A Record-Breaking Year for Toronto Cyclist Deaths

Just before 9:00 AM this morning, a 24-year-old female cyclist was killed on Bloor Street east of Avenue Road; making it the fifth cyclist killed this year with five months to go. If you refer to Toronto’s Vision Zero dashboard or Toronto Police’s fatal collisions dashboard, this year has been the deadliest on record for Toronto’s cycling community. However, Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists put up six ghost bikes in Toronto in 2018; two of which didn’t count per the City and Police dashboards. One of them was for a 60-year-old male who collided with a parked delivery van in March 2018 while 19-year-old Aaron Rankin-Wright’s death in June 2018 was targeted and involved stabbing. Regardless of which metric you used, the unprecedented number of cyclist deaths this year deserves some serious reflection.

Miguel Joshua Escanan's ghost bike from August 2021 was not far from today's crash site

Per Jun N's blog post and photo below, there was a construction bin blocking the cycle track at the time of the fatal crash and he suggested the cyclist probably left the bike lane to get around the bin. The bin was since removed later this afternoon which should never have been there in the first place. Not only has the cycling community faced construction zones and other bike lane obstructions too many times over the years; the fact the death was caused by a dump truck driver raises yet another repeated concern. John Offutt’s death on Royal York in November 2020 was caused by a driver of a similarly sized cement truck. While a Class A or D license is required to drive such vehicles in Ontario as opposed to a regular G license, there have been issues involving the lack of training, significant blind spots, and the need for truck sideguards to improve safety.

While not directly related to this crash, Councillor Brad Bradford put forward a motion yesterday calling for additional monitoring of traffic flow for nearby Avenue Road which would have undermined the Avenue Road Study currently under construction. What should infuriate every road safety advocate out there is the Avenue Road Study was debated at last month’s City Council meeting which Bradford voted in favour. If he had concerns regarding traffic flow for that project, why didn’t he raise them at that time? Add in today’s crash and Bradford’s motion and subsequent hypocrisy amounts to bad taste. Fortunately, Bradford withdrew that ridiculous motion, but we can’t afford to let him off the hook since he voted with Holyday to remove the Bloor bike lanes in Etobicoke last month. If he dares seek re-election in 2026, Toronto’s cycling community must never forget his recent actions involving Bloor Street and Avenue Road, as well as call him out on them.

While a memorial ride for the fallen cyclist will be held on Wednesday, July 31 - meet 6:00 PM at Bloor and Spadina for 6:30 PM departure - there are several things worth advocating for. The first is to continue advocating for cyclist safety around construction zones and to crack down on obstacles such as those construction bins. If the bins absolutely need to be put in the bike lane, the contractor has the obligation to implement safety measures such as putting in pylons around the bins. If a bike lane cannot be maintained through the construction zone, a reasonable detour needs to be clearly marked. Regarding the trucks, we must keep calling on all levels of government for mandatory truck sideguard legislation which the federal NDP has called for since 2011 including by our current mayor Olivia Chow. We also need to advocate for smaller vehicles overall – and those with higher visibility – which is something the CRASH coalition started pursuing in response to the dominating presence of SUV’s and pickup trucks on our streets.

Since Jun N will be out of town next week, I will aim to cover the memorial ride on this blog and encourage you to attend, as well as spread the word.

Jesse Han prepared a letter you can use to e-mail Mayor Olivia Chow and your city councillor in response to the crash.