Surrey city council has voted to expand an electric bike-sharing pilot project to Newton for one year and supported a city staff report related to off-street bicycle parking spaces.
Last April, the City of Surrey launched a two-year electric bike share pilot program in North Surrey which operated at no-cost to the City thanks to an exclusive contract with Bird Canada, which owns, operates and maintains a fleet of 200 electric bikes available for rent through its app.
"The number of bikes deployed is adjusted monthly to match ridership," Scott Neuman, Surrey's general manager of engineering, noted in a corporate report that came before council on April 28. He noted that rides can only begin and end in designated parking areas in City rights-of-way, with a per-minute charge featuring discounted passes for regular users.
"The first year of operation for the electric bike share pilot in North Surrey has delivered over 14,000 rides connecting to SkyTrain, parks and shopping centres. Within the existing contract, the program will be enhanced in year two through an expansion of the operating area to Newton," Neuman's report reads.
Councillor Doug Elford said the City of Surrey is "getting lobbied" for scooters as well. "Maybe you want to explain to us why scooters are a challenge?" he asked city staff. Neuman replied that you have to be age 16 or older to ride a scooter. "Another one is you cannot ride on sidewalks and another one is you must wear a helmet and there's another caveat that scooters have to go 25 kilometres an hour or lower," he said.
Mayor Brenda Locke asked about people going to hospital "from accidents with e-scooters because certainly I see them going really fast, way beyond 25 km/h."
Neuman replied that city staff will explore statistics on this and report to council.
Meantime, council also supported another report from Neuman and Ron Gill, Surrey's general manager of planning and development, related to off-street parking for bicycle parking spaces. It concerns a "bike utilization survey" for underground parking and zoning bylaw amendments for council's consideration.
They note that the City of Surrey's current off-street bicycle parking space requirements "are generally consistent with other municipalities. Notwithstanding, the Task Force identified the potential for continuous improvement to amend the Zoning Bylaw to be more flexible and in line with resident demands."
According to the report, city staff conducted on-site surveys of 13 multi-family tower sites – together containing 5,579 dwellings – in the city centre in March and found that "actual bicycle parking utilization rates were significantly lower than the City’s prescribed requirements of 1.2 bicycle spaces per dwelling unit, leading to empty storage rooms which could be used for alternate applications" such as vehicle parking, waste collection and storage space for residents. "The average utilization rate was 0.1 bicycles per dwelling unit (including unoccupied units) and a maximum utilization rate of 0.27 bicycles per dwelling unit," staff learned.
Gill and Neuman explained this has revealed Surrey’s bicycle parking requirements "for developments along rapid transit corridors are comparable to the region, yet remain significantly underutilized."
Therefore, city staff recommend the bylaw be revised to a minimum of 0.4 spaces per dwelling unit. A public hearing has been set for Monday, May 12.
Councillor Pardeep Kooner said the utilization rate compared to what city hall was requiring is "kind of shocking so I really appreciate the initiative to bring this forward and to be more practical in how we look at development."
Locke asked how much a bicycle parking spot would cost, to which Neuman replied "I would guess a parking spot for a vehicle, underground parkade, depending on how many levels, roughly maybe $70,000, $75,000, so you might get three or four bikes in that same space so somewhere in the order of $17,000, $20,000 would be my guess, for a bike space."
