Here's what you said about sidewalk cycling

All of the responses to last week's Moron of the Week suggest that you will be interested in the following information from Cycle Chatham-Kent.

As you may recall from my earlier post about the group's sidewalk cycling survey, John Sigurjonsson was collecting info on what other municipalities in Ontario were doing about bicycling on sidewalks. He compiled the info, which follows, and offers some observations on the results. Here's his report:

We had responses on this survey from 13 municipalities spread across southern Ontario.

Current bylaws reported broke down as follows:

31 per cent prohibit all bikes from all sidewalks

15 per cent prohibit cyclists 13 and older from sidewalks

38 per cent prohibit bikes with wheel diameters over 20” from sidewalks

23 per cent prohibit bikes from downtown streets

8% had no restriction on cyclist use of sidewalks

(Note: total exceeds 100 per cent because some municipalities had multiple restrictions)

Of those respondents who reported a change they would like to see in their bylaws, the breakdown was:

38 per cent would go from a full restriction to an age limit that would allow children to ride on sidewalks.

25 per cent would introduce a speed limit for bikes on sidewalks.

25 per cent would introduce a rule requiring cyclists to ride on the road where a street is designated as a bikeway.

12 per cent are working towards off-road bikeways beside all arterial streets. This seems to be a start toward the European “cycletrack” model.

Sigurjonsson concludes by saying, "If there is a trend in these results I would see it as:

"A desire to have our bylaws recognize that we don’t want to force children to ride on the roads. In most cases bylaws define “bicycle” as including tricycles, so the bylaws prohibiting cycling on sidewalks apply to your five-year-old as currently written.

"A shift away from wheel diameter criteria to age limits. Eighteen-year-olds on BMX bikes come in under the standard 20” limit, but ten-year-olds on 24” wheels would be forced onto the roads. Age limits aren’t perfect – all 13-year-olds aren’t alike – but the line has to be drawn somewhere.

"Some provision that says “Where a bikeway is provided, cyclists (except under 13) must use it and not the adjacent sidewalk.” As cycling infrastructure gets installed, we want to shift cyclists onto it and off sidewalks for the safety and comfort of all.

"One respondent wisely pointed out that adults should be permitted to ride on sidewalks when accompanying their children.

"Speed limits for cyclists on sidewalks seem to make sense. The recent death from a sidewalk collision in Toronto illustrates why."

Sigurjonsson has put together a draft bylaw for Chatham-Kent based on the responses. You can view it here, and send your comments to Sigurjonsson at memberservices@cycleck.ca.

As a post-script, he noted that he also sampled some U.S. jurisdictions, and found that there were no or few restrictions on cycling sidewalks. South of the border, the emphasis seems to be on education rather than legislation, with sidewalk cycling being governed by the states rather than by the municipalities.

Comments

[Tanya]

Do you mean bikes prohibited from sidewalks on downtown streets, or bikes prohibited from downtown streets themselves? If the streets, please let us know where these backwards places are!

[Evan Rosamond]

I am altogether against the insane idea that municipalities enact their own cycling bylaws. Any rules about who may ride on the sidewalk with what kind of bike should be included in a provincial law, presumably the Highway Traffic Act. Municipal by-laws have no force because the public doesn't know what they are, and the police never enforce them. It's idiotic to think that you can ride on the sidewalk in one municipality, but then have to get off when you come to the city limit (wherever that is).