This councillor rides a motorized skateboard to work - and it may just be the future

Head down Hunter Street at the right time and you're likely to see a Hamilton city councillor, carrying a cup of coffee and a briefcase, and riding a skateboard. Sort of.

Its platform is shaped like a skateboard. It has one battery-powered wheel that propels John-Paul Danko from his Ward 8 home on the west Mountain to his office at city hall.

Danko has been riding his Onewheel to work since December. He wears a suit and carries a backpack stuffed with his council binders, and admits he has wiped out a couple of times. He rides the Onewheel to the top of escarpment stairs, then descends on foot and rides the Onewheel the rest of the way.

While his motivation is basic — "it's super fun" — it makes a bigger point. In the future, people will use ways we haven't thought of to get to work. And decision makers like Danko need to be ready for it.

"It's kind of a cross between walking and cycling," he said. And "it's clearly where we're going in terms of transportation — personal electric power."

John-Paul Danko on a Onewheel

6 years ago

Duration 0:12

John-Paul Danko on a Onewheel

Increasingly, municipalities are grappling with how to handle personal electric transportation modes. E-bikes are already a common sight in Hamilton, but the city's not sure how many there are, said Daryl Bender, project manager of active transportation.

The best data is from the Transportation Tomorrow Survey, a multi-government project that happens every five years. It shows 68 per cent of Hamilton trips made are drivers. Seven per cent walk or cycle, seven per cent take transit and three per cent are "other."

The "other" category includes motorcycles, taxis and school buses, in addition to unicycles, e-scooters, and in Danko's case, a Onewheel.

In American cities, e-scooters have grown faster than the rules to regulate them. Cities such as San Francisco say they're dangerous and block sidewalks, and have issued cease-and-desist letters to companies like Lime. San Francisco has since introduced a year-long pilot project with 1,250 scooters.

Lime is inching into Canada too. The Region of Waterloo is about to launch the second year of its e-scooter pilot program. Lime approached Ottawa city council last month, and has also hit up Winnipeg. Montreal and Toronto are bracing themselves for e-scooters too.

The province needs to put guidelines in place to prepare for this, said Jamie Stuckless, executive director of Share the Road. And the City of Hamilton does too.

Right now, the rules are hazy around if people on e-scooters, Onewheels and the like should be on bike lanes, mixed in with car traffic or somewhere else. There are even varying definitions of "e-bike."

Demand will only grow, Stuckless said. People don't want to be glued to their cars anymore. They want cheaper, greener ways to get around.

"People are ready for it," she said. "They're ready to make a change."

As for Danko, he was first elected in October. He used to drive to St. Catharines for work.

His family's second car has a broken gas tank, he said. Since he got the Onewheel, they haven't even bothered to fix it.

Danko said he's realized how fragmented Hamilton's bike lanes are. He also feels more connected to the city now, and to the people in it.

"I talk to way more people," he said. "I meet my neighbours when they're picking up the mail or walking their dog."