Canadian Club
Mcgill Cycling Team
What’s with all these abandoned bikes? You see them chained up at a bike rack, so they can’t be stolen. Many of them appear rideable. There’s one outside my local Mcdonald’s. It’s been there at least a week. I’ve even reported it to management, rack space being limited. So what gives? Do people forget their combos or lose their keys? Or maybe they’ve been partying and just plain can’t remember where they left their bikes? Even some city officials are at a loss to explain all the abandoned bikes. The supervisor of right of way management i n my hometown of Toronto, Elio Capizzano, said, “I wish I could shed some light on it, but I really don’t know why, especially because some of them seem to be in good working order.” We aren’t talking a 100 or so bikes, either. A reported 1,000 such bikes were removed from Toronto sidewalks in 2014. That may just be the tip of the proverbial iceberg, though, as you can still spot them on nearly every corner as you pedal around town. There are two kinds of abandoned bikes in Toronto. If the bike is in bad shape, and deemed “inoperable,” it can be “removed without notice” after a mere 24 hours. Bikes that have flat tires, rusty drivetrains or have been stripped down or are missing parts are likely to go quickly. It’s a different story if the bike is “intact and rideable.” Then, it is tagged and the owner is given two weeks to act. If you have received such a notice and are still enamored of your ride, you have only to remove the tag and relocate the bike.
Otherwise, it’ll be gone in 14 days. If you have questions about a bike that’s gone missing, you need only dial 311. Different cities have their own ideas about what comprises an “abandoned” bike. They do things a little slower in Edmonton, where a bike that hasn’t moved from its location for 72 hours is deemed to be abandoned. But if you think we’ve got problems, consider a city like Amsterdam, where there are said to be three bikes for every two residents. One estimate has it that more than one in seven bikes – as many as 15,000 – parked outside in Amsterdam has been abandoned. Most of those are found in the city centre, a little unsightly to say the least. A couple of years ago, the city rounded up 200 such bikes and then turned them into a giant sculpture. Another approach that’s proven successful is to reclaim abandoned bikes, fix them up and then recycle them. That’s been tried in Boston, where the refurbished bikes are given to low-income families who might not be able to afford one. New York City has something similar in the works, called Bike Rescue. By the way, that bike is still sitting in the rack at Mcdonald’s. I wish someone would claim it so there’s room to park mine while I dash inside for a coffee.
“All those abandoned bikes seem to disappear come January, but as the snow melts, they begin to hatch again.”