Lisa Scott
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 05/05) - Insurance woes are stalling a new bike program designed to combat rampant theft in Yellowknife.

Const. Kim Deniger hoped to have her Orange Bike Program, which places brightly painted two-wheelers around town for free use, up and running in July.

It's now August and Deniger says city insurance companies won't grant the RCMP detachment a policy because of possible liabilities.

"They say if we put the bikes downtown and Joe Blow drunk takes the bike and something happens, they can pursue the RCMP," said Deniger this week.

"They will insure us if we were able to control the bikes by signing them in and out," she said.

That notion ruins the premise of the program though, she said. The point was to offer would-be bike thieves an alternative to snatching bicycles from driveways and streets.

Most of the thefts occur because people just want to get from one place to another, Deniger said earlier this summer.

Seven years ago, the city tried a similar program before scrapping it two weeks later after youth trashed the painted and refurbished bikes.

Deniger planned to have volunteers policing the program this time around, but says litigation and liability issues have changed too much since then.

Similar programs run across Europe and North America have met mixed success.

Kevin Wallington at The Hay River Community Youth Centre put a fleet of yellow bikes at four-drop off spots in the town this week.

He said the program doesn't have insurance, nor is it something organizers have discussed.

That could be because the South Slave version of the theft deterrent program is a community project, with bikes donated by the RCMP, serviced by the youth centre and shuttled around by the city.

For now, Deniger is waiting to talk to the city to discuss alternatives for the 12-15 orange bikes sitting in storage. Putting them at the visitors centre for tourists to use is one option.