On Friday nights in the summer when the weather’s nice, Brett Brownlee leads a parade of people riding electric-powered bikes, scooters, skateboards and other micro mobility devices around the city on a sunset cruise. They meet at Queen’s Park, wind through downtown past the CN Tower, look out over the trees at Evergreen Brickworks and gaze at the city’s skyline from Polson Pier.
But there’s at least one speed bump: e-scooters and other PEVs are illegal in Toronto, though laws are vague and rarely enforced. Riders say legalizing PEVs could help solve Toronto’s transportation woes and offer a more sustainable way to get around.“Riding really does make you feel good,” said Brownlee. He rides an electric unicycle — a motorized device with a single wheel, smaller and thicker than one you’d find on a traditional bike, with pedals on each side.
When Dillon Fee first bought his onewheel four years ago, he rode for an entire summer by himself before he saw someone else riding one. Then one day, riding through Marie Curtis Park in Mississauga, he saw someone on a onewheel riding towards him. “We both just stopped and started chatting,” he said.
For most of the year, when the streets are clear from ice, he takes his scooter to and from the office, where he charges it while he works. Safety concerns drove Toronto’s city council to vote against joining the provincial e-scooter pilot, with council arguing at the time that “passing on the e-scooter pilot would help prevent potentially serious injuries on Toronto streets and sidewalks” during a time when hospitals were already strained due to COVID-19.
Brownlee, on the other hand, said the city should legalize private ownership first, and then open up to rental companies once drivers get used to coexisting with PEVs.With or without city council’s approval, people in Toronto will ride PEVs. It’s the lack of regulation around them that poses the most risk, said Dave Shellnutt, a lawyer representing victims of traffic accidents.
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