The Detroit Free Press is reporting that Birmingham’s City Commission may repeal their onerous bike registration ordinance.

City Commissioners are expected tonight to repeal the community’s 1963 bicycle ordinance — including its 25-cents-a-day charge to impound a bike.

Police Chief Richard Patterson, in a Sept. 11 memorandum to City Manager Tom Markus, pointed out that the ordinance was antiquated.

Birmingham police will continue providing free bike licenses to residents, the chief said in his memo. But he’d like the city to scrap the ordinance, which includes having cops charge 25 cents a day for impounding a bike if the owner lacks a license or is otherwise not in compliance with a litany of outdated bike rules.

This repeal is a direct result of our m-bike article highlighting some Metro Detroit’s ridiculous bicycle ordinances. In that article we noted that all bike in Birmingham sales and purchases must be reported to the police. The city also required all bicycles to be registered, including those of non-residents.

Tags: bicycle license, Birmingham

This entry was posted on Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 5:19 pm and is filed under Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.