Quebec Sustainably Funds Shared Micromobility

Quebec stands apart from most North American jurisdictions in one important way: it funds active transportation, including shared micromobility, through its own provincial programs tied to its carbon market rather than relying exclusively on federal grants or municipal investment.

Quebec’s largest system is BIXI, the Montreal bikeshare service that launched in 2009 as one of North America’s first large-scale bikeshare programs. BIXI passed 100 million cumulative trips in 2025 and had a record year of about 14.5 million trips. That season the network ran roughly 12,600 bikes, including 3,200 electric, across more than 1,080 stations in 13 municipalities around greater Montreal, and it keeps expanding. 

Quebec City runs àVélo, launched in 2021 and the first large-scale all-electric bikeshare in Canada. It has grown fast, to about 2,300 electric bikes at 225 stations, and recorded close to two million trips in its 2025 season. Between BIXI and àVélo, Quebec has two of the busiest public bikeshare systems in Canada.

Montreal ran a shared e-scooter pilot in 2019 but pulled it after a single season, and shared scooters have stayed limited in the province since. Quebec legalized the use of personal e-scooters on public roads through a provincial pilot that started in 2023, with a 25 km/h limit, a minimum age of 14, and mandatory helmets. But shared scooter operations haven’t taken hold the way bikeshare has.

The province’s main funding tool is the Programme d’aide financière au développement des transports actifs dans les périmètres urbains, known as TAPU, run by the Ministère des Transports et de la Mobilité durable. TAPU helps municipalities build active transportation infrastructure in urban areas, and it is funded primarily by the Fonds d’électrification et de changements climatiques, the fund fed by revenue from Quebec’s cap-and-trade carbon market. The program sits within Quebec’s Plan pour une économie verte 2030 and its 2030 sustainable mobility policy. Quebec used to have a bikeshare-specific program (Programme d’Aide Financière au Développement de l’Offre de Vélos en Libre-Service) but folded it into TAPU in 2022. TAPU funds the deployment of shared bike systems directly, including the bikes, docking stations, and onboard electronics.

The provincial funding model is under pressure, though. The carbon-market fund that supports TAPU has become a target for other priorities. The 2026-2027 provincial budget redirected roughly $1.8 billion from the fund to the Fonds des générations to help reduce the provincial deficit, a move environmental groups criticized as diverting climate money to balance the books. 

Even so, the systems in Quebec themselves tell a clear story. BIXI and àVélo are thriving, and Quebec has grown shared micromobility to a scale most places haven’t been able to achieve. Quebec has proven that stable provincial funding can turn shared micromobility into sustainable everyday transportation.