LOADING

BIKING

AROUND TORONTO

By population, Toronto is the biggest census metropolitan area in Canada. Montreal and Vancouver are the second, and third largest, respectively.

Does this ranking stay the same when comparing the cities across other variables?

In particular, how does Toronto's biking scene stack up compared to Montreal and Vancouver?

First, let's look at bike lanes.

Bike lanes improve traffic flow by giving a dedicated space to bikers on the road. Bike lanes, when protected, also increase the safety of cyclists.

How do Toronto's bike lanes compare to Montreal and Vancouver?

Public bike sharing programs are a major aspect to many urban cities' biking infrastructure. Toronto has Bike Share Toronto, Montreal has BIXI, and Vancouver has Mobi.

All 3 cities' bike sharing programs operate with a docking model, where stations are placed around the city at which users rent and return bikes.

Since users are able to rent a bike from one dock and return it to any other dock, major components of the usability of a bike share network are station coverage and distribution.

Now that we've done some of our own investigating, let's see what the experts in the field are saying.

People for Bikes is an organization dedicated to promoting bicycling as a safe and accessible mode of transportation. Every year, People for Bikes ranks cities by Bicycle Network Analysis (BNA) score. BNA scores act as an indicator for how well a city's bike network connects people with places they want to go.

According to the 2024 BNA scores, Toronto ranks 262th out of 2390 North American cities with a score of 47. This is behind other major Canadian cities, Montreal with 71 and Vancouver with 66.

A city's BNA score is based on six metrics. Let's see how our major Canadian cities shape up according to these metrics.

Bicycle Network Analysis Score Breakdowns

Hover over a category to learn more about it! Click on any of a city's bars to highlight that city's scores!

Insights for Toronto vs Montreal & Vancouver

  • Overall, Bike Share station coverage across all 3 cities is clustered around the city centre.
  • Montreal has better bike path coverage compared to Toronto and Vancouver.
  • Toronto has a higher Bike Share station coverage (by percentage of city area) than Montreal and Vancouver.
  • Despite Toronto's bike share station coverage, on all six BNA metrics, Toronto ranked lowest and Montreal ranked highest.

While Toronto's bike scene on average may be worse than Montreal and Vancouver's, it definitely exists. There are spots within the city where the biking experience is better than others.

Let's revisit some of the demographic variables that might have an impact on biking in an area. We will explore how Toronto's neighbourhoods differ, and how the distributions of variables may compare to one another.

Comparing Toronto's Neighbourhoods

From the choropleth maps, you may have observed some trends.

Let's see how strong these trends are by removing the geographical aspect to our data and plotting every neighbourhood as a dot on a scatterplot.

Let's deep dive into individual neighbourhoods.

Which ones have more bike infrastructure? Which have less?

Detailed Neighbourhood View

Using the minimap on the right, click on a neighbourhood to zoom in on it!
Summary
Neighbourhood:
Average Income (2021):
Bike Commuter Percentage (2021):
Bikeshare Stations:
Bike Racks:
Total Bicycle Collisions (2009-2023):
Total Bicycle Thefts (2009-2023):

Lastly, lets further examine Toronto's Bike Share network.

Where are Bike Share stations located in the city? Which ones are used most frequently? How long do commuters typically take to complete their trip?

Are bikes typically available at this station? How many docks are there? Are they maintained?

Toronto's Bike Share Stations

Click on a station dot from the map or a bar from the graph to view more information about that station.

Insights for Toronto

  • Most bike commuters are downtown, but not in neighbourhoods with high Bike Share station density.
  • Bike parking racks are scarce in most neighbourhoods.
  • Bike theft rate is correlated with Bike Share station density in a neighbourhood.

Made by:

Amiel Nurja

Dihan Niloy

Mieko Yao

Sources

Abdul Latif. Bicycle Wheel. Noun Project (CC BY 3.0).

City of Toronto. Bike Share Toronto. Open Data Portal.

City of Toronto. Cycling Network. Open Data Portal.

City of Toronto. Bicycle Thefts. Open Data Portal.

Toronto Police Service. Cyclist KSI. Public Safety Data Portal.

City of Toronto. Bike Share Toronto Ridership Data. Open Data Portal.

City of Toronto. Neighbourhoods. Open Data Portal.

City of Toronto. Neighbourhood Profiles. Open Data Portal.

City of Toronto. Bicycle Parking Racks. Open Data Portal.

Government of Canada. Bicycle network [Montreal]. Open Government Portal​.

Government of Canada. Administrative boundaries of the agglomeration of Montreal (boroughs and related cities). Open Government Portal​.

Bixi. Open data [Montreal Bike Share].

City of Vancouver. Bikeways. Open Data Portal.

City of Vancouver. Local area boundary. Open Data Portal.

Mobi. System data [Vancouver Bike Share].

People for Bikes. City Ratings.