Segway in Toronto update
Just got word tonight that the Toronto Works Committee has voted unanimously to defer the issue of Segway use on city sidewalks to Toronto Legal Services. Robyn Reisler, who runs Segway of Ontario, asked the Works Committee to take this measure. “We felt this would give the legal group ample time to investigate the Segway in depth, and with all the precedents world wide we would be able to live with their recommendations,” Reisler told me in an e-mail. At the very least it will stop uninformed knee-jerk reactions. I completely understand why a pedestrian committee would raise safety issues regarding Segways on sidewalks. But to immediately compared them to bicycles, which are technically illegal on sidewalks, and then to recommend they continue to be banned is a bit premature at this point. As suspected, a co-chair on the pedestrian committee confirmed that nobody on the committee has ever taken a ride on a Segway. Basing decisions on the unknown isn’t the right way to go.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
June 19th, 2005 at 9:45 am
No sidewalk SUV’s in TO.
They are banned in SF, NY and Disney for good reason — if Seways are allowed on the sidewalks and pathways of TO why not pocket crotch rockets, electric scooters, electric tricycles and other pedestrian killers!!!
Frank Meevis, Oakville ON
August 9th, 2005 at 3:23 pm
why bother with the segway at all my preused bicycle takes me at 18 mph ,needs no fuel, cost me $50 and is environment/health friendly.
July 20th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Segway are safe and secure, both you you up there, have you ever tried?
When you have and artificial leg and it is difficult to walk, you can do it but not long distance, segway are a good thing, people like that don’t have the chance to ride bicycles, and are not willing to sit yet on a wheelchair , because they know that they are still able to stand, and that they will spent the last 30 years of life in on….
Think about it, you are healty and can walk good, some just want to be able to do the same as you