Toronto’s bike share is busy at the best of times.
When the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off, it is expected to go into overdrive.
The program allows people to borrow bikes for 30 to 45 minutes from one of hundreds of docks around the city, ending their ride by returning them to another official station.
When it’s busy, however, it can be hard to find a bike to borrow or, if people converge on one location, it often proves impossible to find space to park.
In hopes of addressing the bottlenecks on matchdays, the Toronto Parking Authority — which runs the bike sharing program — is setting up areas where anyone can leave a bike without docking it.
“For the consumer, you’ll pick up your bike from wherever your origin point is, you’ll drive to one of our valet stations, and you’ll dock it and we’ll just have people here to receive the bike and move it off to the side,” Jarrett McDonald from the TPA explained.
“It’s about making sure you have a place to dock, and on the reverse, when it’s time to leave the game, there will be plenty of bikes to support leaving the facility.”
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The City of Toronto’s official plan for the World Cup expects roughly 10 per cent of people going to matches or the FIFA Fan Fest to get there by bike. Another 70 per cent will take transit and 13 per cent should walk.
“We want to make sure that we’re setting up for people who enjoy cycling and who always cycle and encouraging those who don’t cycle to use that as their mode of transportation to both the Fan Fest and the stadium,” Sharon Bollenbach, executive director of the Toronto FIFA Secretariat, said.
On game days, the valet locations will be set up at Inukshuk Park, Ordnance Park, and in Liberty Village.
Toronto’s plan for matchdays relies heavily on transit and active transportation because of a slew of road closures and parking restrictions around Exhibition Place and Toronto Stadium.
The city will fully close Strachan Avenue between Lake Shore Boulevard and East Liberty Street for 10 hours, beginning five hours before the match is set to kick off. There will also be closures on Fleet Street, Fort York Boulevard and the bottom of Dufferin Street.
Lake Shore Boulevard West will be closed for 10 hours from Bathurst Street to British Columbia Road — which could push traffic onto King Street, where parking may be suspended.
The plan also says only local traffic will be allowed into Liberty Village for the same 10-hour window as the road closures around matches.
— with files from Global News’ Matthew Bingley
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
