Excuse me, is this your bike?
‘Abandoned’ notice is insulting, cyclists say of city removal blitz
Amid the quaint and elegant shops on Yorkville’s Cumberland St., a transportation standards officer spotted Chelsey Konya’s old Super Cycle.
She’d parked it, stepped into her hair appointment and stepped out. Her bike was there an hour, but a piece of yellow paper was now wrapped around its body, like a badge of shame. “This bike appears abandoned,” it read.
Despite a smart new haircut, Konya rode her rebuffed old bike home under a cloud of haughty defiance, “slightly offended but also laughing to myself.”
“Maybe it was the rusty chain.” And maybe it was Yorkville — “like, maybe rusty bikes aren’t allowed there or something?”
The 24-year-old entrepreneur had been riding the bike as a replacement for hers, which had been stolen.
“I didn’t think it was that bad,” she said of the incident in April, when the city did its last abandoned-bike removal blitz. “But apparently it was.”
The city has ramped up its efforts to remove forsaken bicycles downtown and another blitz was announced this week. Cyclists, whose bikes may look out of shape, have been warned.
Rusty chains are the first thing Transportation Services manager Andre Filippetti mentions in listing factors that cue transportation standards officers in issuing the little yellow notices. After two weeks, they may lead to the bike’s removal. The bikes are stored for 30 to 60 days to give owners a last chance at claiming them, then they’re “disposed of” or their parts are recycled.
The removal blitz has been organized before winter sets in to clear up walking space and for snow removal.
The forgotten frames are what’s left behind when Torontonians move on. But every bike tells a story and why they’re there is usually a mystery. Most bikes the eight or nine blitz officers tag are found along main streets lined with rental units, subway stations and the University of Toronto campus near Harbord and St. George Sts., Filippetti says.
When a bike is what the city calls derelict — if only a skeletal frame is left, for instance — officers don’t bother tagging it and simply order it to be removed.
“(It’s) kind of a giveaway that it hasn’t been ridden for a while,” he said of the rusty chains. “When we see the bikes, you can tell that the bike has probably been left there and abandoned.” But some cyclists say not so fast. “I find that offensive that the city is taking it upon themselves to declare which bikes are (abandoned),” said Geoff Bercarich of the group Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists.
Bercarich says he’s heard of others whose bikes, like Konya’s, were judged to be castaways, but that were, in fact, ridden regularly.
“People that ride bikes can’t necessarily afford to keep their bikes in mint condition for (the city’s) evaluation of whether a bike is abandoned or not,” he said.
Mario Cosic, sales manager of Urbane Cyclist bicycle shop on John St., noted that “Some people want their bikes to look like that so they don’t get stolen.”
Bercarich erects roadside memorials for cyclists killed on that street. These “ghost bikes,” spray-painted white and covered in plastic flowers, are also often victims of the bikere moval blitz.
Bercarich believes the city finds the memorials give off a “negative atmosphere around cycling.”
But he argues they serve as important reminders for cyclists to be vigilant and as warnings of areas that may pose a threat to cyclists.
Filippetti says he’s heard the grievance before, but assures that the city “treats that with a lot of sensitivity.” He pointed to a bylaw that says memorials on streets can remain for just 30 days.
To Filippetti, the city’s zeal in clearing the streets of abandoned bikes is a good sign.
“Ten years ago, you wouldn’t have seen very many bikes in the streets,” he said. “We’re really seeing an upswing in bicycles.”
But for Konya, who now has a shiny new bike, the sentiment was less positive.
“I think it was a little rude.”