Description

We pedestrians certainly feel like orphans out there.

I walk somewhere between 150 and 250 km. a month, winter and summer. I frequent side streets, main streets, and especially, the Don Valley bike paths.

I've been hit by two cars and one bicycle in the last 20 years, every time on the street, when I had the right-of-way. I have started spending more time in the relative safety of the Valley bike paths, as my neurosurgeon informs me that even a relatively minor accident could now leave me quadriplegic.

Until the advent of the new crop of e-bikes, I felt pretty secure on the bike paths. No longer. Although I see that Bylaws 886 and 608 have been passed, they are honored more in the breach than in the observance. Signage at every entry point to the path system might have helped if it were present, but I'm still regularly blasted off the path by electric bikes and scooters.

On the rare occasions that I've been able to get the rider's attention, I've been met by obscenity, abuse, or a disingenuous statement that: "It doesn't have a motor, it's electric"!!! Walkers, runners, and bicyclists who have observed these exchanges are consistent in their agreement that they do NOT like e-bikes on the paths, usually because they're silent, over-entitled, and way too fast. I feel the same way when they zip along sidewalks as well, or bully their way through groups of pedestrians at intersections. (Bicycles on the sidewalk are bad enough, but these things are 100 pounds heavier, faster, and regularly marketed to people who have lost their car licenses.)

Physics is quantifiable. If a pedestrian is hit by a bicycle at 20kph, serious injury is rare, but not impossible. The impact of an added 50kg., plus rider, traveling at 35 kph is several times greater. Fatality is not impossible. Enforcement of the 20kph limit on the paths is a joke, as touring and racing bikes regularly exceed it.

I see in the paper that there has been testimony to the effect that cyclists and pedestrians "don't mind" the e-bikes on the bike paths. This is fiction born of a desire to continue to enjoy an entitlement born of default. If the police can't ticket an e-bike on the sidewalk, the riders tend to feel that they're not bound by any rules at all.

The valley system is a gem, and one of Toronto's singular elements of livability. In years past it has been a refuge from motorized traffic, populated only by wildlife and self-propelled humans. Please don't support efforts to force us to be as fearful in the Valley as we have to be up on the streets.

Sincerely,

Tom Saask
802-980 Broadview Ave.
M4K 3Y1
416 469 8486