Walk, ride, drive for your life: A pedestrian, a cyclist and a driver share their views of the crisis on Toronto’s streets

Thestar.com
June 14, 2018

In the wake of a wave of pedestrian and cyclist deaths, we asked three commuters about their chosen methods of transportation. Here are their first-person accounts of what it’s like to walk, bike and drive on the streets of Toronto.

Gilbert Ngabo -- The Pedestrian

You’d want to think walking is just about the safest way to get around.

Until you realize as many as 18 pedestrians have died on Toronto’s streets this year alone.

A quick stroll in the downtown core makes you appreciate how a pedestrian has to be on a constant lookout, even as the city makes efforts to design streets in a way that prioritizes active mobility.

Take, for example, Queens Quay east of Yonge. Construction trucks are easy to spot and avoid, as are cars making their way in and out of parking lots. But throngs of cyclists on the Martin Goodman trail, plus some people whizzing by on rollerblades, make a pedestrian feel as though the remaining space on the sidewalks isn’t large enough.

Throw in the poor quality of markings on the paths, and the choice on where to walk safely becomes a tad confusing.

Speaking of confusion, someone should do a better job of clearly marking the southern corner of Bay and Queens Quay. There’s almost always a crowd of people travelling to and from the ferry docks, and a few are always trapped between bike lanes and the road as they wait for pedestrian signals to cross.

Further north on the right side of Bay St. before Lakeshore, a pedestrian is left at the mercy of drivers, many of whom jump at the speed of Gardiner as soon as they see the sign pointing to the ramp.

I walk by that stretch every day to work from the GO station and back, and it is surely one of the scariest small places in the city to cross as a pedestrian.

Star columnist Edward Keenan recently wrote about the nightmare pedestrians go through as rushing cars get stuck in the middle of intersections, the one at Lakeshore-Bay being a prime example.

But every intersection in downtown Toronto has a similar problem.

It’s one that puts pedestrians in danger as they circle around cars to get through.

Read more: ‘It’s time to declare a state of emergency’: Anger, calls for change follow deaths on Toronto streets

Walking around the city has taught me a few things, one of which is to be alert and never simply rely on fellow pedestrians. You’ll sometimes see a few who start dashing across way too early or way too late on a traffic signal. Others will start walking, realize there’s a left-turn signal for cars, and be forced to run dangerously out of the intersection.

But as careful as pedestrians need to be, we ought to remember always that they’re the least dangerous elements on our streets.

The onus is ultimately on those in cars, and to a lesser degree on bikes and motorcycles, to yield to the most vulnerable road users.

Everyone seems to be in a rush, but, as one cyclist recently told me, the city’s mantra should change from getting people home fast to getting them home safely.

May Warren -- The Cyclist

For a long time, whenever someone suggested cycling as a way to get to work, I had the same answer.

I was too scared.

It was one thing to bike around my suburban neighbourhood as a nine-year-old, or even downtown Guelph as a university student, but navigating the congested streets of Toronto just seemed like too much.

Around two years ago, I finally decided it was time to face that fear, as I wanted to save money and get exercise efficiently.

So I bought a used bike and set off on a carefully planned route to work along the Martin Goodman Trail.

My commute quickly went from being one of my least favourite parts of my day to one of my favourites.

Once that habit was set, it’s been hard to break. Even into frigid Decembers, I’ve kept on pedalling. Although once it really starts to snow, I stop.

If the city plowed and salted bike paths with the same urgency as roads, that would go a long way.

But still, this path is amazing.

To me, the best thing the city can do to encourage cycling is to make more like it.

On the path, your biggest obstacle is the odd errant rollerblader or confused tourist.

On the road, you’re facing cars, trucks, motorcycles, even those red double-decker tourists buses.

After a few months of cycling, I started venturing out on my bike during the weekends onto the regular roads which are, well, scary.

The worst is when you’re trying to stick close to the curb and are not on a bike lane, but there are so many parked cars that you have to take a wider birth to avoid getting doored, which drives you into traffic. Or when cars are turning into driveways as if you’re not there at all.

Read more: Editorial | It’s time for a new attitude to make Toronto’s streets safer

One Sunday in November, I cycled wide in an intersection to get around a car, hit the streetcar track and went down.

I was lucky and totally fine, aside from some (massive) bruises.

But once you go down, you realize you could go down again at any time, especially when you’re constantly hearing about cyclists being hit.

For some reason, hearing about the woman killed at Bloor and St. George this week was even more upsetting than usual.

Maybe it was seeing her black bag lying next to her twisted bike, or her pink bell still on the handlebars.

It’s hard not to imagine that could be you or someone you know, and that sooner or later it will be.

These days I still stick mostly to the Martin Goodman Trail, although, occasionally, on a really nice summer day, I’ll brave the mean streets.

Now when people ask me how I get to work, I tell them I cycle and sometimes they give me looks like I am wildly brave. Like swimming-with-sharks, jumping-out-of-planes-level brave.

Which I guess, on the streets of Toronto, I kind of am.

Norris McDonald -- The Driver

“It’s a war out there.”

We’ve all heard that expression. I’ve used it myself … except that when I use it as a driver, I mean the war being waged by cyclists against motorists.

Whenever I’m driving in Toronto, particularly in the downtown, and I see a cyclist ahead of me on the road, my blood pressure goes up. The last thing I would ever want to do is hit that cyclist -- my heart aches when I hear that someone riding a bike has been killed -- but many cyclists in Toronto are unpredictable and I don’t know what to expect as I approach him or her.

Will he suddenly decide he wants to ride on the other side of the street and cut across in front of me, as happened on Bathurst St. a year ago? Or be riding, illegally, on a sidewalk and then using a crosswalk? It happens.

Some cyclists have such a sense of entitlement that they think they can do anything. Any time someone suggests licensing, there is such a hue and cry, it makes it impossible to have a sensible conversation.

Cyclists break the rules of the road. This is not news. They go through red lights. They ride the wrong way along one-way streets. I can be waiting at a red light to make a legal right turn, and I’m in the right-turn lane, and there’s a broken white line allowing me to go into the bike lane (if there is one) to make that turn and a cyclist will still ride right up beside me on my right side and pedal past.

This sort of thing happens all the time.

I am not proud about this, but I actually drove after a cyclist who pulled that stunt on me at the corner of Yonge St. and Queens Quay and I yelled at him. I was very upset, because if I hadn’t seen him at the very last second and braked, I could have killed him. That got me the finger.

I could go on.

How to stop the carnage? There are many opinions. Most are valid. But I suggest there is only one way to properly manage cars and bicycles on the same roads: bike lanes segregated from automobile traffic by permanent pylons or concrete curbs. And these bike lanes should be on every street and road, not just some, as is the case in Toronto today.

This will make it safer for everyone, motorists as well as cyclists. Motorists will know where the cyclists are and vice-versa.

The time to act is now. Otherwise, more people will be killed and we’ll still be here talking.

And blaming the other guy.