Derrick Harder is a fan of people getting around without cars. He used to ride a regular bike to work in Victoria, but now rides an e-bike. He is often taken aback at the tussle for space in bike lanes as a new array of non-motorized wheeled vehicles proliferates.
“We now have pedestrians, cyclists, people delivering stuff, everything, all competing for the tiny fringe that’s available to them.” “Our fastest-growing demographic is people over 50,” said Aaron Binder, the chief experience officer of Segway of Ontario, which has been in business for 19 years. The biggest sellers in his non-bicycle selection are e-scooters, at 95 per cent of all sales – a mode that both B.C. and Ontario have allowed on streets in pilot programs in the last two years.
But mobility advocates say there are inevitably going to be jerks in all forms of transportation. And, they point out, any accidents among different users in this world pale next to the catastrophic rate of deaths and serious injuries caused by cars and trucks.At the City of Vancouver, transportation planner Paul Storer sums it up this way: “We’re definitely in this adjustment phase.”
Mr. Storer’s team is also working with Vancouver Coastal Health on getting data about the rate of injuries among all those modes.