Mess Media

Ten years ago, bike courier Wayne Scott won an epic battle against Revenue Canada.

His arguments persuaded the Federal Court of Appeal to rule that bike couriers could claim food as a fuel expense on their tax returns.

Now Scott is taking the city to the Ontario Labour Relations Board, claiming Toronto's streets constitute an unsafe workplace for those who cycle on the job.

Three months after former Ontario attorney general Michael Bryant was charged in the death of bike courier Darcy Allan Sheppard, Scott is asking the board to force Toronto to make its streets safer.

He wants the city to study the dangers on its roads and address the problems with better street design, enforcement of traffic rules and more bike lanes, within two years.

Scott, a once and future federal Green Party candidate, says the city has failed to apply the provisions of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, which says employers must take reasonable precautions to protect their workers.

On Monday, city officials said they didn't know how many employees use bikes on the job, but police, EMS workers and bylaw officers are among those who cycle on duty.

They run the same risk as any cyclist or bike courier of having a car door opened suddenly in their path or being hit at an intersection. That's because the rules of the road are poorly enforced and the city is years behind on completing its own bike plan, contends Scott, who retired from the courier business about four years ago.

The fact he has worked for the city himself – as a cycling ambassador during the summer of 2005 – doesn't affect the legitimacy of his argument, he said.

"The city and everyone tells us we should be biking, but that's all they do – they tell us to do it and then they toss us out in the meat grinder of the system they have in place," Scott said.

City employees would be unlikely to challenge their employer at the labour board, said environmental lawyer Albert Koehl, who will represent Scott at a pre-hearing settlement meeting at the labour board Tuesday.

"If the city were actually doing what it says it wants to be doing, which is making cycling more accessible to people, then we wouldn't be here. But it seems quite clear to us that the city is not even doing the things they've talked about doing," said Koehl.

The city's 2001 bike plan called for 500 kilometres of bike lanes by 2011. With only 112 kilometres in place, the deadline is now 2012.

The lack of infrastructure and safety means the city isn't benefiting from opportunities it could grasp if more city workers were encouraged to bike – everyone from parking enforcement officers to executives who travel downtown to meetings, Koehl said.

"Think about a construction worker on Bloor St.: There are signs, barriers, police officers. All of that is to protect vulnerable workers from cars. The same thing when you have cyclists – cars might have fender benders, cyclists have body benders," he said.

About 350 to 400 health and safety complaints are appealed annually out of thousands probed, said board solicitor Voy Stelmaszynski. Scott's complaint was investigated by a labour ministry inspector in September, and he is appealing because the ministry failed to act.

Toronto’s streets are an unsafe workplace for cyclists - Press Release, November 24, 2009