Bike mechanics may finally get some respect: Ontario working on a certified apprentice program

derailleur close-up

Bicycle mechanics get little respect yet we demand much of them. Everybody wants their bikes in perfect running order but we typically under value the complexity of the mechanics, at least in North America. Thus bicycle mechanics get paid little and many accomplished mechanics I know have talked about moving into other technical trades where the pay is higher and where there is more respect. (Photo by backonthebus)

That might be changing as Ontario is working on a provincial apprentice program for bicycle mechanics. The apprentice program is currently hanging in limbo as different departments work to approve it. The province has invited potential bicycle mechanics apprentices to participate in a 45 day waiting period before it becomes official. Roy Berger, a bicycle mechanic from Brantford, ON, was one of those invited. Yet Berger told me that the province has yet to start the waiting period.

Between March 2013 and April 2013 the Ontario Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities made a Training Agreement with 113 Bicycle Mechanic Apprentices in Ontario and provided a 30 page Schedule of Training.

For the longest time bicycle mechanics has been undervalued as only fit for teenagers and people who can't get a real mechanical job. The low pay has matched that expectation. With an apprentice program bike mechanics might finally become a respected profession which might also result in better pay, conditions and also safer repairing, maintaining and building of bikes. Or as Berger told me:

Papers, if you got papers, you like papers. People covet trade papers in all countries. I see this trade paper in the same category as a certificate for a gastronomical chef. You don't have to hire the guy but you figure that fellow is up to a certain minimum standard. It begins to set a bar and perhaps some day form a trade association same as chefs, hair dressers and other trades that require skill, dedication and interest. This one, our thing, is in the public interest. It's good for little Johnny, Susan and Mohammad. It's good for baby polar bears and tiger cubs. It's all about reinforcing the green and saving the planet. It's a decent moral trade. Now we have a real opportunity to step up to it. We've been wanting this for decades.

Currently Berger and other bike mechanics are just waiting. Berger received a apprentice card in the mail but now is just waiting on the government. The provincial ministry has designated bicycle mechanic as a new apprenticeship program but is hanging in limbo by another act. As explained by a ministry spokesperson:

The trade of Bicycle Mechanic was designated as a new apprenticeship program under the Apprenticeship and Certification Act, 1998 (ACA) in 2012. However, the trade is yet to be prescribed (named) under the Ontario College of Trades and Apprenticeship Act, 2009 (the Act).

When the new Act came into effect on April 8, 2013, the previous apprenticeship legislation and regulations governing apprenticeship programs, including the ACA, were revoked.

Before the Ministry can name the trade in a regulation under the Act, a 45-day consultation period with industry and training stakeholders will be required to confirm support for Bicycle Mechanic to be named as a trade under the Act.

Once support is confirmed the following events will need to occur:
· the trade will need to be named in Ontario Regulation 175/11 (Prescribed Trades and Related Matters);
· the College will need to develop the scopes of practice in regulation (O. Reg. 278/11 – Scope of Practice - Trades in the Service Sector); and
· the College of Trades Board of Governors will need to establish a panel review to determine compulsory or voluntary designation.

As of April 8, 2013 and until these events occur, no new training agreements can be registered for the trade of Bicycle Mechanic.

Active training agreements with existing apprentices will continue to be honoured; they continue to be registered apprentices with the Ministry until such time as the trade is designated or not. Please note these apprentices cannot be members of the Ontario College of Trades until the trade is named under the Act.

Once the apprenticeship program is running it will require the apprentice to put in 2000 hours of time which is followed by an exam with both practical and written components "at an institution and with an instructor yet to be named". Those who pass are certified but it will still be up to the bike shop to choose someone who is certified.

So here's crossing our fingers for bike mechanics. I know I like having the people who work on my bicycle to be good at their jobs. My life depends on it.

herb : 11 years 9 months ago
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Counting door crashes: if you don't count it, you can't manage it

The Toronto Star recently alerted us that Toronto Police were no longer recording doorings - cyclists that are hit by the car doors of stationary cars would no longer be reported. The police claim it's because of a recent clarification by the province of what is considered a "collision". Apparently a collision is defined as “the contact resulting from the motion of a motor vehicle or streetcar or its load that produces property damage, injury, or death.”

Apparently a parked car is not in motion and a bicycle is not a motor vehicle. Well, it's not a motor vehicle, but should that matter when counting collisions?

Maybe it's out of the hands of Toronto Police. Or maybe not. Either way, Traffic Services rep Constable Clint Stibbe told the Star, “realistically, there’s no reason for us to track it, because it doesn’t meet the criteria of collision. If you said how many days a week is it sunny, we’re not going to track that".

And that's that. No apology. No "we think it's important to track dooring and will follow up with the province to ensure we have the right tools for making cyclists safer". Just justifications.

And Stibbe is supposed their PR representative. He even writes for a Traffic Services blog called "Reduce Collisions, Injury and Death in Toronto". He posted in his blog a particularly bland copy and paste job masquerading as an explanation. I suppose one way to reduce collisions is to just stop counting them.

