At around 5:10 yesterday evening, Adrian Martynkiw was biking home from work with a friend. As they passed the Mumford Terminal heading southeast, the number 14 bus approached them from behind.
Martynkiw passed his friend, and the bus driver honked loudly at them, he said.
The bus driver sped up and passed the cyclists too close for comfort, Martynkiw said.
“If I hadn’t braked and stopped and veered off to the side, I would have been hit.”
He said the driver violated the provincially-legislated one-metre rule. There weren’t any other vehicles on that stretch of road at the time, he added.
“If I wasn’t an experienced cyclist, I would have been hit. I’ve had vehicles test me before, but this was past careless.”
The bus stopped for a red light at the next intersection, Martynkiw said.
“I came up to the side of the bus, and his window was open, so I just asked him, ‘Why did you feel that was necessary?” Martynkiw said he used a calm tone, which in his experience works well with drivers.
“He said, ‘I don’t have to fucking talk to you.’”
The cyclist had his hand on the window, and the bus driver slammed the window closed on his fingers, Martynkiw said. As he tried to pull his arm out of the window, “a bunch of my skin got ripped off on my forearm.”
The bus driver took off, he said.
There was no chance the driver didn’t see them, Martynkiw said. He and his friend were driving defensively and predictably at the time, he said. “We were really visible. We were wearing our helmets. We have lights.”
“It was incredibly unsettling, especially because he was a civil servant.”
“If he’s a civil servant, …you’d think part of his job under the premise of HRM promoting Bike Week, would be to give a little bit more awareness during the one week they’re supposed to be promoting that.”
HRM Bike Week is a city-initiated series of events promoting cycling as a form of active transportation. This year, Bike Week runs from May 31 to June 9.
Martynkiw said he reported the incident to HRM yesterday evening.
HRM spokesperson Tiffany Chase confirmed Metro Transit received the complaint.
“Metro Transit takes these types of complaints seriously,” she wrote in an email.
A supervisor is currently investigating the complaint, she said. The standard steps in a Metro Transit investigation include a debriefing with the bus driver during their next shift, a review of any incident report filed by the driver, a review of on-board video footage and a review of the complaint, Chase said.
Investigations can take between one day and two weeks to complete.
Chase said new and current Metro Transit drivers are taught to share the road with cyclists. They are also taught the one-metre rule, which came into effect in 2011, she said.
Martynkiw, who has cycled in 12 countries, believed the driver was acting based on the local culture. Halifax infrastructure teaches motor vehicle drivers an entitlement to the road, he said.
“It’s not bad people; it’s the way it’s set up.”
New to Halifax, Martynkiw says the city needs dedicated, separate bike lanes.
“If you want to promote safe biking, the only way I could see an altercation like that not happening in the first place is if biking is actually given legitimacy on the streets—which is a dedicated, separate bike lane.”
Since this year’s Bike Week began on May 31, there have been two reports of collisions between cyclists and motor vehicles, Halifax Regional Police spokesperson Pierre Bourdages said today.
At Terradore Lane and Blue Mountain Road, a male cyclist walked away with minor scrapes after a collision with a car. A female cyclist had a sore shoulder after an accident involving a car at Oland Crescent and Chain Lake Drive.
