Just in case you thought bike-bashing was no longer in fashion, here’s NPA city councillor Melissa DeGenova howling about licensing bicycles. This despite municipal study after study showing that such schemes are costly and ineffective. If they have ever been in place, they are often dismantled for that reason.
It’s pure anti-bike grandstanding by this NPA pol. Noise and no substance, but certainly true to the shrinking, anti-bike NPA base.
Personally, I think that such proposals are an expensive solution in search of a problem.
But they are useful in one way — as a barometer of anti-bike, pro-motordom sentiment. For those who like such games, you can track the arc and breadth of this proposal’s newsworthiness as a proxy for current media and public opinion on the matter. You will note that Mr. Smith of the Straight is not particularly impressed with this proposal’s merits.
In my mind, such proposals are mostly floated cynically, hoping to place a barrier in the way of growing the number of people choosing to ride a bike for every-day transportation. And with that growth, in pursuit of safety, the growing transfer of asphalt from motor vehicles to bicycles. Quite frankly, this matter has been thoroughly aired in the last few civic elections, and the outcome was never in doubt.
So here in Soggyville, jumping into the spotlight with such a proposal is the very essence of grandstanding.
As someone who does not bike but supports bike lanes and the efforts to take the city back from the dominance of the car, I have yet to hear facts supporting the ‘failure’ of bike licensing. As a resident in Vancouver when streetcars still ran and bikes, my own as a child, were licenced, I wonder how does a nominal fee for a bike licence take away from the freedom of the bike and its health benefits? A cyclist would, therefore, help to support the network that he/she rides on, it would help the investigation of hundreds of stolen bikes by the police, and perhaps would encourage ICBC to be involved in the insuring of cyclists who do either cause accidents-yes, I do have friends hit on foot by stoplight/stopsign running cyclists, or as cyclists as victims of motor vehicle accidents. It might also remind them that they are part of a public system and stop does mean stop instead of terrorizing pedestrians or cause drivers to use four letter words to describe their actions. Would they not be more acceptable to other users of the road system by paying a licence, however small, and by being insured? In a democracy, should not everyone be involved in the provision of public works and thus, be responsible users? Or do bike owners get a free ride?
The studies that I have read showed that the nominal fee doesn’t cover the cost of the program, and therefore a bicycle registration system detracts from the network instead of helping to support it. And what about all the surrounding municipalities? Are riders from Richmond, Burnaby, and the North Shore still allowed to ride into Vancouver? And tourists? Or do we want them to stop coming to town and bringing their bikes?
If the concern is bicycle theft, we already have registration programs run by the police. No need to create another.
If this is a step towards the licensing and insuring of cyclists (instead of their bikes) then we should look to ICBC, and not a municipal government.
Hopefully a majority of our City Council will not support this motion and waste money on another study.
Hey Myron,
Manditory restrictions placed on cycling:
Cycling advocates are rightly wary of manditory lisencing, because there is good evidence to support that placing restrictions on cycling necessarily ups the barriers to becoming a cyclist. An analysis of Australian census data before and after the introduction of helmet laws in some states, showed that in states which had helmet laws, the amount of cycling to work had reduced by about one third.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1410838/?tool=pubmed
As a society, we want to encourage more cyclists. They save us money on road infrastructure and health care. They also help to ameliorate our society’s negative impact on the environment. Making everyone who would consider biking jump through this hoop will shrink the group of individuals who would consider it. This is the exact opposite direction we should be heading.
Contributions to Infrastructure:
The funding base for road infrastructure improvement and maintenance is property taxes. The fees a motorist pays for licencing helps to cover the cost of administering the licencing system. It’s a common mis-conception. We are all renters or homeowners and therefor contribute to road infrastructure in an amount as designated by our progressive tax system.
Retrieval of stolen bikes:
All bikes already come with a unique sku pressed into the frame. Residents of Vancouver are optionally welcome to visit a community policing station and register their bikes so that in event of a theft the police have an easier time locating the owner if retrieved. I think there could possibly be some benefit to a more thorough regime from this perspective, but I still think the costs to administer would far outweigh the benefits.
