Police Enforce Ban on Bicycles and Skateboards on Sidewalks

In February 2016, Cobourg passed a bylaw to ban bicycles and skateboards on sidewalks.  Unfortunately, there have been enough offenders lately that there have been complaints about it and that it was worse than usual – probably as kids went back to school.  Adam Bureau of the DBIA conveyed the concern of merchants to Police at a recent by-law review meeting.  The Police have now issued a press release warning offenders to stay off sidewalks and Deputy Chief Paul VandeGraaf said that today police are now looking for offenders and enforcing the bylaw.

The Police Press Release gave the reasons for the concern:

Pedestrians may be unaware of someone who is using a bicycle or skateboard, for a variety of reasons. This may be due to physical conditions or ailments, exiting from a local business outlet or even due to distraction from personal mobile devices.  Movements into the path of a bicycle, that a pedestrian didn’t see or hear, can result in many varied types of injuries and damage to both the walker and the cyclist.

They continued:

The riding of bicycles, skateboards or similar devices such as hoverboards, is prohibited on any Cobourg sidewalk.  As well, you can’t leave these items unattended so as to obstruct or pose any type of danger to users of highways, sidewalks or building entrances.

It’s good to see the Police enforcing the bylaws.  In an interview, the Deputy Chief emphasized that notifying the public in advance was an important part of their procedures.

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Steven G.
7 years ago

Does anyone know what time of day the Cobourg Police will be enforcing this? Since Friday, I have almost been hit by 4 cyclists coming out of my house since Friday, and one was so close that I stumbled backwards and almost fell … you can imagine what the cyclist said !!