City must protect cyclists, councillor says

A member of the City of Ottawa's transportation committee said Friday something has to be done to protect the growing number of cyclists on the streets.

"We've got to start investing in proper safe-cycling lanes, and doing what Toronto is doing, what Montreal is doing creating lanes that are dedicated to cyclists," Coun. Clive Doucet said.

In the meantime, Doucet said, if cyclists are worried about their safety, they should ignore city bylaws and ride on the sidewalk when they feel they have to.

The issue arose after Melanie Harris, 34, was killed when she was hit by an Outaouais transit bus on Sussex Drive Wednesday.

Harris was hit on a tricky section of Sussex Drive where there is a lane designated to be shared by buses and bicycles.

There's now a small improvised memorial near the site where she was killed. People have been dropping off candles, flowers, pictures and notes.

Harris was the latest victim in a summer of collisions between bicycles and other vehicles.

Five cyclists were injured and treated in hospital when they were hit by a van in the city's west end July 19.

A cyclist died after he was hit by a vehicle on Ogilvie Road July 21.

In Gatineau, a cyclist was seriously injured when he was hit by a pickup truck July 22.

In a rural area outside Kingston on Thursday, another cyclist was seriously injured in a collision.

The 33-year-old was hit by a pickup truck on Joyceville Road near Highway 15.

He was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Meanwhile, the city's co-ordinator of cycling facilities said Friday not much more can be done to make the streets safer, unless councildecides to spend money to widen roads and build dedicated bicycle lanes.

Robin Bennett said Ottawa wants to encourage bicycle use, and hopes that as more bikes come onto the roads, accidents will become rarer.

"It's a well proven statistic not just in Canada, but in many places around the world that where you have much more volume of cyclists that are on the road there tends to be much lower collision statistics, right across the board," Bennett said.

"It's just because the motorists and the cyclists just know how to interact properly with each other," he said.

Bennett added that not enough cyclists take advantage of courses that teach cyclists how to ride defensively.The cityused to offersuch a course, called Can-Bike, a two-day workshop on riding in traffic. However, it is not offering the course this year.

Most dangerous intersections for cyclists 2007-2008