Policing Bike Theft
With 7,000 bikes going missing every year in the GTA, many cyclists have lost faith in the ability of police to recover stolen bikes.
Currently, the process works like this: when you buy a bike, you go to the Toronto police website to print out a bike registry form. That's where the high tech ends. The information isn't submitted online.
Instead, you fill out this form by hand with the make, colour, date of purchase and serial number. Then mail it or take it to your local police station, which sends it to police headquarters.
But there's no receipt issued or verification that your bike was registered and it can be hard to find out who's responsible for keeping that information.
The police have also scaled back their investigations of a lot of stolen property. A special police unit that used to investigate pawnshops for stolen property has been disbanded.
No Response from Police
 Matt Cowley Matt Cowley's experience with police was particularly frustrating. As a former employee of the non-profit Community Bicycle Network (CBN)  , he had seventeen bikes stolen.
The organization rents out bicycles at a cost of $25 per summer, allowing members access to any one of their fleet of about 150 bikes, most of them painted bright yellow. The program is particularly helpful for tourists, or people who only need a bike on the weekend or don't want to risk buying their own bike.
Last year, says Crowley, CBN scored a windfall. Norco Canada donated 22 brand new bikes to CBN. Last October, the group got lucky again. They found another sympathetic donor who donated an empty garage, complete with power door, where the bikes could be stored for the winter. One day in October, the bikes were put away in the garage, the door carefully locked, and the next day, all but five of the bikes were gone, including, a bike belonging to the owner of the garage.
 Matt's vehicle of choice
Matt figures the reason five bikes were left behind is because, in his experience as a Bikeshare co-ordinator, 17 is the maximum number you can fit on a cube van.
"It was fairly organized and well-thought out and cleanly executed because none of the neighbors heard any noise. They even had the foresight to dismantle the electric door opener, so there wouldn't be the sound of the motor running in the middle of the night."
Matt says police were called, an officer showed up to take down the information, but a couple of weeks later, one of the employees got an unexpected break. She spotted one of the stolen Norco bikes locked to a post and ring, waited until the person riding the bike came out to unlock it and confronted him. She told him the police were involved and the man was so rattled he not only gave the bike back, he even gave her his cell number and name in case police wanted to contact him.
But Matt says even though they called the police with the tip, they never got a response, even after Matt went down to the station in person to hand-deliver the details. Matt says the message was that police can't be bothered to follow up on a tip about a bike theft, even one that's handed to them.
Police may not be quite as disengaged as they seem. It takes a great deal of manpower to track down stolen property. But six years ago, police began working with city officials on a new system that could dramatically reduce the market for stolen bikes.
Under the new system, any stores that deal in used or pawned goods, would have to electronically register their goods, a registry that would be cross-referenced every day with a police computer system that lists all reports of stolen property. But the system is being held up by a court challenge.
Cash Converters, a company that runs several pawnshops, took the city to court over its proposed bylaw to force pawnshops to register their wares electronically. The company says that level of accountability is onerous and unrealistic. A lower court judge upheld the by-law but it's been appealed and is still before the courts. City officials say a plan six years in the making is likely to be held up at least another two years. Meanwhile, thousands of additional bikes will be stolen.
Planning for the Future
 Adam Giambronni Councillor Adam Giambronni chairs the city's cycling committee. He says the city has a 10-year bike plan and there's an entire chapter in it dealing with parking and theft.
"Our city's going to grow by a million people in the next 25 years. We have no plans to build new freeways. You can't widen Queen Street here. and so really, what we have to do is get people riding bikes, taking TTC, using alternative modes of transportation. And one of the ways you do that is make biking work for people. Give them adequate facilities, making sure there's showers in workplaces, and making you feel you're not going to throw away your 400, 500 dollar, or more, investment."
Adam himself had two bikes stolen last summer. He believes an electronic registry could dramatically reduce the number of stolen bikes in this city. It could also change an environment that makes us think of bikes as disposable as an umbrella. And beyond all that, in a chronic low-level way, bike theft undermines the quality of life in this city and our sense of the city as a safe place. After all, when you lock a bike to a post and ring supplied by the city, you want to know you can have a reasonable expectation that it will be there when you come back to get it.
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