Across North America and the world, biking is known to be a great, reliable, and cheap way to get around any city. After what seemed like an eternity, in recent years biking in St. John’s has seen a revival. Every summer more and more tourists and residents are commuting and travelling more by bike. Meanwhile, many residents are wondering if the city’s bike infrastructure can keep up and if there are enough services and businesses to meet market demand.

Bike Rentals

Most major Canadian cities have some sort of bike rental program in place. These are a great and affordable way to travel, especially when visiting a city. St. John’s recently implemented a similar program with a private bike rental company, “Pedego,” offering E-bike rentals, ideal for a city with rolling hills like St. John’s.

Despite this new endeavour, the target market is neither students nor penny-pinching tourists. A 3-hour bike rental is priced at $79. For comparison, Montreal’s extremely successful “Bixi” bike rental program is only $20 for a month of unlimited use of standard bikes, and e-bikes are only 13 cents per minute.

Meanwhile, renting a compact car for a full day in St. John’s through Hertz, a popular rental car company, is only $89.

Affordability was not in mind when Pedego was implemented in St. John’s.

City Infrastructure

The city and surrounding communities currently have two types of bike paths, shared-use and dedicated bike paths. Shared-use pathways could be anything from a trail shared by bikes and pedestrians to a 4-lane road (commonly referred to as a stroad) with “sharrows” painted over it. Dedicated bicycle paths are few and far between, and it is easy to see why a car may be all but essential to travel around and outside this city.

The Muse requested an interview with Councillor Ian Froude to get more insight into the current and future infrastructure planning in St. John’s. Froude passed the request on to Councillor Maggie Burton, who did not respond to the request for comment.

Sharrows

Research has shown that sharrows do not encourage biking or make it safer. A 2005 study published in the Journal of Transport and Health stated that sharrows make cycling more dangerous by adding a false sense of safety. Despite this, the city continues to invest more and more in sharrows across streets.

On its website, the City of St. John’s claims that “The City’s Bike Master Plan, which was approved by City Council 2019, sets out the goal to create a safe, inclusive, and convenient cycling network that is well-connected, attractive, and reflective of the City’s unique topography and climate. A component of the cycling plan is to build shared-use paths throughout the city to support multiple modes of active transportation.”

 Looking Forward

While the future may have many sharrows and unsafe bicycle paths, there is hope. The city is constantly looking to improve bike infrastructure and may present plans for a better biking environment. With rental companies like Pedego and others entering the market and with more and more visitors and residents choosing to cycle to work, school, and elsewhere, biking is likely to become more accessible in the future.