Toronto needs to revisit cycling licences

There’s a greater push to make Toronto more bike-friendly. Montreal’s BIXI has been brought in to create a bike-sharing program, the TTC offers bike racks and lockers to passengers and, much to the chagrin of all motorists, bike lanes are being implemented unilaterally across parts of the city.

After this year’s election the city should look into licensing cyclists, again.

It's attempted to do this in the past, with little success. I think if the city is planning to make Toronto more bike-friendly this must be the next logical step.

According to the city’s website, there are three reasons why licensing would never work:

1) The difficulty of retaining a complete and current database.
2) The difficulty in licensing children.
3) Licensing does not necessarily change the behaviour of cyclists.

Here’s how I see this program working to address these issues:

1) The city creates a department of cycling. If it wants to privatize this service, I would have no objections, as it may be more efficient.

Cyclists would be required to test every two years. The system should borrow from motorist testing and make it graduated the first time through.

The city should also mandate that cycling stores and associations be brought into this plan and registered. Not only would these stores and associations help pay for the system, they can help educate and enforce the rules.

There would be a $200 licensing fee for cyclists and $500 registration fee for businesses and associations.

Some of the money would go towards addressing the first difficulty in retaining a complete and current database.

This department would hire a team of people located, for example, in city hall to administer and monitor the system, address any questions or concerns, and do the necessary follow-up and work associated with such a system.

A large part of the money should also go towards funding future bike lanes and projects in the city with input from those licensed and registered.

2) Children under the age of 16 would be exempt from licensing, which addresses the second difficulty, but it would be wise if local bike shops, associations, schools, after-school programs and summer camps could be persuaded to teach bike safety on an ongoing basis.

3) I will grant the city the benefit of the doubt that licensing may not change behaviours; it certainly doesn’t for some motorists.

But I think a functioning system, with input from those registered, plus greater enforcement will go a long way to changing current behaviour.

There would have to be stiffer fines and penalties. Maybe even introduce a points system that can affect registration and suspend licences. An enforcement unit could be created, in conjunction with police, to catch cyclists who don’t obey the rules and enforce the law.

I’m not proposing this to punish cyclists, rather, to make cycling safer and tie it in with the future plans of the city in making Toronto more bike-friendly.

This may even go a long way to bridging the divide between motorists and cyclists if cyclists are subjected to the same licensing, laws and rules motorists are.

By creating this system the city is tapping into a valuable resource by requiring cyclists, bike stores and associations to register, because, by default, they will have created their own group of experts to bounce ideas off of. This in turn will make the current cycling plan a more workable one.

I’m not a cyclist, but I know cars don’t rule the road exclusively. It’s time this petty argument between drivers and cyclists ends. There has to be mutual respect from both sides and the city.

Cyclists need to realize they need to respect the rules of the road just like drivers do.

Drivers need to realize they have to share the road and that people have made a choice to ride their bikes and leave their cars at home. Their commitment should be commended and not belittled out of jealousy and annoyance because your commute is now a few minutes longer.

The city needs to admit it's been fighting a “war on the car” and make its intentions clearer when it comes to making this city more bike-friendly.

My hope is that all mayoral candidates adopt bike licences as a plank to their individual transit plans. The time has come to implement this program.

About Robert Kirsic

Comments

[John Currey]

Fantastic!

Let those who bike pay for their part of the road.

Now to get government to charge for those silly EMPTY bike racks on the front of every bus that I rarely, if ever, see a bike on.

jc

[tim]

Bull Twaddle.

[Jason Davis]

Ah, if only drivers were tested every two years like Mr. Kirsic suggests.

[Lucus]

This is by far one of the most biased articles I've read. When I was 16 I was biking around with my friends having fun. I wasn't running out to get a job at McDonald's so that I could pay a bike licencing fee... I was doing it so I could buy whatever those menial jobs could pay for - school lunches, skateboard decks, taking a girl out for a coffee. If you ask me this is just another way way the government is looking to take money from us. cough cough HST cough cough

[Collin Gribbons]

"This may even go a long way to bridging the divide between motorists and cyclists if cyclists are subjected to the same licensing, laws and rules motorists are."

Since when are motorists tested every two years, as the author proposes?

A $200 fee?!?!? A lot of bikes don't even cost this much.

Licensing cyclists would result in another bloated bureaucracy. I bet the compliance rate would be no more than 10-15%. Cyclists are already subject to the same rules of the road as motorists, and licensing would do nothing to improve behaviour.

In the end, someone driving 2 tons of steel and glass has the potential to do a lot more damage than someone riding a 35-pound bike. Let's put our priorities where they should be.

[Joe]

Horrible idea, This government is conitinually more stressed out. As if the graduated mortorist licensing system wasn't enough of a joke.

A good case study is boating licenses, boating accidents have not decreased since forcing people to pay a fee to take a test, and this won't help anything much with cyclists either

[jofx]

What about other cities where cycling has been successfully integrated into the transportation system? Are cyclists there required to obtain a licence? You write nothing of best practices. Shame on you.

Also, what about people from outside Toronto who go to Toronto for a day of cycling?

[Ben]

I am shocked, SHOCKED that someone representing the Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council would try and make it harder for people to switch to riding bicycles!

[AV]

Hahah... good luck with that champ

[CP]

hahah $200??
How would you collect this? Would you have by-law officers running down cyclists on the road?
This article is completely laughable. Think about the relative impact of cycling and cycling lanes vs. automobiles and driving on the environment, land-use patterns, businesses, health
If cyclists pay $200, then motorists will have to pay something on the order of $100,000 liscensing.
Actually, wait. I'm down with that.