Discouraging Law Breaking Behaviour:
Motorists have manditory insurance and licencing, but I still see daily incidents of speeding, rolling through stop signs, and dangerous behaviour. What stops people from breaking the law is the threat of enforcement. With respect to that threat, and the fact that it is a finite resource (police can only be in so many places at once), would you rather they focus on motorists – who kill several several thousands a year – or cyclists – who have death and injury rates a miniscule fraction as compared to motorists?
As a tax payer concerned with ROI of public services, I would like my police to spend their time where they can have the most impact, which would be enforcing the traffic rules for motorists.
Reminding cyclists that they are part of a public system:
The best way to do this is to encourage more top calibre cycling infrastructure. If you provision adequately for cyclists, they will be more inclined to use infrastructure properly. This ensures that they act as they are expected to act. If you force a bike to act like a car, don’t be surprised when it fails to perform up to standards.
I hope this got it all
It’s because it won’t provide the (claimed) desired results. The causes of the problems, if they exist, are not caused by lack of accountability but by the designed environment, the lack of education, the inconsistency of laws in regards to cycling and the lack of inclusion into the system.
Many of the so called problems are the result of the city growing in size and have nothing to do with cycling or race or any other new thing. Things are just different in large cities than smaller ones and we’re growing into that. Getting distracted by old fashioned ideas like bike licensing might appear to scratch an itch but really won’t solve the problem of us adjusting to a bigger city.
License all vehicles that share the road; share and share alike, including paying one’s dues and being held accountable for road infractions. It is just that simple. Any suggestion to the contrary is illogical and discriminatory, advocating inequitude.
I think it’s hypocritical to disenfranchise a class of people (effectively excluding them from the system) to then turn around and criticize them for not being part of the system.
I have a concern about the so-called electric bikes — those things that look like 50cc gas scooters, but because they are powered by electricity and have a couple of never-used pedals attached to them (but are still capable of significant speed), don’t require any licensing or insurance at all. Add to these, those high-speed mobility scooters (as seen in a recent GlobalTV news item involving a hit-and-run with one of these), and you have a bunch of unregulated, unlicensed, and poorly-operated vehicles on the road, sidewalks, pathways and public plazas.
As for true bicycles, I don’t see the value of licencing — what are you going to do if there are infractions? Suspend their licence? And then how would you check who was licenced and who wasn’t?
Purposes, pros, cons of bicycle licensing, studied (and rejected) repeatedly by the City of Toronto:
http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=0be4970aa08c1410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD
Melissa DeGenova could probably save Vancouver’s taxpayers some money by looking at the Toronto reports. The Toronto police recommended against licensing.
Those are arguments against licensing? Children are not the issue riding bikes, nor is a physical check of the bike by a police officer is in anyway required. The issue of what fine to pay once caught for transgressions is the same under the Motor Vehicle Act-if licence is known, registered owner is responsible, if no identity of rider can be ascertained. Fines deter bad behaviour. Licence numbers on bikes-a decal was once used here- would return bikes stolen as skis, computers, cellphones with an id number /name attached are. And yes, the bike licence can be suspended as with a motor vehicle if egregious enough record develops-cars are taken away, why not bikes? Do police have to have exclusive jurisdiction, no, as city bylaw officers can do it as well under city bylaws. Is the Motor Vehicle Act always the answer in motor vehicle accidents? No, but it is a tool. The issue that I put forward is that licensing would align the user of bikes to the transportation system as a responsible user of the roads and a financial supporter of such as car users, and transit users are-they pay. Bikes don’t and do not appear to be part of the contributing public to the system that is being developed for them. Again, why should they get a free ride?
People who ride bikes pay property taxes the same as people who walk or drive cars. The city uses those property taxes to build infrastructure. Where is the free ride?
Cyclists’ free ride, Jeff, is in their elitist sense of entitlement to ride slip-shod over the rest of us whenever, wherever and however they please without any threat of enforcement to monitor and control their erratic, dangerous behaviours. They cause accidents which we all have to pay for in our car insurance and health insurance fees, and I resent it. As infrastructure and government policies favour bikes over cars to respond to density and sustainability concerns, so too will enforcement, including licensing, have to shift to address this change in dominant transportation mode. By charging an adequate licensing fee for cyclists of all ages, together with appropriate fines for the multitude of cyclist riding infractions (including but not limited to not wearing mandatory helmets), these fees would more that pay for the administration costs.
