New GO Transit e-bike, bicycle policy begins

Catching a train at Union Station sometimes isn’t the easiest thing to do. Jam shoulder to shoulder. There’s barely room to move at times. Starting on Tuesday, bikes are now banned here during the morning and evening rush hour peaks. We really want to make sure that from a safety perspective that we’re still fit for purpose. Frank eBay at GO Transit was partly behind many of the new changes. Two bikes per door. So wherever we’ve stipulated that there’s two bikes, then we expect those to be two bikes where we have bike coaches. We expect that those to have the aisles clear, so our buses. We’re also asking our customers with E bikes to take off their batteries so that those also do not get damaged. We ask all patrons to charge their E bikes at home or use dedicated charging stations. Will also now be checking E bike batteries and adding tamper proof seals. It comes months after a fire on a subway train. We’ve worked with Toronto Fire Service, we’ve worked with E bike suppliers and also we’ve seen some unfortunate events in the news. Regarding E bikes, as Metrolinx begins enforcing this new policy, advocates say they’re generally supportive of what’s happening, but they are concerned with how it’s being rolled out. More frequently it happens, the more concerning it becomes. Personal injury lawyer Rajiv Hatay says with more and more incidents, there’s a need to act. When you become aware of a known hazard and you don’t do anything to avoid that hazard from occurring, then that’s where there could be arguments made against you for negligence. I don’t think many people are aware of how much their bike weighs, what kind of battery. You know what the difference between a UL and ACE standard is. They just want a convenient way to get around. While Alison Stewart with the advocacy group Cycle Toronto says she agrees change is needed, she’s worried about the rollout, especially for couriers who depend on GO. It’s one thing to have that policy and promote it, but how on earth are the staff going to be able to accommodate this in a, you know, a consistent and equitable manner? Because there’s just such a high volume of people. So have staff and director like try to educate first, don’t jump to the ticket totally. So we we we’ve been spending the last four weeks. Education We support everyone bringing their bikes on our services at Union Station. Nick West All City News.