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Two years ago, cyclist Ryan Carriere was hit by a truck turning from Queen Street West onto Gladstone Avenue. He was on his way home to go trick-or-treating with his kids.
Spacing has a post up today remembering him and bringing attention to the efforts of J. Patrick Brown, a lawyer representing Ryan's family, in getting politicians to make streets safer for cyclists:
Ryan was a loving and devoted husband and an amazing father to his two young children. He was also a valued member of his community. Ryan prided himself on protecting the environment and was a proactive silent advocate by cycling to and from work. Ryan was tragically killed on his bike at the intersection of Queen and Gladstone. The second anniversary of Ryan’s death is this Halloween.
In addition to this extremely tragic accident, I am seeing more and more alarming accidents caused to cyclist by motorists on the streets of Toronto, and in particular Queen Street. These accidents to cyclists will leave some with life long disabilities. As well, the present law in Ontario restricts and limits compensation to many of these individuals.
The need for a greener and safer Toronto is paramount. A number of citizen cyclists have become exasperated with non-action by the City and have advocated for a bike lane on Queen Street, only to have the City remove their efforts.
More on Spacing Toronto.
Happy Biking, Ryan. Happy Biking.
Some members of ARC got together over the weekend to mark the memory of the Mississauga cyclist killed a week ago at the intersection of Mavis and Central Parkway.
Here are two photos from the memorial:
Photos courtesy of Martin Reis.
Sad news from Mississauga:
An early morning crash Saturday in Peel Region left a woman in hospital fighting for her life. Today, she succumbed to her injuries.
The 31-year-old was riding southbound when she collided with a dump truck at the Mavis and Central Parkway intersection. The dump truck was also south bound. The victim was airlifted to Sunnybrook Hospital. Peel Police are asking anyone who saw the accident to contact them at the Major Collision Bureau at (905) 453-2121 Ext. 3710, or Peel Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).
There is a memorial ride planned to lay some flowers this Sunday - I'll update you when and if I know more about this.
While I couldn't make it on friday, by all accounts it was a well attended ride with minimal aggression from car drivers. The route went through the quite streets of the Cabbagetown neighbourhood before heading downtown, eventually to Dundas Square.
The above photo (and the following ones) were taken by Martino, and you can see the complete set on flickr.
If you know of links to more photos from the ride, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!
Just a reminder that the Memorial Ride for Charlie Princep goes tonight at 6 PM at Jet Fuel Coffee at 519 Parliament (at Winchester, just north of Carlton in Cabbagetown).The Globe and Mail also has a nice article about Charlie in the paper today:
Be sure and go read it before the Globe puts it in the paid subscription area.On Tuesday, about 180 people gathered at St. Paul's Church on Bloor Street to remember the young man, who family friend Stuart Lazier called an independent thinker passionate about cities and the environment. "He was a young man who didn't just talk the story; he lived it," Mr. Lazier told mourners, adding that Mr. Prinsep would ride his bike everywhere - even in the winter - and would show up caked in mud with a grin on his face.
"Charlie, you were an inspiration to us all," Mr. Lazier said, fighting back tears. "You died living your dream. You died happy and fulfilled."
A bit of "blogosphere" news for you today... the excellent weblog TreeHugger picked up on the Charlie Princep tragedy yesterday:
He was hit by a drunk driver that veered onto the paved shoulder in Brooks, Alberta, "Flesh and blood against gasoline, alcohol and two tons of steel." Getting people onto bikes is just about the greenest thing we can do. How can we make it safe for them? How many people do we have to lose before cyclists are given the space they deserve?There was supposed to be a feature on CBC Radio One (99.1 FM) today at 10 AM... did anyone happen to catch it?
You can read Charlie's blog about his trip, and attend the Charlie Princep Memorial Bike Ride. Everyone is meeting up at Jet Fuel Coffee in Cabbagetown (on Parliament, just north of Carlton) at 6 PM tomorrow, August 17th.
It looks like it'll be well attended ... there's already 53 confirmed attendees on the Facebook Event Page for it.