Cyclists, e-bikers spar over bike lanes [thestar.com]
STEVE RUSSELL / TORONTO STAR Doug Beatty, president of the Toronto Electric Riders Association, rides his e-bike on a street in Toronto earlier this month. The city is trying to establish rules on where these vehicles fit in the transportation mix. For cyclist Paul Farnan it’s simple: bike lanes are the only place in the city where you can operate non-motorized vehicles in relative safety. To buttress his point, he showed up at Saturday’s stakeholders’ open house with photographs of the muscular electric two-wheeled vehicles he fears will squeeze cyclists out of bike lanes if the city abolishes rules keeping electric bicycles out of bike lanes and parks. “It’s a thin edge of the wedge thing,” he says, pointing at a photo of an electric scooter. “I don’t know what reality anybody lives in where that is a bicycle.” But for Gary Salo the conflict is just as clear-cut: Toronto should place e-bikes — bicycles with both pedals and an electric motor — into the ...