Councillor Michael Walker thinks he has a solution to the struggle between cars and bikes: make the cyclists get a licence, just like drivers do. In a recent debate at a city council committee, he argued that if cyclists are claiming the right to share the road equally with drivers, they need to accept the same responsibilities. Requiring them to get a licence would ensure that they know and respect the rules of road. When an accident occurs, it would require them to remain on the scene and produce documentation, too.
It all sounds terribly sensible and Mr. Walker, a white-haired council veteran, is a sensible-sounding guy. We all know that many cyclists run stop signs, ride on sidewalks and otherwise flout the traffic laws. That annoys motorists to no end and raises the tension between bikes and cars - a tension that exploded with fatal results in the encounter between former attorney-general Michael Bryant and bike courier Darcy Allan Sheppard this summer.
But is the answer to make every person who pedals down to the park take a road test, pay a licence fee and hang a plate from his bike seat? The proposal is wildly impractical. The city has looked at bike licensing at least three times over the years: in 1984, 1992 and 1996. Each time city council rejected it, for several good reasons.
For one, how do you decide who needs a licence? If someone pedals across the municipal boundary from Mississauga, does she need a licence? And what about kids? You wouldn't want to make 11-year-olds get a licence to ride round the neighbourhood after school, but, logically, they need the instruction in bike safety more than adults do.
Then there is the cost. With hundreds of thousands of cyclists in the city, it would be a massive project to set up and administer a new testing and licensing system, with all the new databases and test examiners required.
The Ontario Ministry of Transportation rejected the notion in 1996, advising the city that "such schemes, apart from being administratively and financially burdensome, do not increase bicycle safety practices."
That is the key objection to Mr. Walker's proposal. There is no proof that licensing would persuade wayward cyclists to pay any more heed to the traffic laws. They already fall under the very same laws that motorists do and police can charge them accordingly. In one safe-cycling drive this summer, Toronto police handed out 1,373 tickets to cyclists for infractions from running red lights to failing to yield to pedestrians. Police can stop an unlicensed cyclist as easily as they could a licensed one.
Nor is there any proof that a testing regime would make cyclists more aware of the rules of the road. Many of them are motorists as well as cyclists and all of them are pedestrians when they're not mounted up. They know what a red sign saying "stop" means. They just choose to ignore it. The best way to address that is through education, not licensing.
Licensing has been considered and rejected by many North American cities. The few places that have it - Madison, Wisconsin; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Regina, Sask., to name a few - mostly use the licence as a form of registration, to aid in recovering stolen bikes. In Toronto police already have a registration system for bike owners.
Mr. Walker is proposing something different: a proper operating licence. The hassle of getting one might easily discourage many cyclists from commuting on their bikes, a setback for a city that is spending millions trying to encourage commuters to leave their cars at home and bike instead.
The councillor insists he isn't trying to crack down on cyclists, just make them more responsible. If that were his only motive, fair enough. But, like many Torontonians, Mr. Walker seems to feel that cyclists need to be taught a lesson. The implication of his licensing campaign is that cyclists are mainly to blame for the car-bike tension on the streets. In fact, there is blame on both sides in this struggle. Making cyclists carry around a piece of paper is not going to solve it.
Marcus Gee