August 7, 2009
To the Hon. Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario
Dear Mr. McGuinty,
I am writing to you as the leader of this government to ask that you exercise your prerogative as premier and direct the Ministry of Transportation to take quick action to clarify the status of power-assisted bicycles, more commonly known as E-bikes, on the roads in Ontario. The present lack of clarity from the MTO in this regard is unacceptable and is having an unnecessary negative impact on e-bike vendors and riders.
As you should be aware, on October 6, 2006 the Ministry of Transportation commenced a three year pilot project to evaluate the use of e-bikes with intent to evaluate their impact and determine appropriate permanent regulations. During the time of the pilot the ministry set preliminary regulations whereby any vehicle that fit the Federally definition of a power-assisted bicycle would be treated as if it were a bicycle, that is, road usage did not require the vehicle to be plated or to be insured, and the operator did not required a license. For brevity I will not repeat the detailed specifications for an e-bike here but any of your MTO officials should be able to provide the necessary information.
During the course of the pilot a number of Ontario residents, including me, decided to participate in the pilot by purchasing and using E-bikes. As an early adopter of this technological innovation, I would like to report to you that I have successfully demonstrated that e-bikes represent an attractive alternative form of transportation for short distance travel and e-bike riders willingly give up the power and speed of their fossil fuel powered vehicles as a fair trade-off for low operating costs. I would also like to report to you that in my experience as both a regular bicycle rider and as an e-bike rider that these vehicles, regardless of their appearance and regardless of whether the e-bike rider chooses to pedal or not, are appropriately classified as bicycles for the purpose of usage on the road.
I have personally accumulated 4600 km worth of riding experience on my scooter-style e-bike (consuming only $20 worth of electricity to do so!)
Unfortunately, your Ministry of Transportation did not similarly choose to participate in their own pilot project. I have evidence that they did absolutely no investigation of the operational use and road handling characteristics and other aspects of these vehicles up until late in the spring of this year possibly as late as June.
I base this statement on my direct observation of ministry staff on June 16th, 2009 when I was invited to participate in a stakeholders meeting with regard to future e-bike regulations. I made a point of bringing my own e-bike to this meeting with intent to show it to the other stakeholders who may not have been familiar with them. A few of the vendors in attendance also brought along samples of e-bikes.
What actually transpired was different than what I was expecting. After the other stakeholders had left, ministry staff asked all of us to bring our e-bikes to the east parking lot where Ministry staff proceeded to try the e-bikes, ask questions, take pictures of them in detail and take weights of each. Some time later, when I thought about what had happened I was forced to conclude that the Ministry staff were looking at e-bikes for the very first time three and a-half months before the end of the three year pilot.
Since that stakeholder meeting I have seen no evidence to contradict my claim. A careful read of their regulatory proposal that was subsequently posted on June 18, shows that it contains no ‘proposal’, only a request for suggestions as to what the regulations should be. Within the same proposal there is a thinly disguised threat that the scooter-style e-bikes (the type that I ride) might be outlawed through the establishment of restrictions on weight. No technical rationale was given except for a vague concern that they might be too heavy.
I also wrote to Hon. James Bradley, the Minister of Transportation, on June 24 (with a cc to you), requesting the details of the budget that was allocated to evaluating the pilot project. To date I have received no reply. From this I am also forced to conclude that there was no budget and the ministry will be making decisions arbitrarily based on who submitted the ‘prettiest’ comments. It also became apparent, that now that they have decided to get serious, the real regulations will only be available in late September just prior to the end of the pilot.
This situation is outrageous. As an e-bike rider I can tell you that the question of appropriate regulations could have been resolved last summer or even in the first summer of the pilot project if the effort to do so had been appropriately directed.
And you should know that this dithering/incompetence on the part of the Ministry is threatening the very livelihood of some small business owners, who responded to the need and chose to start selling e-bikes. Having purchased inventory, for what they thought would be a bumper year when e-bikes were finally permanent in law, their sales have come to a dead halt. The reason given by prospective buyers: “We are going to wait to see what the MTO is going to do. No point in investing money ($1000-$3000) if we won’t be able to use the e-bikes after October.”
Mr. McGuinty, it is absolutely stupid that I have to write to you, asking you to solve a problem that should have been a ‘no-brainer’ on the part of the MTO. The majority of the other provinces have permitted e-bikes on their roads treating them as bicycles with no special restrictions and minimal regulations without conducting ‘pilots’.
Please do the right thing and direct the Ministry of Transportation to immediately make it clear that, regardless of the detail of the final regulations, all e-bikes that meet the federal definition of a ‘power-assisted bicycle’ (regardless of their look or weight) will continue to be permitted to be used as bicycles in Ontario.
If, for any reason, the Ministry of Transportation indicates that they are unable to do so, please advise them that I am willing to work with them, without pay, and in their offices for as long as it takes, to resolve any outstanding issues. Also, please insist that they take me up on this offer.
