Ontario hospital emergency rooms saw a surge of bicycle-related visits during the first year of the pandemic, even as injuries to other road users sharply declined.
But experts say the surge in bike-related hospital visits points to a problem that was evident before the pandemic: Ontario lacks adequate infrastructure to protect riders and its streets aren’t safe for cyclists. Younger riders bore the brunt of the problem. Although ER visits rose for all age groups, ER visits for those aged 17 and younger rose in 2020-2021, overall, by 67 per cent, while visits for those aged 18 to 64 rose 23 per cent, and were up 34 per cent for the group aged 65 and up.
“All the bike shops that I’ve been in touch with in the city, the common story for the last two years has been that they’re busy. They’re very, very busy.” On a per-capita basis, the cities with the highest pandemic bicycle ER visit rates were Kingston, Barrie, Ottawa and Toronto, with the lowest rates coming in Brampton, Mississauga, York Region and Thunder Bay. This may be in part a reflection of places where more and less people took to cycling.
In response to more people taking up cycling during COVID-19, in 2020 Toronto installed about 30 kilometres of protected cycle tracks and painted bike lanes on city roads, which helped set a one-year record for new on-street cycling infrastructure in Canada’s largest city. Although cycling infrastructure is considered primarily the responsibility of municipalities, the Ontario PC government says the province is contributing more than $286 million to 44 projects in 21 municipalities that include the advancement of cycling infrastructure.
Ry Shissler, communications manager for Cycle Toronto, a bike advocacy group, said that, at least anecdotally, many of the people who have taken up riding during the COVID-19 bike boom seem unsure of the rules of the road and how to ride defensively. “Education and promotion are really important aspects of increasing not only the rates of cycling, but making people feel more comfortable riding a bike and feeling more safe choosing that mode,” she said.
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