The North Bay Police Service utilized Foot Patrols more often this summer and scaled back on its Bike Patrols in the summer of 2021.
"The foot patrol is always effective, just having the presence of an officer on the street provides a level of comfort to people that are using the community - using Main Street for example in North Bay. It provides them comfort knowing that the police officers are somewhere on the street and available should trouble occur," said Scott Tod, North Bay's Police Chief.
"It makes them feel safe and it also can address a crime problem if we have a crime trend that is occurring within a certain area by having a foot patrol we can drive crime to another area of town. Unfortunately, that is what foot patrol does."
But Tod, who re-established a Bike Patrol after taking over as Chief, says bike patrol hours were down this summer.
"We did not get the amount of hours we wanted on the bicycle, but we did have two young students in the Youth In Policing Initiative or YIPI program out and about in the community on bicycles showcasing the work that the North Bay Police Service does from a crime prevention and community support initiative so we had that to complement what was going on in the way of how do we sell ourselves as a police service to the residents and visitors of North Bay and show the colors of the North Bay Police Service."
However, Tod believes the bikes complemented the YIPI program.
"We had a very successful YIPI program this year and we also know because of human resources issues that are going on right now currently undergoing as a result of holidays, as a result of training, as well as some internal work that is going on that have drawn officers off the frontline that our bike patrol numbers suffered but the foot patrol numbers remain very strong," he said.
Tod re-invented the Bike Patrol program in the summer of 2020 while also introducing E-Bikes as part of the patrol. The service had not utilized bike patrols since 2016.
