A Common Council committee this week will consider making bicycle registration and licensing optional — a move that would acknowledge reality that many people don’t license their bikes and the Police Department couldn’t handle the demand if everyone did.

An ordinance making the change from a mandatory licensing system is being sponsored by Ald. Nik Kovac.

“This summer the City of Milwaukee printed an additional 10,000 bike licenses; yet this will only allow for 59% of the bikes purchased in Milwaukee this year to be licensed,” Keith Holt and Shea Schachameyer wrote in a letter. Holt and Schachameyer are chair and co-chair, respectively, of the city’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Task Force.

The two also said that the existing mandatory licensing ordinance “allows for the pretextual stopping of bicyclists. The Task Force…believes that the negative impact on communities and the distrust of the police that selective enforcement breeds outweighs any positive effects of the practice.”

Other cities around the country have started voluntary licensing programs, the two said. The Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin also opposes mandatory licensing.

The issue is scheduled to be discussed on Thursday by the by the Public Safety Committee.