[Alex]

"I’m not a cyclist", really? I couldn't tell. What a fantastic way to deter one of the simpler ways to live green, and getting healthy.

[ndrawl]

I love the continually perpetuated myth that drivers respect the rules of the road. What a bunch of garbage! Granted there are cyclist that don't, but there are many that do as well.

The problem I have with this idea is that we want to encourage people to take cleaner, healthier, more responsible forms of transit. This is just going to discourage many people from going out on their bikes. This idea would be a total disaster!

[AV]

"Robert Kirsic currently works for Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council in Toronto in a communications role."

So basically you're a paid hack who's out to stir the car vs. bike pot.

[val]

That's one way to remove all bikers from the streets, charge them $700 and hire 2000 extra cops to enforce that. Chase teenagers on bikes....
Yeah, licence everything, charge a fee for existing and breathing. And create a licene system for walking too, G1 for pedestrians etc...Stop this nonsense and focus on bigger issues! Pathetic!

[Derp]

Re-Test Every Other Season?!?! We can only ride in the summer, at least the sane of us and you want us to "test" every other season, for what exactly?!? Motorists don't have to "retest" ever, and you think $200 one time is going to cover this, or we're expected to be gouged every other summer? I'll be moving when you're elected mayor.

To the editor who published this blog garbage, go back to hiring actual journalists; stop stealing cheap ideas that haven't been thought through.

[selma]

Stupid

[Jack]

Your logic makes no sense.
The drivers are the problem... how does educating the bikers help? If the accidents were caused by bikers going into oncoming traffic than maybe. Should we have a license for pedastrians as well? A computer database would be useless in preventing accidents. You need more bike paths, and tolls for using roads in the city and MASSIVE fines for any obstruction to pedestrians. With this type of logic being proposed I can't see anything progressing for the next 50 years...

[Dave Breukelaar]

"Cyclists would be required to test every two years."

Will we start testing motorists every two years as well?

How often does the $200 license need to be renewed? The license on my car costs far less than that. A good portion of the bike riders out there are riding bikes that aren't even worth $200. I could see a $20 license fee, but $200? Wow.

[bryant]

So you are proposing a system that will cost more and force more testing than that which is currently in place for driving a motorized vehicle. This makes sense how?

[Joey Schwartz]

This scheme is just utterly stupid. The point of getting people out of their cars and onto bikes will do two things:
1) Cut down on congestion and pollution.
2) Lower overall mortality rates by making people less sedentary, because cycling increases cardiovascular health.

A bike licencing scheme, as suggested in the post, would only put people back in their cars, not out of them. We need more people in Toronto to use bikes as their primary means of transportation. Over-restrictive licencing is the antithesis to this objective.

[J]

Wow. Could the author be any more biased. I suggest the profiles of these bloggers be posted at the bottom of each page, rather than linking to them.

Its clear that the 'war on the bike' will be instigated by people like Mr. Kirsic:

"He currently works for Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council in Toronto in a communications role"

[andrewS]

"I'm not a cyclist". That much is clear.

I'll agree to a cyclist test every two years IF and ONLY IF drivers are subjected to the same indignity. In fact, I would be the first to sign up for this if it removes some of the worst drivers from the road.

I'll also agree to moving to a user-pay system of road use if and ONLY IF we keep things proportional. A car weighs 12x as much, and travels 4x faster. It has almost 200x as much kinetic energy, so cars should be charged 200x as much. $40,000 a year. Coincidentally more than the car is worth (wait, but 200 dollars vs the 120 dollar beater bike?). Perhaps radical, but you can see why such licensing fees are a farce.

Oh, and if you do do that, remember that most roads are paid for out of general funds, gas taxes are a small contributor and the 200 dollar reg fee more than makes up for that. I want roads taken off both my property taxes and income taxes (oh, wait, I'm a cyclist. I must be a renter and unable to afford a car thus pay no taxes. Renters pay property taxes too btw, just not directly). This will refund me far more than the $200/yr and I am all for it.

Oh, and for every billion dollars the Gov't spends on new 400-highways I want my share refunded, about $80 for every billion. I can't ride my bike there, why should I pay for it?

And finally, now that I'm paying my fair share, full bike lanes on all downtown streets. If this means removing car lanes then so be it. I'm for dedicated streetcar lanes too, coincidentally, so transit riders can bypass the resulting congestion while drivers sit there, paying a dime a minute in licensing fees just to sit there in horrible traffic.

[nick]

how about a jogging licence?

[matt]

is this a joke... ??? why not license walking... i mean come on... city has to build side walks all the time...it could help cut down on pedestrian deaths .. which seem to be on the rise... retailers can get on board and help educate people....so how stupid this is... i can't believe the star would even publish this crap.....grow up people... less governementa and less taxes is the only way.... NO MORE TAXES... I AM STARTING TO HATE CANADA

[Ken Myers]

When i got my first bike back in 19 56 the rules then were you had to have a light on the front a reflector on the rear of the bike and a rear view mirror. also they made you take a coarse in public school on the rules of the road for safe bikeing . Matter of fact they had a mascot ( called ELMER THE ELEPHANT ) HOW MANY BIKERS DO YOU SEE TODAY WITH NO LIGHTS ON THE FRONT DRIVING AT NIGHT. IF YOU ARE GOING TO CHARGE $200.00 BUCKS TO HAVE THE PRIVLAGE OF OPERATING A BIKE ON PUBLIC ROADS YOU BETTER HAVE A TEST THEY TAKE AND A SAFETY COARSE THAT GOES WITH IT. PISSED OFF AT BIKERS WITH NO LIGHTS THAT RIDE AT NIGHT. END