Bike- share advocates concerned helmet law will delay program
City councillor says scheme is still on track for this year
Advocates of Vancouver’s longawaited bicycle- sharing program — which is supposed to begin this summer — fear it will be delayed until the spring of 2014, all because of bike- helmet laws.
“Nobody launches a bike- share in the fall or the winter. They always do it in the spring or summer, when the weather is best, so we’re looking at 2014 for an actual rollout,” said Chris Bruntlett, co- founder of the bicycle-advocacy group Sit Up Vancouver.
The group places the blame for the delay squarely on the bike- helmet law, calling it “the single biggest barrier.”
“We want to see more bikes in the city of Vancouver, and we know it’s preventing people from getting on bikes,” said Bruntlett, who has received two tickets for cycling without a helmet. “It’s incredibly frustrating.”
While city councillor Heather Deal denied Tuesday that the program will be delayed beyond 2013, the bike-advocacy group became concerned because of a comment by the city’s director of transportation in a Vancouver magazine this month.
Jerry Dobrovolny was unavailable for comment Tuesday, but told the magazine he was hopeful “some portion” of the program could take shape before the end of 2013.
Deal said a staff report on progress is expected to be presented to council later this spring.
“There was always some flex in the schedule because it’s a very complicated issue,” she said. “But we are still on track, and our direction is still that we’re going to roll out in 2013.”
“I don’t know if it will be summer or not, could be later.”
The city announced last September that the program, which had been under discussion since 2008, would launch in the summer of 2013 with at least 1,500 bicycles at 125 stations downtown. Initially, it would cover the area from Victoria Drive in the east to Alma Street, and between Vancouver Harbour and Broadway.
B. C.’ s Motor Vehicle Act provides for $ 100 fines for anyone who rides a bike on a public roadway without a helmet or allows a child under 16 to ride without a helmet.
The city of Vancouver has a complementary bylaw, with the same fines, against cycling without a helmet on the seawall or city- designated offstreet bicycle routes, which are not covered by the Motor Vehicle Act.
Vancouver police handed out 36 municipal tickets and 1,809 provincial fines in 2012 for failure to wear helmets, said Sgt. Randy Fincham.
The city bylaw is in place to provide continuity with the provincial law, said Deal, adding the city is not considering repealing the city bylaw or asking the province to repeal the helmet section of the Motor Vehicle Act.
In February it was reported the city paid a Richmond company $ 50,000 to develop a prototype for a helmet dispensing machine that can clean and quarantine helmets for shared use along with the bikes.
Alta Bicycle Share, a company based in Portland, but with similar operations in Boston, Washington, D. C. and New York, was tapped to run the system in Vancouver.
Alta also runs the bike- share program in Melbourne, Australia, which has a similar helmet law. It has recorded lower ridership than cities with no helmet laws despite subsidized helmets available at vending machines and convenience stores, some located far away from the bicycle share stations.