Action Alert RE Yesterday’s Avenue and Bloor Tragedy

Yesterday at 6:30 PM, 18-year-old Miguel Joshua Escana was killed by a cement truck driver while biking on Avenue Road immediately north of Bloor Street. While a ghost bike memorial ride will be held on Wednesday, August 25 and my condolences go to the family of the fallen cyclist, I would like to issue an urgent call to action. Especially considering the collision happened on a road which was supposed to get the ActiveTO treatment including protected bike lanes, but was never done.

Collision scene at Avenue and Bloor on August 18, 2021 (Via Toronto Police Operations)

Please e-mail Mayor Tory and the ActiveTO team with all 25 councillors blind copied urging them to not just implement the Avenue Road ActiveTO project from Bloor to Davenport now, but also accelerate bike lane installations across the city and make last year’s ActiveTO projects permanent. Below is the e-mail I sent yesterday, though I encourage you to come up with your own submissions.

Yesterday’s Deadly Crash on Royal York

Yesterday at 5:00 PM, the driver of a ML Ready Mix Concrete cement truck struck and killed a person riding a bike at Royal York and Judson in Etobicoke. Before this unfortunate event, I had only biked on Royal York a couple of times and recalled the bike lanes were pretty narrow. To get a better feel for the conditions on that street and how to improve it, we rode Royal York from Lake Shore to Evans on our way to do some errands.