How to cycle and drive safely in Toronto with David Shellnutt, the Biking Lawyer

What are the origins of your love for biking? Was it a gradual thing, or was there a specific moment that pushed you to bike around the city?

I think it's not such a straight line. I grew up mountain biking and cycling out in the Blue Mountains area. And then in the beginning of 2000, I moved to Toronto and put my bike away. I was like, “Oh, this is crazy. Why would I ever bike here?”

And I think it wasn't until 2012 or something that my frustration with the TTC — the cost, time and struggle to get to work — got to a point where I was like, “You know what? Why don't I just take my bike out of storage and try that?” And I never looked back.

How does being both a driver and biker inform your perspective on road safety?

Being a driver, cyclist and pedestrian really helps me to take into consideration the huge responsibility I have behind the wheel. I’m driving 2000 lb. of motorized steel. An inattentive action behind the wheel means so much more than a mistake on my bike. I also have a greater appreciation for the vulnerability of pedestrians, and being on a bike helps with that. I don’t rush intersections or crowd out pedestrians from crosswalks. I find using multiple modes of transportation makes me more considerate and more attuned to what’s going on out there.

What do you believe is the biggest change we should make to prioritize safety on the road for everyone involved?

I think what we've got to do as a society is have a big shift in our thinking around road use.

You know, it's got to be a shared experience. We all pay for it, we all pay taxes. There's no such thing as a road tax specific to motorists that offsets the huge amount of degradation to the infrastructure that motor vehicles cause. We share this infrastructure.

And there are groups of people such as cyclists, pedestrians and mobility device users who are called vulnerable road users in law. And what that means is they're particularly vulnerable in case of a collision with a motor vehicle. So, motorists have an enhanced responsibility to take care of those people.

And that goes to that societal shift: We need to treat driving as a privilege and not a right. You've got a huge responsibility behind the wheel, so you can't be running red lights, or jumping pedestrians at corners, or cutting off streetcars just to get to Metro. The kind of behaviour that we see on the roadways is unacceptable. We all need to take a breath and realize the awesome power of the vehicles that we're driving out there and their capacity to do harm if handled inappropriately.

What do you say, in light of Doug Ford’s recent campaign against bike lanes? What’s the core issue we should be looking at when it comes to the removal of these bike lanes?

We, as Ontarians, should be really concerned that the people we’ve elected have launched us into a massive misinformation campaign and culture war, pitting road users against each other for no good reason. There's no stats to back up anything. They say bikes cause congestion. Bike lanes don't cause congestion, they don't slow EMS times. In fact, the opposite is true. They're good for business, they allow first responders to use bike lanes to pass motor vehicle traffic.

So the first thing we got to do is recognize that we're being lied to by the people we've elected, and that, cyclist or not, should cause you a huge concern.

At first, they said this is about safety and congestion. But then, they went in at the 11th hour and put an amendment to Bill 212 that says you can't sue if you're injured after they remove a bike lane. Well, that right there is them acknowledging that “Yep, when we rip these things out, people are going to get hurt. We know that, and we don't want to be responsible for it.”

If we really want to look at the huge congestion issues that plague our province…my mom lives in Guelph and my dad lives in Collingwood. Going on the 400-series highways to see either of them is a nightmare. It's really difficult, and I can't imagine what it's like for people who have to commute every day on those things, and the huge amount of money that's lost because of that. So, you got to ask yourself, if most of our congestion issues result on the 400-series highways, how will removing bike lanes be a solution to that?

Finally, it's the cost. They haven't offered us any solutions but removing bike lanes. So they're not even addressing the real problem. And as citizens of Ontario, we should be really concerned about that. They're going after infrastructure that's been funded, that's been spent and that's been installed — very costly infrastructure at that. And it's going to cost a ton of money to rip out.

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.