Education, not licensing, is the route to go, cycling advocates say

BYLINE: Don Peat
NEWSPAPER: The Toronto Sun
SECTION: News; Pg. 4
DATE: September 3, 2009

Cycling advocates say education and common sense are more feasible than licensing cyclists to ride on Toronto’s roads.

With the death of cyclist Darcy Sheppard, the war of words between bikes and cars is heating up, with renewed calls for licensing cyclists, but Councillor Adrian Heaps said it shouldn’t come before an education effort.

“You still have to have the education first before you give people a certificate that says they can drive or ride a bike,” Heaps, chairman of the Toronto cycling committee, said yesterday. “The professional view is that the Highway Traffic Act would have to be amended for the city to have that kind of authority. It is the purview of the province.”

The idea to licence Toronto’s cyclists was floated in 1985, but it was shot down because it was seen as being too expensive, Heaps said.

A staff report at the time included an estimate from Toronto Police that it would need to cost $70-$80 for cyclists to get a licence just to cover the administrative costs, he said.

“Does it need to be revisited? Yes, it needs to be revisited but does it need to be done? I can’t really answer that question at this point,” Heaps said.

“It’s a city of 3 million people. We have finite space. There are 5,000-plus km of roads. We have rules and regulations everybody needs to respect,” Heaps said. “At the end of the day, common sense has got to be the prevailing behaviour.”

Yvonne Bambrick, executive director of the Toronto Cyclists Union, said licensing would be a “waste of time.”

“That’s a real barrier to entry. It’s also very expensive and a problematic, additional layer of bureaucracy that nobody really wants or, I believe, is needed,” she said. “We’re already subject to the Highway Traffic Act. As vehicles on the road, we can be ticketed for offences just like car drivers and we are ticketed when we do things wrong.”

Bambrick said Sheppard’s death has brought the tensions around incorporating cycling into the transportation network to the forefront.

“In general, I don’t think its a responsible thing to do to be calling it a war,” Bambrick said.

She said that “we’re in a transitory period” where bikes are becoming a viable form of urban transportation.

Bambrick said it has taken Toronto too long to implement a dedicated network of bike pathways across the city.