‘What is that?’: The city doesn’t want you to use them. But for some riders, these oddball devices are the best way to get around Toronto

Thestar.com
July 17, 2023

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.

Zipping through the city’s streets at golden hour, past gridlocked cars, is an incomparable form of release, said Brownlee. “It feels like that sensation of flying when you’re dreaming.”

As TTC service cuts and stifling congestion make it harder to navigate the city by traditional means, a growing number of people are turning to personal electric vehicles (PEVs) to get around. Riders say PEVs allow them to navigate the city more freely while boosting their well-being and giving them a new sense of community.

But there’s at least one speed bump: e-scooters and other PEVs (aside from e-bikes) 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.

Electric vehicle riders find community
“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. The Friday cruise is run by Toronto E-Riders, a community Brownlee heads up of roughly 3,500 people in Toronto who use personal electric vehicles. On busy nights, as many as 50 people come out to ride, he said.

While definitions vary, PEVs typically refer to compact, battery-powered motorized devices that transport a single person at speeds less than 50 kilometres per hour. The PEV movement may have largely started with Segways -- those two-wheeled standing devices with handlebars that move forward as the rider leans -- but the PEV family has broadened to include devices such as electric unicycles, like the one Brownlee rides. E-scooters, in particular, have become more popular in recent years with the advent of scooter-sharing companies like Lime and Bird, which operate in cities around the world (but not Toronto).

In January 2020, Ontario began a five-year e-scooter pilot project, allowing municipalities to regulate the use of scooters, something traditionally done by the province. Cities including Ottawa, Windsor, Brampton, Oshawa and Hamilton have hopped on board, but so far, Toronto has resisted. In May 2021, city council voted against allowing e-scooters on city streets, citing “significant accessibility barriers,” and concerns about safety, traffic enforcement, insurance and liability. But the topic has not disappeared from council’s radar: next week city council will debate a motion asking staff to prepare a report about a possible e-scooter rental pilot to begin in summer 2024.

Popular devices are banned most places in Toronto
Although PEVs are technically banned on Toronto’s streets, sidewalks, cycling lanes and multi-use paths, the devices are becoming more popular, with frequent sightings across the city and an abundance of PEV retail and repair shops. While e-bikes and e-scooters are still the most common, wacky, futuristic-looking devices like electric unicycles and onewheels (a type of electric skateboard with a single, thick wheel in the middle) are also gaining momentum.

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.

The landscape for PEVs has changed a lot since then, Fee said. “When I first started riding everyone would stop you on the street and ask ‘What is that? Did you make it?’ Tons of questions. Now I think people are more used to seeing them, so you can just kind of cruise without getting stopped every 10 feet.”

Each device has its own unique identity, with advantages and disadvantages compared to the rest. Fee sees onewheels as the “surfers” of PEVs. “We’ll go a bit slower, but it’s all about the ride,” he said.

Toronto’s traffic, transit woes make PEVs attractive
Toronto council next week will debate whether the city should join a provincial pilot allowing e-scooters.

While some riders say they initially purchased their PEV for fun, they increasingly rely on their device to commute in a city that’s getting harder and harder to get around by other means. Toronto’s traffic has been ranked among the worst in the world, and according to city data, it’s taking almost as long to get places by car as it did in 2019. The TTC, meanwhile, has become more expensive, more crowded and less frequent, after plunging finances due to the pandemic necessitated fare hikes and service cuts.

Travelling by PEV is quicker, more convenient, and more fun than alternatives, riders say.

“The TTC has unfortunately become a little bit stressful. I’ve noticed a big difference in my mood and overall well-being when I take the scooter,” said David Capizzano, who bought his e-scooter a little over a year ago and has already logged 500 kilometres on it. 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.

Karen Stanley said her e-skateboard -- which is a motorized version of the original -- has replaced a car for her when navigating downtown. “I live on Bloor Street, and the traffic is a nightmare, there’s always construction,” she said. “It’s just so much easier to use the bike lane infrastructure that we’ve put in and hop on my skateboard.”

Toronto has opted out of province’s pilot
Toronto has laws banning e-scooters and e-bikes with motors over 500 watts, but the existing legislation doesn’t explicitly mention PEVs. However, in a statement, City of Toronto Transportation Services said “The Ontario Highway Traffic Act doesn’t allow for the operation of one-wheels, electric unicycles or electric skateboards on public roads. As well, City of Toronto bylaws do not allow them to be operated, left, stored or parked on bike lanes, cycle tracks or park paths.”

Still, PEV riders who spoke to the Star say they’ve never had any trouble, and take care to ride respectfully in bike lanes or on the side of the road. They say Toronto should continue to build infrastructure, like protected cycling paths, which also make riding PEVs safer and easier.

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.

Raktim Mitra, professor and co-director of Toronto Metropolitan University’s TransForm Research Laboratory, said he sees a place for PEVs in Toronto’s transportation landscape, and believes Toronto should revisit the possibility of allowing scooter-sharing companies to operate in the city. For one, e-scooter technology has improved in recent years to make the devices safer, he said. For example, some companies now set a limit on how fast new riders can go when borrowing a scooter.

But when considering legalizing PEVs for private use, Mitra said, things get more complicated, because of the range of devices that are out there. He worries devices that were created as recreational devices are now being used to commute on busy city streets that aren’t designed to accommodate them.

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.

Lack of PEV regulation a risk
A man takes a motorized skateboard along Queens Quay with his dog hitching a free ride.

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.

“Everybody has to have a better understanding of what’s going on out there, because right now, it’s pretty helter skelter.”

There are lots of reasons why the city should encourage PEVs, Shellnutt said. They’re greener than cars and they cut down on congestion. But most of all, they’re here, and it’s about time the law catches up.

“The onus is on those in power to take the lead here and guide us through what is a transportation revolution.”