1.5 Metres of Safety for CyclistsApr. 15, 2006. 01:00 AM
I'm what you'd call a seasonal urban cyclist. I don't enjoy riding in the rain and have long refused to navigate icy roads or snow. Each winter, I reluctantly put away my bike and take the streetcar to work only to eagerly await spring or at least the mild weather when I can jump back on my battered 21-speed hybrid.
(read on in the comments)
1 comment:
"Over the years, I've perfected a morning routine that gets the kids to the school bus pretty much on time and leaves me with 25 minutes to make the eight-kilometre ride from my west-end home to my job at One Yonge St.
I've always loved cycling in the city and I pretty much ride my bike whenever I can. It's quick, convenient, a good workout and feels great. I don't get stuck in traffic and I do feel like I'm doing a small bit for the environment.
Besides that, I save more than $5 a day on transportation and parking.
I pulled my kids to and from daycare in a bike trailer for years. We travelled across town to the Riverdale farm and cycled along the waterfront trail to hang out in the Beaches.
Every so often I'd wind up in a bike lane. Usually painted white lines sectioning off about 1.5 metres on the side of the road. Great to ride on, I always thought. But I never felt I needed them.
I'd always been a confident cyclist. I knew and obeyed the rules of the road. I'd ride defensively and while I'd had some close calls, I'd avoided injury.
But my indifference to bike lanes changed last summer when I was blown off the road by an 18-wheeler.
I was on my way home from work, heading downhill on Strachan Ave. when a transport truck flew by me. It came so close I was sucked off balance by the jet stream. I had a choice. Squeeze the brake and risk falling under its back wheels or hit the sidewalk.
I chose the sidewalk and braced myself for the sting of pavement meeting exposed skin. I felt my helmet hit the ground and surprisingly not much else considering I ended up in the back of an ambulance with a nice case of road rash and a broken collarbone.
I was really ticked off. As a cyclist I had the legal right to be on the road. The truck passed me too close. Knocked me over. Didn't stop. The driver faces charges if he is ever caught. Yet I was injured.
It wasn't until a couple of weeks later when another cyclist was killed under similar circumstances — hit by the rear wheels of a transport truck — that I realized I was really very lucky.
Last year, four cyclists were killed in traffic accidents in Toronto, two crushed by transport trucks. My accident was among 1,200 reported to police. Toronto traffic statistics indicate that a cyclist is injured every 8.7 hours and those are only the ones reported.
That is a lot of road rash and broken bones that could be avoided if the city were to get serious with its Toronto Bike Plan.
The city has a 10-year, $65 million plan to create 1,000 kms of bike lanes, paths and signed routes. And while there is $3 million in the budget this year to add 28.4 kms of bike lanes, the plan is four years behind schedule.
City cycling is one of the few real and immediate solutions to traffic congestion and pollution. So why isn't the city jumping on this and addressing cycling as a serious mode of transportation?
Promoting cycling as a healthy, affordable way to reduce greenhouse gases is great. But more people are not going to get on their bikes if they fear for their lives each time they do.
They have to feel safe.
I know. It was with a real mix of anticipation and trepidation that I got back on my bike this spring. I was afraid that I would be afraid.
But in the end, I didn't want to give up a lifestyle I love. I didn't want my kids to adopt a fear of riding their bikes and I didn't want to let those self-absorbed drivers who charge through the city encased in tonnes of steel and who pay no heed to vulnerable cyclists win.
As I put in more rides, I'm starting to feel more comfortable and confident.
But I'm also feeling a very strong need for a city-wide network of designated bike paths and lanes.
And as I rub the new bump on the base of my neck, I can't help but think how my collarbone, which I had long considered my most elegant feature, would still be intact, if a straight white line 1.5 metres from the curb had been painted down the side of that road.
Kate Robertson is a member of the Star's editorial board."
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