Seems some drivers might have a sense of entitlement too.
Council set aside additional budget funds this year to enforce laws regulating dangerous practices on our roads, by both motorists and cyclists. I think the police are probably focusing their efforts on the group that causes the most crashes and injuries. Any guess which group that is?
If you are having to pay higher car insurance because of crashes, it suggests you were found at fault.
Recall the statistic from the recent CoV cycling safety study which showed that in in 93% of collisions involving cyclists, cyclists had the right of way.
Other cities have looked at licensing bicycles many times, and have been unable to find a benefit. Toronto comes to mind. If you have evidence that fees would more than pay the administration costs, by all means bring it forward.
Jeff,
As you well know, all drivers are paying more in car insurance, there is another general hike in cost coming; I have a long-standing perfect driving record, which reduces my costs to some extent but does not offset the regular general increases that ICBC charges everyone.
@Susan you forget all the free roads that you get, that are paid for by property taxes including people who don’t own cars.
“As infrastructure and government policies favour bikes over cars”
This is one of the most ignorant comments I’ve ever read. Nobody who has ever ridden a bike in this city would say this. Every time you ride a bike in this city you take your life in your own hands, in amongst the people in steel boxes, many of whom are speeding and not really paying attention to what is going on. Whose mistakes will kill or injure the biker, not them.
The pendulum will have to shift pretty far towards bikes before this unsubstantiated fluff could even start to be true.
You are obviously ignorant of Official Vancouver City Policy.
@Eric
“I’ll say it again – approving the Reverse Traffic Pyramid as policy is easy. Implementing it is the important part.” –Brent Toderian
You are very clearly ignorant of the fact that having city policy give primacy to pedestrians, transit users, and cyclists is in no way related to ensuring it has the funding to actually implement it. Please think before calling names!
Gulley,
Every time one gets up in the morning, one takes his/her life in his/her hands, cycling or driving notwithstanding.
“Again, why should they get a free ride?”
They don’t. This tiresome argument, that cyclists don’t pay for the city’s transportation infrastructure, is complete and utter nonsense. In reality, cyclists subsidize car drivers.
City streets are paid for from property taxes. We all pay property taxes.
https://www.biv.com/article/2013/7/news-flash-for-drivers-cyclists-are-helping-subsid/
“Cyclists subsidize car drivers. Local roads and bike lanes are almost exclusively paid for by local property taxes, not fuel taxes. Yes, some city hall revenue comes from parking fees, but those fees don’t begin to cover the opportunity and maintenance costs of the 30% of the city’s land base that is used for cars, especially for “free” on-street parking. The amount of roadway in Vancouver dedicated to cars is 10 times that dedicated to bicycles, which usually park off-road. Property taxes are paid by everyone who lives in the city, whether they rent or own. Cyclists are more likely to live in the city, since they stay closer to home than motorists who come into Vancouver from all over the region. Cyclists also subsidize motorists when they live in buildings or buy groceries that cost more because of legislated off-street parking spaces they don’t use.”
http://bikecalgary.org/licensing
“There is a common misconception that motorists pay for building and maintaining roads through user fees such as vehicle registration and licenses. From this misconception the argument is then made that bicycle facilities like bike lanes should also be paid for by user fees. In fact, however, the lion’s share of Calgary’s transportation budget comes not from user fees but from the City’s general fund, mainly property taxes—taxes practically everyone in the city pays, whether they cycle, walk, drive, or use transit. Vehicle registration and driver licensing fees, on the other hand, are collected by the province and spent on provincial highways; none of it comes to the city. About $154 million are collected from passenger vehicle registrations a year in Alberta, but even this only covers less than 7% of the Province’s $2.5 billion transportation expenses.”
