{"id":4057,"date":"2009-02-27T10:00:38","date_gmt":"2009-02-27T15:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/2009\/02\/27\/can-bikes-and-scooters-get-along\/"},"modified":"2009-02-27T10:00:39","modified_gmt":"2009-02-27T15:00:39","slug":"can-bikes-and-scooters-get-along","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/02\/27\/can-bikes-and-scooters-get-along\/","title":{"rendered":"Can bikes and scooters get along?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3554\/3311480676_7a630f5514.jpg?v=0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>AMSTERDAM<\/strong> &#8211; Last summer an interesting debate got underway in Toronto. Electric scooters started appearing in the bike lane and some cyclists weren&#8217;t too happy about that (Note: I may have to recant my quote in this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nowtoronto.com\/news\/story.cfm?content=164009\">NOW Magazine <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nowtoronto.com\/news\/story.cfm?content=164009\">article<\/a>). In fact, the discussion came up at recent meetings of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.toronto.ca\/cycling\/committee\/index.htm\">Toronto Cycling Advisory<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.toronto.ca\/tpc\/index.htm\">Pedestrian Committees<\/a>. There are a variety of reasons why some cyclists don&#8217;t want to share their already-scarce dedicated space, but a lot of the discussion last year focused on the distinction between electric scooters (which are currently classified as bicycles) and traditional gas-powered scooters (which are not supposed to use the bike lane). Ontario&#8217;s Ministry of Transportation will soon wrap up a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mto.gov.on.ca\/english\/dandv\/vehicle\/emerging\/e-bike-faq.shtml\">pilot project to test power-assisted bicycles<\/a> in the hopes of developing a policy on their vehicular classification.<\/p>\n<p>In Amsterdam, the distinction between electric and gas-powered is moot &#8211; all scooters are allowed to use bike lanes as long as they don&#8217;t exceed a 40 km\/h speed limit (and most scooters are already limited to that speed). In fact, even small two-person cars &#8211; not much smaller than a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smart.com\">Smart Car<\/a> &#8211; can use the lane (see image below).<\/p>\n<p>I have to say, back in Toronto I was against the idea of cyclists sharing the bike lane with anything motorized. However, it seems to work here and cyclists don&#8217;t really mind. It&#8217;s important to note that the average separated bike lane in Amsterdam is wider than the average bike lane in Toronto (2-4 metres compared to 1.5-1.8 metres), so there is more room to share. Also, not all scooter drivers use the bike lane &#8211; I&#8217;d estimate about a quarter to half of them do, depending on how busy the traffic is in the normal travel lanes.<\/p>\n<p>I haven&#8217;t studied the issue closely, nor have I found much in the way of professional or academic study, but I imagine the debate in Toronto &#8211; much like the bike lane itself &#8211; will resurface once the snow melts.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3463\/3311480722_266e242fb5.jpg?v=0\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AMSTERDAM &#8211; Last summer an interesting debate got underway in Toronto. Electric scooters started appearing in the bike lane and some cyclists weren&#8217;t too happy about that (Note: I may have to recant my quote in this NOW Magazine article). In fact, the discussion came up at recent meetings of the Toronto Cycling Advisory and<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/02\/27\/can-bikes-and-scooters-get-along\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Can bikes and scooters get along?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4060,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[336,11549,11548,1039,636,11547,21,19],"class_list":["post-4057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bikes","tag-amsterdam","tag-gas-powered-scooters","tag-normal-travel-lanes","tag-now-magazine","tag-ontario","tag-ontarios-ministry-of-transportation","tag-other-cities","tag-toronto"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Can bikes and scooters get along? - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/02\/27\/can-bikes-and-scooters-get-along\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can bikes and scooters get along? - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"AMSTERDAM &#8211; Last summer an interesting debate got underway in Toronto. 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