What is going on in Toronto between police and cyclists?

Over the last few weeks, the city of Toronto has proven to be a most inhospitable place for cyclists and it seems to only be getting worse.

Things have gotten so out of control that a protest ride is set to take place next week in the city’s High Park — the scene of a bewildering number of incidents over the past two weeks.

Canada’s largest city has always been a challenge for those who chose to get around the city on a bicycle. Many years ago, it was showing improvement, and the city continues to slowly add safe cycling infrastructure, but the various levels of government continue to take every opportunity to insist this is a cars-first city.

First, the city cancelled its popular ActiveTO program that shut down streets such as Lakeshore Drive West to turn them over to cyclists, pedestrians and others on the weekend. Apparently, one of the head honchos of the local pro baseball team complained that spectators were delayed in arriving for games. How horrid.

But, that was just the tip of a rather sizable iceberg. Soon, Toronto Police Service officers were setting up shop in local High Park and ticketing cyclists for, yes, speeding in the park. Not just once, and without any actual public engagement or, according to David Shellnutt, the “Biking Lawyer”, seemingly any data to back up the action.

Although Shellnutt warned Toronto mayor John Tory that this would lead to greater problems, his pleas went unanswered and so it began.

Momentum spoke with Shellnutt to get a recap of the strange and awful events of the last week or so.

“So, last week, on July 26, a BIPOC cyclist was being harassed by a police officer in High Park, who first threatened him with speeding. And then when that cyclist told them well you probably shouldn’t be in the bike lane with your vehicle, the officer then sped up, parked in front of him very aggressively and gave him a trespassing ticket,” alleges Shellnutt, who is representing the cyclist pro bono. “Engaging in a prohibited activity is what the ticket said. Cycling we presume. And then that sort of blew up in the media, though they said it was about speeding and everybody got it wrong.”

At that point, Toronto mayor John Tory came out in support of what the police were doing in High Park.

“That seemed to embolden the police who then went regularly to High Park and harassed cyclists. Friday evening, the 29th, I got a call from a non-white cyclist who said an undercover officer, a plainclothes officer, was harassing him and called in the marked units to the park to ticket him.”

Right then and there, Shellnutt says he had a pit in his stomach that the situation was not going to end well.

“Sure enough, Monday night, a woman was biking along Bloor Street by the park and a man chased after her, grabbed her bike and she fell to the ground,” says Shellnutt, who could also be representing the woman in a civil suit. “He said he was fed up with cyclists and wanted to teach her a lesson.”

Not only that, but when police arrived, the man was reportedly not charged with anything. Could it get much worse? Well, yes, apparently this sad Toronto story continues.

“We were concerned about this vigilantism, and then the next day, Aug. 2, a cyclist was ticketed for not stopping at a stop sign. And the very officer that had done that himself failed to stop at a stop sign and hit his bike causing significant property damage because it was a good bike. And that officer we don’t think was charged,” alleges Shellnutt.

The saga continues as Shellnutt says he received an anonymous tip that the man who chased down the cyclist on Bloor Sreet was an off-duty police officer. This allegation has not been proven and it was not confirmed by the Toronto Police Service, a representative of which responded that TPS officers attended the scene on Aug. 1 but that no charges were laid.

When asked what message these incidents and police and government response to them sends to cyclists, he says at best it shows just how out of touch they are to the realities of dangerous driving in the city, and at worst, without care.

“Anywhere outside of the park, the collisions, crashes, and just poor poor driving behavior are prolific,” he says. “We represent dozens and dozens of injured cyclists. I have three clients from a month span and 2021 last year, all hit at Bloor and Keele just outside of the park — shattered knee, broken pelvis, broken collarbone. This is where people are getting injured, it is very certainly not in the park. And so we just feel it’s an affront to the cycling community whose day in and day out deals with the effects of dangerous driving on the streets of Toronto.”

Shellnutt suspects that a very vocal minority of High Park area residents and park users complained about cyclists in the park and somehow found a willing listener despite what the data seems to show.

“The data shows that everything happens outside of the park on every other street in staggering numbers. And it’s motorists who are involved about 17,000 to six. There is no grey area; it just doesn’t make sense.”

Shellnutt confirms he has heard nothing from Mayor Tory or Toronto Police Service despite his pleas for the city leader to diffuse the situation before something worse happens. Has he heard anything? “Crickets,” he says.

The incidents have garnered a great deal of attention from the greater cycling community outside the city, many of whom will surely steer clear of Toronto when considering bicycle-friendly vacation spots.

“If someone was to be struck by a cyclist in the park and badly injured what discussion would we be having on that?” wrote Mayor Tory, in an emailed statement. “People would say where are the authorities? This is part of the Mayor’s job — we have to look at all sides — and make sure everyone is safe.”