City a hazard for cyclists, pedestrians: report
Toronto is Canada's most hazardous city for both cyclists and pedestrians, newly released figures from the City of Toronto show.
The report, prepared by the city's Traffic Safety Unit, suggests that Toronto has the highest per capita rate of cyclist collisions in Canada from January to September of 2010.
The numbers show that there was a rate of 42 collisions involving cyclists per 100,000 people in Toronto, ahead of Montreal's 38 and Vancouver's 33.
Meanwhile, there were 78 incidents involving pedestrians per 100,000, followed by 71 in Montreal and Edmonton's 50.
This comes as no surprise to cyclist Gail Maurice who claims she's had a number of run-ins on Toronto's roads.
"I've been hit twice by vehicles. Both times I was doored. The third time was at an intersection. I just flipped. Luckily the cars stopped or I would have been run over," she said.
The data showed that many accidents in Toronto involving both cyclists and pedestrians happen at busy intersections.
"That's obviously where motorists and pedestrians can come into conflict … turning manoeuvres at intersections or crossing mid-block," said Mike Brady, the city's manager of traffic safety.
The report comes ahead of plans to introduce a network of dedicated bike lanes throughout downtown next month at a meeting of the public works and infrastructure committee.
The plan focuses on introducing curbed, physically separated lanes on downtown streets like Sherbourne, Wellesley, St. George and Beverly. A major east-west bike lane on Richmond, a one-way street running west, is also being considered.