And finally, for the most detailed response:
http://www.vtpi.org/whoserd.pdf
Thank you for your response-it is very helpful and informative. I will read it more closely later. I will not-Gordon will probably cut me off-respond further but would say that provincial highways and bridges are used by cyclists, I live on the North Shore and have friends who regularly ride the bridges. Intercity cyclists use provincial roads. The province is spending 7 million dollars or 4.4 million, depending on what source you search, on building the Stanley Park Causeway cyclist path. Provincial highways are regularly used as you know by cyclists-Grand Fondo an exaggerated example. But it is a perception issue as well for the public despite the facts. The issue of a massive bureaucracy for licensing in the age of the internet-I purchase air tickets on line- is without substance. The issue of compliance by Toronto is avoided and yet nothing is done when minimal steps could be made. Whether it is a libertarian freedom issue of not having a licence, helmet or lights, common sense is being ignored to address an existing issue and the everyday issue of cyclists not complying with the current highway and traffic laws.
In North Van the new highway 1 Lower Lynn interchanges will cost taxpayers (drivers and non-drivers) $150 million, compared to $4-5 million for the causeway. Are you saying people who mainly bike or walk to get around should pay for roads for driving through their taxes, but people who drive shouldn’t pay for bike paths and sidewalks?
Driving is subsidized and every km driven costs society, while every km walked or biked provides a net economic benefit to society.
Roads transport good & services/trades people and all people use goods & services.
Also, road users, i.e. cars and trucks pay billions in taxes annually.
As such, even if you introduce road tolls or increase gasoline taxes they end up in higher prices for good and services. There is no free lunch.
As to bicycle licensing: in principle a good idea but too expensive to administer and enforce. So costs will exceed – by far – the benefits.
I don’t see anyone arguing for bikes not using lights at night. Using them has demonstrable benefits.
Myron, is this a concern with licensing or a veiled implication that cyclists don’t pay a ‘fair share’ for infrastructure?
1. Municipal infrastructure (many cyclists pay property taxes, too).
2. Provincial infrastructure (many cyclists pay income tax and sales tax, too).
If you want to try to go through a detailed analysis of who pays what, maybe that’s worthwhile, but it probably won’t inform whether a licensing scheme makes any sense.
Huh? What an illogical bunch of nonsense. Roads in cities are paid for out of property taxes not licensing which only covers the cost of the licensing system. Insurance covers the cost of motor vehicle collisions. And driving and transit are subsidized far more than cycling is.
Further to the previous replies regarding who pays for the roads – It is actually much worse than Pacpost states. It was determined a few years ago that 0.5% of road space in the City of Vancouver was dedicated to cycling, in spite of over 4% of trips being made by bike. On the other hand, automobile transportation is provided with a huge subsidy and I believe that it is one of the biggest social programs in Canada. For the Lower Mainland of BC, the subsidy was estimated by the BC Government to be $6 billion per year in 1993 and is probably much higher today. The benefit/cost ratio of cycling projects is very high – much higher than any other mode of transportation. And I don’t mind a too much that I am subsidizing automobile transportation with my tax dollars, but I do object strenuously to any suggestion that I am not paying my way when it comes to cycling infrastructure.
I also don’t mind that my taxes are subsidizing automobile infrastructure. What I don’t like is that some people who drive everywhere hold a myth that they aren’t. I don’t know how they get that idea but we’re discovering that some hold that belief. What I would like to see is how roads are paid for taught in drivers ed and also when you take your test to get a license.
I have always found the near pathological refusal of cyclists to be bound by any kind of regulation fascinating. Is it that cycling attracts a certain type of person? We don’t even see bike groups calling for mandatory lights, which should be a no-brainer.
Bike lights are mandatory. Plenty of rules are in place for biking.
Yes Antje, but those rules are not enforced. There’s the rub.
I once had my front light’s batteries die and I remember being told (wrongly) that the front one was optional and only the back one was mandatory. I got stopped by the police who told me they’d give me a ticket if I didn’t walk to somewhere I could buy batteries. I went home and got some batteries.
The belief that cycling infractions are not enforced is not true.
Adanac,
Your one and only anecdotal instance of a warning, if true, is not enforcement; you received no ticket. Period.
The Vancouver Observer reported 733 tickets given out for cycling on the sidewalk, over a several year period. susan smith is spreading misinformation. This matters, because as Councillor Reimer points out, “As long as we’re seeing cyclists as being always being at fault, it’s very difficult for the drivers to change their behaviour”
http://www.vancourier.com/news/vpd-nabs-733-sidewalk-cyclists-1.1937093
“733 tickets over several years” — thank you, Jeff, as you just proved my point. I see 733+ bike infractions per day on just Point Grey Road alone, and they all go unpunished.
