North Bay Police summer bike patrol program begins this week

The North Bay Police Service is getting set to launch its bike patrol program for the summer months.

Twelve officers have been trained on the bicycles and will start patrolling the downtown and trail areas on June 1.

“It’s more than it looks like. There’s a lot of tight turns and maneuverability and how to balance on the bike, full stops, how to do our job as a police officer with respect to being on a bicycle,” said Const. Austen Kooy.

“It was packed training, trail riding and closing down intersections to direct traffic as a police officer on a bicycle.”

Inspector Jeff Warner told CTV News they have officers trained for the program on each of the police service’s four platoons.

“We have our community engagements officers trained as well, they work day shifts Monday to Friday so they will be out there as well,” said Warner.

The training was provided by members of the Ottawa Police Service.

This year’s program in North Bay will see officers patrolling on trails, in the downtown and also in the West Ferris area.

“It makes us more adaptable for trail riding and to get into those places that a cruiser can’t,” said Kooy.

“There’s certain calls where we have a snowmobile or an ATV on a pathway we wouldn’t be able to do that with the car we’d have to park and walk a long distance, so it makes us a little bit more effective that way.”

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Police officials said the bike patrol program also allows the officers to engage with the community easily.

“We get a great response from the community they like to see the officers visible downtown, on the bikes doing the back allies the patrols,” said Warner.

“It makes them a little more accessible to the general public too. They can stop and chat with store merchants, stores downtown, and generally engage with the public.”

The bicycles police are using are electric assist and can go up to 42 kilometres per hour. Each bike is also equipped with lights and sirens.