Community News
Toronto needs to find a solution that better protects cyclists; Advocacy For Respect For Cyclists honour killed Torontonians
BY SIMONE J. SMITH
Kirti Baweja, a 22-year-old foreign exchange student, was cycling home in the early morning hours on Wednesday, August 23rd, 2023. Baweja was cycling northbound on Airport Road. Around 3:10 a.m., the fleeing driver struck her with his automobile and then failed to remain at the scene. She was left for dead by the driver.
29-year-old Prakash Mariyappan, a male cyclist killed on July 3rd, 2023, in Brampton.
On Sunday May 28th, 2023, a motorist on Scarlett Road, south of Dixon Road, killed a thirty-something male cyclist.
On Thursday afternoon May 18th, 2023, an 81-year-old cyclist was killed by a 41-year-old motorist on North Shore Road at the QEW overpass in Burlington. The motorist failed to remain at the crash scene. She fled eastbound. She was arrested six days later on May 24th, in Toronto.
Kartik Saini, a 20-year-old male Sheridan College student, killed on Wednesday November 23rd, 2022, at St. Clair Ave E. and Yonge Street.
Until I wrote this article, I had no idea that there were so many cycling accidents happening here in Toronto. According to the Toronto Police Services Cyclist Report, as of December 2022, there were 36 cyclists struck by motorists (81% major injuries, and 3% fatal injuries). The death of a cyclist on a busy Scarborough road during rush hour at the end of February has sparked anger in the community about a lack of investments in local cycling infrastructure.
On Monday, February 26th, 2024, a 47-year-old male cyclist, was struck by two drivers and their vehicles on St. Clair Ave. East, west of Birchmount Road. The 47-year-old cyclist, who has yet to be identified, was struck by two cars as he rode east on St. Clair Ave E. near Birchmount Road at around 5:30 p.m. No one has been charged in the collision.
He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
“These aren’t accidents,” said Marvin Macaraig, a road safety advocate and health promoter with Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services. “An accident is a bolt of lightning hitting a tree: we don’t know that’s going to happen. We know (cyclist deaths) will happen and where.”
The Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists (ARC) hosts a ride each year to honour the memory of hit and run accidents. ARC is volunteer-run and established in 1996. Today, they are mostly known for advocating on behalf of Toronto cyclists. They are also the folks that place memorial white bikes, known as Ghost Bikes, as memorials to fallen cyclists.
The first Ghost Bike Memorial Rides in Toronto occurred on Thursday, April 27th, 2006. Two cyclists were killed in separate crashes on Thursday April 20th, 2006. Teenager Bianca Masella was hit and killed by a tractor-trailer truck at Keele and Finch. Earlier that day a dump truck collided with Hubert Van Tol, a 46-year-old university professor, on Avenue Road at Briar Hill.
Ghost bikes are usually spray-painted completely white and may have a nameplate on them near the crash site. Ghost bikes were introduced in Toronto in the mid-2000’s after a 2003 bike crash in St. Louis, Missouri, inspired a witness to install a white-painted bike as a somber reminder of the safety challenges for cyclists.
It is great to see that community members are doing something to honour their fallen community members, but how has our government stepped in?
On June 14th, 2023, Toronto City Council approved the Cycling Network Plan – 2023 Cycling Infrastructure Installation – Third Quarter Updates report, which spoke to adding new bikeways in several parts of the city and improving two existing bikeways.
These projects they say will improve safety and mobility by providing improved cycling connections to transit, parks, schools, businesses and residences. These projects also include important improvements for: pedestrians, transit users and motorists.
The approved plans include the installation of 8.6 centreline kilometers of new bikeways as part of five projects for which design and consultation have been completed.
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow says the city needs to find a solution that better protects cyclists, despite an often-divisive debate over cycling in the city. In her recent press release she sadly shared her thoughts, “There must be a better way to protect cyclists, but also for the drivers to not be so traumatized. Because where the road is not designed well, cyclists and drivers intersect, and accidents happen, and tragedy happens.”
Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie, who chairs the Infrastructure and Environment Committee, also spoke with reporters and called recent cyclist deaths “Heartbreaking.”
“It’s absolutely heartbreaking to have any fatality on our roads and so we certainly are all very sad to hear another tragedy has happened. City staff do look very closely anytime there is an incident to have lessons learned, to look at the road infrastructure in the area to see any improvements that can be made.”
She noted that the city is investing $30 million in Toronto’s cycling network this year and added that a culture shift is happening. Hopefully these investments are enough to protect all users of our roads in Toronto. Bikers’ lives do matter!