Probably over 30 years.
How many times do people in cars do illegal things yet aren’t ticketed?
This pissing match is ridiculous.
Susan, you claimed no tickets were given out, I gave you 733 examples, and you believe that proves your original point. OK.
Jeff,
733 tickets over an unspecified number of years relative to the number of unticketed infractions during the same period = zero tickets, yes.
Bob: “We don’t even see bike groups calling for mandatory lights, which should be a no-brainer”
As Antje has pointed out, lights are already mandatory.
HUB Cycling, for one, promotes their use. Three examples are in classes for both adults and youth, on the http://www.bikehub.ca web site as a reminder of their importance, and in a handout called Bike Basics 101. An extract below:
“Lights
After dusk, you must legally have a front and rear light. If you’re commuting in the city, a small white LED light will suffice. Brighter lights are best if biking in the rain or on busy streets, or for added safety. Visibility is a big part of safety, especially when riding in low light. Rear lights should be red, and the small LED lights also come in red and are quite affordable. They can attach to your bike or helmet.”
There’s certainly a no-brain aspect to this exchange. Remarkable, really.
There’s a far cry between “promote” and require by law with strict enforcement, as you well know, Jeff. You are attempting to put perfume on a pig.
Susan, bike lights are required by law. Is it enforced? Sometimes yes, sometimes not. Just like any other traffic law. Police resources are finite and generally spent where need is greatest. For traffic it is distracted driving, drunk driving and speeding, based on number of people injured or killed every year.
I would have thought that pregnant women walking on the sidewalks were important but maybe that’s just me.
Antje,
I believe we agree; enforcement is the problem, in that there is not enough of it. “The law is an ass” if it is not enforced, and if it is not going to be enforced, it should not be on the books. Otherwise, the law is misleading to the public and applies only to those who possess the moral value to opt to follow it without the threat of punishment. Perpetrators go unpunished and unfairly cause hazards for the rest of us, which is a seriously flawed system.
Susan, there is a far cry between “We don’t even see bike groups calling for mandatory lights” and bike groups promoting adherence to existing laws which cover mandatory lights.
Enforcement of traffic regulations is a good idea, and should be commensurate with the risk of injury to others. Some things should be enforced strictly (eg Drinking and driving) and some things are better resolved with public education campaigns and so on. Every police officer assigned to strictly enforce a regulation with limited impact (eg helmet laws) is one less officer enforcing regulations that have greater impact.
The proposal comes after this:,”There are many instances daily where pedestrians and vehicles come into conflict,” De Genova said. “And with more bikes on the roads, incidents involving cyclists and pedestrians, and incidents involving cyclists and vehicles, are becoming more frequent. We need to address that.”
Cyclists are increasingly militant. Patience and excusing bad behaviour because bikes are nice is wearing thin with many people.
That’s right, Jeff, continue to advocate for discriminatory practices against motorists. So much for the law being the law; just apply it selectively (against motorists but not against cyclists) because cyclists are above the law — NOT.
@Myron Claridge
Since you think that cyclists get a free ride are you also against the free ride cars get on city streets through property tax???
Personally I would like to abolish property taxes and replace them with road tolls.
We should certainly introduce parking tolls as too many folks offload their personal car requirement onto public property, and then convert the garage into a suite or park their car nearby as their property has too few stalls. Say $80/month or $1000/stall/year in MetroVan and boom, over $500,000,000 collected on the 1/2 million+ cars in MetroVan. Far fairer than a PST in my (humble) opinion.
Road tolls make sense too, but they will act like GST or PST as everyone that delivers goods or services pays them, and then jacks up their goods and services sold to you. An indirect tax, really. Even a green biker will pay it throgh higher food and coffee prices. Ditto with carbon taxes – soon upon you nationwide c/o your new “green” federal government. Everything will cost more.
Cities would collapse without property taxes. It is their MAIN source of funding.
We can debate a city goods & services tax, in addition to PST and GST, or we can debate taxing house gains as the most untaxed part of wealth creation and investments, perhaps over and above a certain threshold, say the mediam price of a home in a city.
