The City of Kelowna wants people to have the opportunity to share bikes and scooters, but both modes of transport face challenges.
Do you remember the year of the DropBike? In the summer of 2018, people seemed to be hugging her, but the company pulled out of Kelowna. Now the city is hoping that the offer of exclusivity can bring back something similar.
“We found a way to change our current program to enable an exclusive provider of e-bike stock,” said Matt Worona of Kelowna City. So far, however, there doesn’t seem to be many reasons for optimism.
“We just don’t have a lot of market interest in it, especially for pedal and e-bikes,” Worona admitted. In fact, there is not a single city in the country that offers such rentals without government subsidies.
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“You haven’t really come back with anything solid,” he said. “We’ll wait for the province before we make any changes, or we’ll open the door for shared scooters on our streets again in the future.”
He said last summer e-scooters were very popular in Calgary, where people used them to move between business districts.
“The expansion of active transport networks to achieve the province’s CleanBC goals is a priority,” they write in an email to NowMedia.
“More information on a possible pilot project is expected in the spring.”
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