Previous to this decision police had recorded an average of 144 doorings a year (from 2007-2011).

Okay, let's step back for a second. Stibbe wrote a follow-up post this week explaining how his interview with the Star reporter was taken out of context and how there are intricacies to the reporting process of these "personal injury collisions". Even though a "Motor Vehicle Collision Report" isn't recorded, an officer may decide to make an incident report and filed in their database. Charges may be laid. An incident report, however, isn't identified or catalogued by a specific event such as bicycle versus car. (Seemingly the police use the most primitive of databases, which makes me wonder how they are able to track down anything.)

In short, they might report it but even if they report they have no way of actually analyzing it. That's pretty much the same as saying they're not counting dooring.

Meanwhile Toronto Police Services Board chair Alok Mukherjee wants police to begin recording them again.

“Dooring, as the numbers show, is something that happens in quite a large number of cases,” Mukherjee said in an interview. “So I think it’s appropriate for us to track them as a way for us to then decide what kinds of safety measures can be taken.”

For Mukherjee, the matter is personal: a few years ago, his wife fractured her right knee after being doored in Toronto.

Years before, the police board chair himself got the “door prize,” a sarcastic term cyclists often use for the accident.

“It was a long time ago, on King St. east of Yonge,” Mukherjee said. “I was going to a meeting and someone opened a car door without checking and I fell and fractured my thumb. I needed a cast for six weeks.”

We've got no one at the top - mayor or police chief - willing to tell the cops to smarten up. So they've fallen back into their default mode of circling the wagons and trying to make this someone else's problem.

It's unbelievable that instead of us focusing on ways to reduce doorings and injuries we now have to fight to even just be recognized in the statistics. This is shameful and the Toronto Police and the province should own up to their responsibility.

In the meanwhile I encourage you to donate to the efforts of Justin Bull (of MyBikeLane.TO fame) to create a dooring database for Canadians. And listen to the discussion on Metro Morning with Matt Galloway. Matt himself is a regular cyclist so the topic is close to home.

herb : 11 years 9 months ago
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What I did on my summer vacation: cycling around Vancouver amongst the sporty set

On my summer vacation we got a chance to visit Vancouver for a few days on our West Coast trip, borrowing a couple folding bikes from friendly Momentum Magazine folks. Vancouver is quickly jumping into the lead of great cycling infrastructure. Soon they'll have their own BIXI program. It's all great except for the pesky helmet law.

Vancouver is getting great cycling infrastructure (top photo: Burrard bridge). Cycling there is so much less stressful than Toronto. If there's anything "wrong" with Vancouver cycling is that it is still heavily dominated by the "sporty", white, middle class set compared to Toronto. Is it a cultural difference or is it BC's helmet law that is excluding non-sporty people away from picking up a bike? It will be interesting to see how the bikesharing program will be hurt by this or will change it.

Chris Bruntlett of Hush Magazine, as pointed out by James of the excellent The Urban Country blog, made a recent trip in the opposite direction of myself and made some insightful comparisons of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal cycling habits. While Toronto really sucks for safer cycling infrastructure compared to Montreal and Vancouver, the one thing going for it is no helmet law. The helmet law in Vancouver, Chris contends, just serves to drive people away from cycling:

It achieves little, except deterring the most casual cyclists, who also happen to be the slowest and safest ones on the road. Shaming and/or fining those who take this relatively minor risk isn’t going to get them in a plastic hat: it’s going to stop them to stop cycling.

Vancouver, we'll take your cycling facilities but you can keep your spandex and helmets. Funnily even with a helmet law it seemed that about one quarter of people didn't bother to wear one. Perhaps this is because repercussions are relatively rare: a local friend noted that there were thousands of outstanding helmet fines. Still just having to stand there and be publicly shamed while a cop writes a ticket would be enough to turn off many. The helmet law has done a good job of making people think that cycling is a dangerous sport even if just riding a few blocks to the corner store. Which is a real shame since Vancouver is actually quite enjoyable by bike.

Anyway, for us outsiders I was most interested in the cycle tracks and bike boulevards, and I snapped a few photos.

Tenth Avenue bike boulevard intersection. Characteristics include restrictions of through traffic to bicycles only - motor vehicles can make right turns only - and light activation buttons accessible at bike level.

Hornby cycle tracks - bidirectional bike lanes separated from Hornby streets. They are actually narrower than what is planned for Harbord. No one complained about the inability to pass (a problem which some hardcore cyclists here have invented before the cycle tracks are installed).

Great Northern Greenway - a cycle track alongside the major street. This would be comparable to Lakeshore East bike path.

Downtown cycle tracks with bike racks. I forget which street this was on, but it was relaxing and peaceful and had easy access to parking.

Bike valet offered at the local farmers market. Cycle Toronto: make note of the efficient way to hang the bikes by the seats.

herb : 11 years 9 months ago
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