Mataró City Council has approved a resolution to study, prepare and implement a public electric bicycle sharing service for the city. The proposal was first brought forward by the CUP municipal group, with an amendment from ERC, and it passed with votes from En Comú Podem, ERC, Junts per Mataró and CUP. PSC, Vox and PP abstained.
The plan is part of Mataró’s push for more sustainable mobility, building on European funding that helped redesign the cycling ring and expand the bike lane network across the municipality. Supporters say the new service would make those lanes more useful by giving residents another option to private transport.
Similar public bike schemes already operate in other Catalan and Spanish cities, including Barcelona, Girona, Reus, Valencia and Manresa. In some places, such as Esplugues, Sant Boi and Castelldefels, municipalities have worked together under the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, or AMB, to share models and reduce investment costs. Comparable projects also exist in the Netherlands, Portugal and Italy. For more local coverage on mobility and city policy, see our news tag.
Mataró’s hilly geography is one of the main challenges, but officials said modern electric bicycles can help overcome it. They pointed to AMBici, used in Barcelona and other AMB municipalities with significant elevation changes, as an example of how to manage that issue without losing users. A participatory process was also held to gauge interest from residents and cycling professionals, and citizens proposed names, with Rodafaves winning the competition.
The council said the first year will focus on a technical and economic study, along with talks on possible collaboration with existing projects, supramunicipal bodies or other municipalities of similar size for bike supply. It will also look at subsidies and the possible use of budget surpluses. In the second year, the council plans to create a public company to manage the service, charging stations and online user platform, and to prepare a tender if no supply agreement is reached. The third year would begin deployment with the first stations, followed by an evaluation and later expansion. The rollout will follow the Bicycle and Personal Mobility Vehicle Master Plan, with attention to network links, neighbourhood connections, station access, secure parking and road safety.