We should also debate in that context efficient service delivery i.e. salaries and benefits of civil servants that take 70%+ of all taxes paid – a major source of tax reduction possibilities. http://www.cfib-fcei.ca/english/article/7290-public-sector-workers-oped.html and where major savings can and should be achieved before any taxes are raised.
If bikes are the way of the future, then regulating them and enforcing the rules necessarily must accompany their usage.
They currently are regulated and the rules are enforced.
But hey, how about this idea? That all people who currently have decided that it’s no longer Gays or the Chinese that are bad but now cyclists, sign a declaration that they will either stop it or move onto some other group to criticize if bicycle licenses are made necessary.
I’ll sign that declaration at the same time you sign the declaration to stop your prejudice against motorists.
I hold no prejudice against motorists. I think motor vehicles are very useful for many things.
Likewise, I believe that bikes have their use, too.
Eric: “…incidents involving cyclists and pedestrians, and incidents involving cyclists and vehicles, are becoming more frequent”
You quoted Councillor De Genova, who had recently received the City’s Cycling Safety Report. It was published here IIRC. That report showed that ” cycling trips were up 41 per cent between 2008 and 2011, with collision rates decreasing by 17 per cent for the same time period. While half of all collisions involved a vehicle, only eight per cent were related to a cyclist colliding with another cyclist, pedestrian or animal.” Quote taken from the article linked above, but maybe you didn’t have a chance to read it.
I wonder what source the Councillor used for her claim.
You also claimed that cyclists are becoming more militant. Do you have a source for that?
What is wearing thin is attacking other transportation users for their mode choices. All drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians should watch out for each other, and take care. It isn’t complicated.
Jeff,
Utopias are notoriously uncomplicated, but that does not make them reality.
Jeff; you say that “…some things are better resolved with public education campaigns and so on. …” Do you have a source for that?
Here’s a source:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/07/28/cyclist-pedestrian-fight-highlights-confusion-along-new-queen-quay-lanes.html
another:
http://tinyurl.com/nc2vres
justice has been served on this one.
As Sarah Vine eloquently says; “Lycra-clad moral vigilantes.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3130690/SARAH-VINE-says-real-menaces-roads-vigilantes-Lycra-filming-move.html
A New York Times article stated that “…overwhelmingly, on blogs and Web sites nationwide, drivers and cyclists routinely describe shouted epithets, flung water bottles, sprays of spit and harrowing near-misses of the intentional kind.” The article noted that there is “a whiff of class warfare in the simmering hostility, too. During morning rush, the teeth-gritting of drivers is almost audible, as superbly fit cyclists, wearing Sharpie-toned spandex and riding $3,000 bikes, cockily dart through the swampy, stolid traffic to offices with bike racks and showers.”
It’s starting to stink.
Eric: Trusted sources would probably reference data, such as the reduced number of crashes here in Vancouver (referenced above) instead of consisting of anecdotal reports from other places.
Examples of things that would be better addressed with public information campaigns? Pedestrian situational awareness. Walking and texting. Vehicles merging. Bicycle helmet use.
But Jeff,
You have vehemently argued against mandatory bike helmets. You are contradicting yourself, again.
Susan, you continue to conflate the issues. Bike helmets good. Mandatory bike helmet laws bad. All IMO. No contradiction.
But Jeff,
If helmets are good, why not enforce them for everyone’s benefit? You seem to be missing the point, again.
Jeff,
Please provide the study data showing that any bicycle riding education program alone ever instituted in Vancouver, BC has resulted in a reduction in bad cycling behaviour and/or cyclist accidents and injuries. I’m waiting….
Susan: “733 tickets over an unspecified number of years….”
Eric: “Probably over 30 years”
You are both proving by your postings that you didn’t read the provided link, which would answer your questions. It might even reduce the number of absurd comments you are both making. Hope springs eternal.
Jeff,
I am still waiting for the stats I asked you for to support your claim.
Susan: when you actually read the links that have already been provided to you, you will get more. In the meantime, Google is your friend. Google Scholar if you like.