Thank you for your time.
Warren Christiani
Whitby, ON
An e-bike rider
President, Durham E-bike Association
http://durhamebikeassociation.org/
Webmaster
http://ebikernetwork.org/
cc:
Hon J. Bradley; T. Hudak; A. Horwath; F. Klees; P. Tabuns; C. Elliot; J. O’Toole
and all the other e-bike riders that I know.
I AM AN E BIKE OWNER AND USER. MY BIKE IS THE SCOOTER TYPE AND AT 63 YEARS OF AGE I AND MANY OF MY FRIENDS OF THE SAME AGE AND CIRCUMSTANCES FEEL MUCH SAFER ON THIS STYLE OF BIKE. CLOSE TO THE GROUND AND A LOW CENTRE OF GRAVITY IS MOST REASSURING. ALL OF THIS BURACRATIC BUMBLING IS VERY ANNOYING AND VERY TELLING OF THE GOVERNMENT’S STLYE OF MANAGEMENT. IF WE BIKERS ARE PENALIZED BY THIS BUMBLING MANAGEMENT STYLE IT WILL STRENGTHEN MY RESOLVE TO LOOK FOR A REPLACEMENT FOR DWIGHT DUNCAN
Good job Warren, FYI.
http://www.cambridgetimes.ca/opinions/article/184066
Norm
i too am an E-bike owner rider. i have had my bike since June 17 2009.
as i use my bike almost every day to go to and from work i also have enjoyed going around the city of North Bay on just a relaxing ride. something that i would not normally do using my van.
i bought the bike to reduce my costs of gas and parking fees. i will find at the end of september i will have save $55.00 in gas alone per week since i started using the bike. i also charge my bike from a solar array i have at home and even though the cost of use are less than $0.30 (yes this is 30 cents) per 100 Km of travel, my cost to travel is $0.00 in solar recharge power. i drive my bike the same way i would with my 10 speed. on the road following the rules. on the bike path following the rules. i find that my scooter style Ebike has build in requirements that normally have not been on bikes all my life of driving bikes 40 yrs or so. front lights, break lights every time you use the breaks, signals that most reg bikes never use. the actual stopping at stop signs that a lot of reg bike never do.
as being treated as just a bike on the road and in general i will truly enjoy using this alternat means of transportation. i pedal my bike when i have hills of bridges to go on just like a bike. i wear a bike hat on this bike but not on my 10 speed. the saftey of using this bike has greatly increased over my 10 speed. my 10 speed goes faster than this bike but i am ok with that. i have no need to have a change of clothes driving the Ebike to work.
if this bike is to become a future means of transport, save energy and all that goes with that, then it still needs to be like the other provinces and be treated as a bike. i am sure when this catches on, Motorcycles will be converted like cars to electric and the speeds will still be up there. bikes have been the alternate means of transport for years. just becasue were getting better at it should not mean we need to pay more for the use.
we need to make them part of our every day life as much as we can saving our planet. keep the costs down and give people the incentive to want to help save out planet.
Darrell Deibel
No idea where the Government is in this at the moment, but I sure hope the come up with something rational. I hate the idea of people making uninformed decisions, or decisions that conflict with the rest of the country because they think they know better.
The Canadian definition of an e-Bike is a decent one that has worked well across the country. Changing it would make it harder for manufacturers — yet another design for another market — more cost to the consumer.
That said, I am concerned about the heavier bikes using bike paths. Their extra weight makes them more of a danger around pedestrians. I think it would be reasonable to restrict pathways shared with pedestrians to bikes under some reasonable weight. Keep the other bikes on the road/bike lanes.
My $0.02
I am very interested in getting an e-bike but I am waiting to see if it needs a licence or not, I do have a driver’s licence but, my husband has the car most times for work and I have arthritis very bad and need to get exercise, which I usually don’t have a problem getting to where I’m going, but do have a problem getting back as in my area there are all hills around. They moved my bank far enough where I can’t walk to get there and we have very slow bus service and only runs til 7:00 pm and no weekends, plus we now have new plazes, which is hard to get to, on Runnymede and St. Clare. in Toronto, which is hard to get to. It is very diffucult waiting so long for the bus as I can’t stand for long periods of time. I want to get an e-bike so badly but don’t want to spend the money and then find out I need a licence, Insurance. which being a one income family because of my illness and don’t qualifiy for disability as I got sick at an early age and couldn’t work long enough to put into the plan. I wanted the e-bike so I could peddle as much as I could handle then when unable to do so I won’t have a problem getting back home. I use to walk going the same way as the bus route so if I had a problem I could take the bus, now they changed the bus route so it is way out of my way to and from my home, when I have to go for my Dr. appointment, dentist appointments and to the small strip mall in my area. Please help make the e-bike possible for people like me to get, without the licence and insurace. If I got a scooter the disabled use, I would not get any exercise.