Bike Train Grows again

Interesting Article:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/814960
You need a poster child for the war on cyclists in Toronto?

I can think of dozens. Let’s start with Ken Reece, a 55-year-old graphic designer/illustrator who was the kind of rider who not only stopped at stop signs, but put his foot down. He was cycling back to his office one lunch break last summer — after buying a second flickering back light for his bicycle, no less — when a taxi driver opened his door and sent Reece sprawling to the pavement. His bicep muscle snapped right off his elbow, and he hasn’t been able to work full-time since.

Or how about Dr. Chris Cavacuiti, a family doctor and triathlete who was on a training loop down by the lake four years ago when a dump truck smashed into him, breaking his collarbone, some ribs and a shoulder blade?

Or my friend Andrea Scholten, a small-town Saskatchewan girl cycling in the big city to one of her four jobs early one December morning, when a jeep smashed into her, fracturing her foot and herniating two discs in her back? Six months later, she still can’t sit down for more than an hour at a time.

The city is a boneyard of broken cyclists, all hit by drivers, most of whom didn’t mean to hurt them, but most of whom were at fault anyway.

That’s a simple fact. Toronto is not a safe city for cyclists. Statistics show that cyclists in Toronto have a better chance of getting hit by a car than their counterparts in any other big city in the country. Most years, two of us are killed. And statistics also show that in most cases, the driver is at fault.

“It’s not that they mean to,” says Cavacuiti, who spent his recovery studying cycling reports. “That’s just what happens when you are in a car. After driving hundreds of thousands of kilometres, you tend to drive on autopilot.”

Now, I drive a car too, and can list the reasons why I choose to bike most days: the smell of lilac bushes in the morning, the sense of freedom, the endorphins. But I can also tell you that I get frightened on my bike in a way I never am in a car. There’s no airbag protecting me. When you nudge too close, my heart races. And when you lean out of your window and tell me to go to hell, I don’t have a window to role up.

If I was driving, I’d likely forget your insult a few blocks later. On my bike, it will simmer for weeks.

Because we are exposed, we cyclists take things personally.

Perhaps this why the cycling community rallied around Darcy Allan Sheppard. He captures our anger at drivers who disrespect us and threaten our lives daily. One night last August, he was killed by a car. The driver, former attorney general Michael Bryant, was well known. That opened up the public forum to vent our grievances.

But he’s the wrong symbol for cyclists in the city.

Let’s review a few things that have surfaced since then. Sheppard was drunk and in a rage, not just that night, but often. No less than four times earlier that month and once the same night, he had been in threatening altercations with drivers — one an old lady. He was done taking crap from drivers and was looking for a fight. If I was cycling by him that day, I would likely have been frightened too.

“That incident is not reflective of what’s happening to cyclists in the city,” says Patrick Brown, a Toronto lawyer who regularly represents injured cyclists and the families of dead cyclists in court. “In my experience, cyclists are not drunk, are not aggressive on the road, and in almost every circumstance, they’re simply riding within their right-of-road, trying to find space in a city that is not conducive to cyclists.”

Most of the time we are victims of drivers’ obliviousness. Most of the time, we are not aggressors.

Even if special prosecutor Richard Peck hadn’t dropped the case against Bryant, and he went to court, Toronto wouldn’t be any safer for cyclists.

The studies are clear on this. Bike lanes — especially separated ones — mean fewer injuries and fewer deaths. Fewer cyclist injuries and fewer deaths mean more cyclists on the streets. More cyclists mean drivers are more likely to check their side mirror before swinging the door open and — pow! — ending a cyclist’s career.

It’s telling that earlier this month Toronto city council rejected a proposal to try out a bike lane down one of the city’s broadest streets — University Avenue — for three months this summer. Just to try it.

Most councilors are drivers and they won’t give an inch.

A separated bike lane would likely have saved Reece, who is still planning his retirement bike tour of Europe with his wife. It likely would have spared Cavacuiti too. And my friend Andrea likely would be running her own naturopathic medical practice in the west end, instead of spending her days face down in bed and in pain.

But it’s unlikely to have saved Sheppard. He might not have gotten into a fight with Bryant, but it would have been someone else.

The war on bikes had gotten to him. He was looking to fight back.

Catherine Porter usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: cporter@thestar.ca ****