The City of Toronto just released its 2025 Cycling Year in Review report. You can download it here. At the highest level, Toronto is now considered to be the 7th most bike-friendly city in North America, according to the Copenhagenize Index. Our snowier sibling, Montréal, is number one on the continent. And globally, we're ranked 55th.
Neither of these positions is particularly impressive given our scale and prominence as a global city, but progress is being made. In 2025, City Council approved 33 km of new bikeways, installed 14.11 km, and upgraded 9.02 km. Our infrastructure continues to get better.
What I find particularly noteworthy and telling, though, is the adoption of the city's bike share network. 2025 was another record year, with 7.8 million rides, representing a 13% increase from 2024. We're still not at the level of Montréal, which recorded 13 million rides in 2024, but adoption is growing quickly.
We have gone from around 665,000 rides in 2015 to nearly 8 million in the span of a decade. That's a compounded annual growth rate of approximately 28%! Once again, we are reminded that if you build it, and make it easy and safe, more people will ride bicycles.
Within a week, Paris will know, with near certainty, who its next mayor will be. (The first round of results will be announced this evening.) The two frontrunners are Emmanuel Grégoire (on the left) and Rachida Dati (on the right). Grégoire is the status quo vote, and Dati is the "I want change" vote.
From a city-building standpoint, one of the ways that this is being presented is as a battle between bikes and cars. Not surprisingly, the current mobility approach has been criticized for creating a divide between wealthier residents in transit-rich central Paris (where only about a quarter of households own a car) and residents in the more car-oriented suburbs.
Because after 12 years under Mayor Anne Hidalgo it's pretty clear that "the bike beat the car in Paris." From 2002 to 2023, car traffic fell by more than half, dedicated cycle lanes expanded sixfold, and today, bike trips outnumber car trips by more than 2 to 1 in the city.
As an outsider to the city, I can only read about what's going on, but what I find interesting is that this particular mobility issue doesn't appear to be as political as the headlines might suggest.
Dati has softened her initial criticism of popular cycle lanes and instead focused on concerns over dirty streets.
“We’re not fighting an ideological battle on [transportation] issues,” Dati told news agency Reuters while greeting shoppers in northern Paris. “We just want things to be organised.”
And:
She [Dati] has promised not to reverse the left’s flagship policy of transforming a once traffic-clogged dual carriageway into a car-free pedestrian walkway along the banks of the Seine, but will renovate those pedestrian spaces.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but what this tells me is that Parisians actually like the city's transition away from the car. I'm reminded of last summer in Paris when I was in an Uber and the driver surprised me by saying that these mobility changes needed to be done — bikes are a more efficient form of urban transport and they have greatly reduced pollution within the city.
General public sentiment also seems to reflect my anecdotal evidence. A recent Keolis-IFOP survey found that more than one in two French people (~56%) would like to see cars play a smaller role in the cities of tomorrow. Importantly, this response also seems to transcend geography and socio-economic divides. The same sentiment is found in Paris and in rural areas.
This month's mayoral election will certainly tell us something about Parisian preferences for the status quo versus change. But I'm always encouraged when issues can become less about ideology and more about whether we are accomplishing productive objectives based on, you know, facts and information.
Cover photo by Irina Nakonechnaya on Unsplash
Regular readers of this blog might remember that last "summer" (it was still chilly), I biked for brain health here in Toronto.
I rode 75 km, raised $3,800, and helped Multiplex Construction Canada raise over $14,000, with 100% of these donations going directly to the Baycrest Foundation to fund work related to dementia, Alzheimer's, and other brain-related illnesses.
This summer I'll be riding again on Sunday, May 31, 2026, except with a few changes:
They've moved the starting location to the Aga Khan Museum (architecture by the Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki).
They've increased the longest circuit to 90 km.
We've created our own Globizen team! If we're feeling really ambitious, maybe we'll even create our own cycling bibs. (This strikes me as a low probability scenario.)
If you're up for it, I would encourage you to join our team and ride for brain health. Alternatively, you can always just participate with your wallet.
Full disclosure caveat: Bianca and I are expecting our first child (a girl) in June. This ride is closeish to the due date, creating at a minimum three possible scenarios for the day:
Scenario one is that she is not yet born on May 31 and I ride as one would expect.
Scenario two is that she is born early, and I then spend this Sunday morning at home in some kind of sleep-deprived state. (Or, the "vibe" is that I should probably stay home.)
And I suppose scenario three is that I don't finish the ride and I end up at the hospital in head-to-toe lycra, clicking and clacking around in my cycling shoes.
Scenarios one and two feel more optimal, in my humble opinion.
Cover photo: Len Abelman (Principal at WZMH Architects) and me completing the Bike for Brain Health end-of-summer follow-up ride in September 2025.