Just to let you know what is out there, try this one as an introduction, from Oregon.
http://jpepsy.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/4/343.full
But I go back to the title of this post, which included the phrase “Futile gesture” and wonder if you will read it.
“Jeff,
I am still waiting for the stats I asked you for to support your claim.”– ditto
Jeff,
I was referring to the fact that YOU, rather conveniently I might add, did not specify the number of years in your posting on this blog. As is well-iterated in the article link, 733 tickets over a 4-year period is next to nothing, and factored against the recorded hundreds of thousands of cyclists on Vancouver streets each year and their unenforced infractions, the result falls far below zero tickets. Indeed, with the vast increase in ridership over those same four years and after, the decrease in ticketing renders enforcement frozen solid.
Wow somebody here really hates it when people rides bikes. Or excels at trolling.
Or both.
Name-calling is spawned by the fear of losing the argument.
Some people apparently really hate it when it is suggested that cyclists be subject to any form of regulation. You’re not sitting on a banana seat going up and down the driveway with streamers in your handlebars and hockey cards in your spokes anymore.
Jeff, you like to request a source for any comment you dislike but you offer none to support your own. You just hope your comments are so pure that they are gospel. Only inside your little cocoon Jeff. Otherwise, stop being so righteously tiresome. Your yabbering and nodding correctness only works in your clubhouse.
Back to Ohrn’s article above, I must question his use of the word “howling” — by definition, it is a sound. Ms. deGenova’s written comments are not audible, so on what basis Ken do you characterize her speech as a howl? Since we’re reading sound into silent print, you sound a tad prejudiced Ken. Is it because she is a woman or because she would like to hold you and your fellow cyclists accountable for your cycling behaviours, or both?
The born-again cyclists are exactly like their evangelical religious brothers and sisters. They know they are right, anyone who has the slightest doubt is wallowing in sin and depravity – and these days a new twist is added; the sinners are killing Mother Earth!
Ready the stakes!
You got some crazy ideas about people there.
Speaking of the Anthropocene, how does widening concrete roads, for “safer” bike lanes, and widening concrete sidewalks, for non-existent hoardes of pedestrians, satisfy the ill-conceived sense of a desperate human responsibility to render Vancouver “green”-er?
Is the NPA really that suicidal?
Municipal roads are funded by property tax (paid by all owners and renters, i.e. everyone) and highways are funded by income tax. Pedestrians and cyclists subsidize everyone else.
So having put aside the money issue there is still the issue of licensing vehicles.
Why do we license motor vehicles?
Is it to prove they are in proper operating condition?
No, only commercial vehicles are inspected.
So licensing bicycles wouldn’t prove that their lights or brakes work because we don’t even bother to do that for cars.
The license for the vehicle isn’t really about the vehicle at all, it’s about having insurance and a licensed driver’s name associated with it: someone to take the blame if the actual operator cannot be apprehended.
Putting a license plate on a bike would have the same value. It would provide an identification number for hit-and-run incidents, but would likely be so small that nobody would even see it in such a situation.
So the real issue here isn’t licensing vehicles, it’s licensing operators.
We have a system that licenses the operators of motor vehicles because there is some knowledge and skill required to drive without causing injury or property damage.
That doesn’t stop licensed drivers from causing hundreds of deaths, thousands of injuries and millions of dollars in property damage each year, but it does keep the numbers down.
Do we have a similar problem with bicycles? Are cyclists regularly to blame for injuries and property damage to others? If so, is the amount so great that we should be spending millions of dollars to license cyclists?
I suspect not.
Very nice.
So a vehicle driver that has a residence pays property tax and income tax to finance municipal roads and highways and, If they live and work in the Metro Vancouver area they also, for some reason, pay and extra 17 cents per litre of the cost of gasoline for their vehicle, to fund transit and bike lanes.
Why are they so special? Are they rich? Are they an easy mark? Are they suckers? Are they doing it because they want to? Are they being punished because driving is bad? Are they doing it because they like the fact that TransLink has over 500 employees raking in over a hundred grand, but still doesn’t try to collect bus fares and refuses to install fare-collecting gates on the subway system?
The call for identification plates and licensing will increase as incidents, like the disgusting one recently that involved a pregnant woman, increase, and they will because the bikers are becoming more militant. It’s palpable.
