The City of Toronto has launched a campaign using rhymes to enforce road rules for cyclists and e-bike users, but one expert is skeptical about the city’s strategy.
As electric bikes and scooters are a common sight in Toronto streets, the new campaign is educating the public about road safety, and encouraging drivers to respect them to avoid conflicts.
The campaign uses rhymes to promote the rules, including “You’ve got wheels. They’ve got heels. Don’t ride on the sidewalk,” “Riding the wrong way in the bike lane grinds everyone’s gears,” “It’s a real pain when you stop in the bike lane,” and “If it takes gas, it moves too fast for the bike lane.”
Additionally, the city highlights that gas-powered mopeds are considered too fast to ride in the bike lanes, and are required to ride on the road with cars and other vehicles.
According to a city spokesperson, the four rules featured in the campaign were chosen as Toronto faces an increase in injuries related to micromobility vehicles, including e-bikes and scooters.
“This campaign is about educating Torontonians about what’s permitted and not permitted on roads, sidewalks and bikeways to help improve safety and make sure everyone rides safely and respectfully,” the spokesperson told Now Toronto in an email statement.
Last year, the city had launched a similar campaign titled “Safe Streets, Safe Roads,” to educate the public about road rules after police revealed that 16 people had been killed or seriously injured while riding a micromobility vehicle.
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Under the current rules, riders could face fines of up to $400 for failing to comply, including $60 for unauthorized vehicles on bike lanes and $90 for motor vehicles on sidewalks.
As part of the campaign, the city says it is also working with food delivery companies to share safety information with their riders to avoid incidents.
Reacting to the new campaign, people online have been applauding the measure, with many calling for even further rules and enforcement, including for cyclists and pedestrians.
“Enforcement ramping up for cycling is an improvement. Still need a ramp up for traffic violations too. Either way some enforcement is better than none,” one Reddit user said.
“I think instead of ‘cute’ and passive/fun signs, there should be simple and serious signs that say ‘NO BIKES ON SIDEWALKS’ and post the fine. Good cities don’t tolerate this crap and then try to combat it with colourful signs with jokes on them,” another user added.
“About time. Though e-bikes don’t belong in bike lanes. Way too fast and way too big. They’re basically motorcycles. They should go on roads,” a different user said.
BIKING ADVOCATE RAISES CONCERNS
Personal injury lawyer and cycling advocate David Shellnutt tells Now Toronto that the campaign comes after a rise in public calls for more enforcement for bikers in the city.
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However, according to him, although it can be useful to educate people about the use of micromobility vehicles and road rules, increased enforcement isn’t necessary and might raise other concerns.
“This is not the kind of public education campaign we support. We know that police ticketing will affect disproportionately people of colour, riders who perhaps have English-language issues, new Canadians, this kind of stuff. We know that in three years, when they pull the data from this, there will probably be an apology,” he said.
Shellnutt explains that most incidents involving micromobility vehicles that get people seriously harmed result from interactions involving motorized vehicles, while incidents involving bikes and pedestrians rarely result in injuries.
The lawyer also adds that instead of targeting riders, the city could focus its road safety measures on drivers, since they appear to be causing more serious accidents.
“It (the campaign) seems like anti-cyclists, honestly. If the concern was about public safety, every available resource would be focused on intersections in Scarborough, where pedestrians [are] getting killed, [or] Parkside drive, where there’s huge crashes, but instead you got cops in High Park next to Parkside drive, ticketing cyclists who are rolling stop signs and not hitting anybody,” he added.
