Last week, the Spacing Wire posted about the rise of scooters and E-Bikes (or PABs - Power Assisted Bicycles) in this age of environmental concerns and rising gasoline prices:
The PABs have not been without controversy. Many cyclists on muscle-powered bikes are frustrated that the larger PABs – electric scooters – are being ridden in bike lanes and pathways in parks.
They argue that the electric scooters’ bulk and weight pose safety risks to other cyclists, and that there needs to be greater clarity as to what qualifies as a PAB, and what should be considered a full-grown scooter.
However, others have argued that the electric scooters are appropriately labeled as a PAB because of their limited maximum speed of 32 km/h (which is much slower than traditional scooters).
There's definitely been an increase in scooters along my commute (Gerrard Street East). While as recently as last summer I'd see a couple scooters a week, this summer I'm seeing 3-4 every day, each way. That works out to about 30 a week.
E-bikes have been a bit more rare along my commute, but I do see the occasional one - and always used as a scooter... the pedals never seem to be used.
As for using the bikelanes... what do you think?
Should e-bikes be able to use bikelanes? What about gas-powered scooters?
Should the bikelanes be only for "human powered" vehicles, or should the entire road be fair game - to encourage sharing of the public roadway for all users?
Discuss it on the BikingToronto Community too!
[Top photo by Word Freak at the GreenLiving Show in the spring of 2008, bottom photo by PatJandak]
Labels: infrastructure, news
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