In the recent incident, only one person did something wrong. The idea that all cyclists everywhere are guilty of what one individual did is wrong.
There’s a phenomenon called Outgroup Homogeneity Effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity
Basically an individual of an in-group or majority can do something wrong and the others of that group are not automatically guilty but when someone of an out-group does something wrong, because of this effect, all of that group are implied.
Add to that a news media, owned by the same companies that own the auto and oil industries, who want to creative divisions between people. They know that many people would not buy a new car to use for their short trips if they had an attractive alternative and they intend to stop that from happening.
Your worldview is a bit naive. Newspaper companies control auto and oil companies ? Where did you get that ?
People buy cars because they are practical and a necessity. Only in very few places in Canada, one being Vancouver, can you have a decent life style and job with no car. That is not the case in 95%+ of places in Canada, even in MetroVan, one of the densest parts of Canada. Try rural SK or N-ON or interior BC and try to live without a car. Very hard or very inconvenient, or both.
Individual transportation options is what we need. I do not want to be forced into one mode, such as bicycling only. That might be good fun, or healthy in the summer in flat terrain for a healthy person, but not so convenient for an 80 year old with a limp leg, or in the rain, or uphill, or at -20 degree weather (quite common in the prairies, or for that matter anywhere east of BC).
Please do not extrapolate or force your life style choices onto other. As a society we need to accomodate a very wide variety of life style choices and abulities, in a variety of terrain and weather.
I prefer a fast, cheap, green and individual transortation choice, and tofay none of that exists even in Vancouver. Compromises have to be made by all.
I get a sense from what you just wrote that you have the idea that someone somewhere is planning on making cycling the only transportation choice and forcing it on others. I’ve never heard anyone suggest that. Even Vancouver’s Transportation 2040 plan is still expecting people will be driving in the future. The Netherlands with their country-wide cycling network is also still building highways and roads for cars too.
In the recent past we were forced into one mode and it was bad. We need lots of choices because we’re all different.
This response reminds me of the late 1980s when there was a push to include sexual orientation into the non-discrimination act. Some people were interpreting the fact that a gay person would have a recourse if they were fired from a job for being gay, to be forcing a lifestyle onto those who were not interested. That heterosexuality would be banned from schools. That straight people would be forced to have gay sex against their will. (I’m not making this up.)
Anyway, I guess that when any grass roots movement transitions from being underground to being known in the mainstream, there are those that imagine it as a threat.
:…straight people would be forced to have gay sex against their will. …
This was about licensing bicycles.
When I was younger we might have said some people were silly buggers.
I was making a comparison with irrational fear that some people have when a previously disenfranchised minority gets a place at the table. Somehow they interpret that as a take over.
Adanac,
Surely, you are not suggesting that at any time cyclists have been “disenfranchised”?! My goodness, cycling was never a banned activity, punishable activity under the law or restricted activity, like homosexuality was at one time. What on earth are you talking about by attempting to create an analogy between homosexuals and cyclists?! Cyclists have had “a place at the table” for as long as bicycles have existed and people have wanted to ride them. Or, are you attempting to assert that all cyclists are homosexuals?! For heaven’s sake, stop arguing nonsense.
Thank you for giving an example of the reaction I mentioned. And yes, I am suggesting that cycling was disenfranchised.
Until very recently cycling was ignored in road planning and for the most part still is. I disagree that there was a place at the table in the past.
What I see as similar is the reaction of some people to new things that come along. Five years earlier they never heard much about something, then suddenly they hear more about it. They then extrapolate from there and figure that in another few years, these “new people” will take over and force them to do things they don’t want to do.
So, for example, people fearing that they will be forced to have gay sex and that straight sex and straight marriages will be banned. Similarly, many people didn’t know think about cycling much and then a few years later there’s a handful of cycle routes added to the road system and they see it as a take over and that they will have roads for cars removed in the future.
To me it’s so obvious of a similarity I don’t know how anyone can not see it. (It’s not an exact analogy because there’s no such thing as a cyclist because they transform into a pedestrian the instant they dismount but a homosexual is still a homosexual whether they have gay sex or not.
Thomas’ wording gave me the impression that he thought that cycling would be forced on people who were not interested in it.