about allowing scooters on roadways.
"They haven't really gotten back with anything firm yet," he said. "We're waiting on the province before we make any changes or we open up the door to shared scooters on our streets again in the future."
He said, this past summer, e-scooters proved popular in Calgary where people were using them to move between business districts.
NowMedia reached out to the Ministry of Transporation and Infrastructure about legislation to free-up road access to rented e-scooters and the response was promising.
"Expanding active transportation networks to meet the province’s CleanBC goals is a priority," they write in an email to NowMedia.
"More information on a potential pilot project is expected this spring."
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