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Teen on bike struck by vehicle at intersection of Wellington Crescent and Academy Road

Cyclists demand safety improvements

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2024/07/30/teen-cyclist-injur...

A TEENAGE cyclist was injured Monday after she was struck by a vehicle near the intersection of Wellington Crescent and Academy Road, renewing calls for better active- transportation infrastructure.

Winnipeg police said the crash happened at about 8:45 p.m.

The teen, who was cycling with her father, was hospitalized but has since been released, Winnipeg Police Service spokesperson Const. Dani McKinnon said Tuesday. Her father was not injured.

McKinnon said the driver, who remained at the scene, may have been experiencing a medical event at the time, and the investigation is continuing.

Passerby Mark Hildahl blocked traffic with his vehicle immediately after the collision. He used his paramedic training to keep the teen’s spine stable.

“My heart sunk,” he said Tuesday. “She wasn’t moving; at first I thought she might be dead.”

He said he didn’t notice that the vehicle’s driver was in medical distress, but observed that she was “very distraught.”

He was told the driver was later taken away by an ambulance.

Hildahl described what happened Monday as “everybody’s worst nightmare” at a notoriously unsafe intersection.

“I travel through this intersection multiple times a week and it’s just horrible,” he said. “The entire design of the intersection at Wellington and Academy is designed for cars, there’s nothing that’s designed for pedestrians or cyclists, so it’s extremely dangerous for everybody.”

The crash happened a short distance from where Rob Jenner, 61, was killed June 6 in a hit-and-run on Wellington Crescent near Cockburn Street.

Jenner had been cycling to his job at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Beckham Keneth Severight, 19, has been charged with dangerous driving causing death and failing to stop at the scene.

Last week, more than 100 cyclists calling for improved infrastructure gathered outside the museum to honour Jenner’s memory.

Among them was Patty Wiens, a director of Bike Winnipeg, who blamed poor infrastructure for the crashes.

“Do you think this kid will ever get on a bike again? This is not OK. Our roads need better design,” she said.

“That’s what it’s going to actually take. It’s not about enforcement, it’s about design.”

About 180 cyclists blocked cars at the intersection of Academy and Wellington as a protest on Tuesday evening.

Wiens said she wonders how many pedestrians and cyclists need to be hurt or killed before bike infrastructure becomes a priority. “We are tired of protesting. I don’t want to be shutting down intersections once a week. It’s going to take some serious political will,” she said.

Following Jenner’s death last month, Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry Coun. Sherri Rollins called the stretch of Wellington Crescent a “known gap in the cycling plan for the city” and suggested her calls to install 30 km/h zones around the ward hadn’t been heard due to a lack of political will.

Brent Bellamy, a Free Press columnist who writes on urban planning, was hit by a driver while cycling at the same intersection in 2019. He witnessed the aftermath of Monday’s collision.

Both Wellington Crescent and Academy Road are designed for commuters but are in the middle of a pedestrian- dense residential area, and cars “fly by” the slip lanes on Wellington Crescent, he said.

He noted that just across from where the crash happened, a piece of the fencing at St. Mary’s Academy is missing after being hit by a driver.

“It doesn’t even have a stop sign for five kilometres, from Academy all the way to Assiniboine Park. It’s actually designed to be unsafe. It’s designed to prioritize speed and traffic volumes,” he said.

Streets should be designed to account for medical emergencies, mistakes and freak accidents, Bellamy said, adding slower traffic, more narrow intersections and fewer lanes all reduce the amount of time cyclists and pedestrians are interacting with cars and give them more time to escape dangerous situations.

“We have to design our streets to allow things that aren’t normal to happen, and provide as much safety as we can, as much room for error as possible on our streets,” he said.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.camailto:malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

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Members of the cycling community blocked cars at the intersection of Academy Road and Wellington Crescent Tuesday in a protest to call for safer road infrastructure.