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As the police pulled the crushed bicycle from under the red truck, church bells began to toll at St. Patrick’s Basilica two blocks away, signalling high noon, and memorial lilies began to appear on the sidewalk, yellow tape be damned.
She was gone. It was beginning to sink in.
The front bike wheel was mangled and the forks looked snapped off the purple frame. Once removed, a single sandal could be seen beside the tires — there are ten of them, as high as your waist — and a police officer took out a clear plastic bag and began picking up all the little pieces on the road.
So, so many little pieces.
At the corner of Laurier Avenue and Lyon Street, there was a tangible sense of horror Thursday when, on a beautiful, fresh September morning, Nusrat Jahan, a 23-year-old cyclist, was killed in a collision with a Tomlinson dump truck.
From an assessment of the scene on Thursday, it appears they were both travelling eastbound when the cyclist was “right-hooked,” or struck as the truck turned right onto Lyon and she proceeded east on Laurier. And this, on the city’s Cadillac “segregated” bicycle system downtown.
A number of cyclists and pedestrians, upon seeing the size of the truck, its angle at impact, the likely spot the body was found, were visibly shaken.
“I was in tears,” said teacher Diana Perry, who lives just a couple of buildings east, and was standing on the corner, still moved hours later. “I couldn’t believe it. I was in shock.”
She was about to bicycle to work when the building superintendent alerted her to the collision. “I was going to be on that same path.”
Perry was among the residents who live or cycle downtown to talk about the daily anxiety of dealing with the Laurier Avenue bicycle corridor, on which cyclists are segregated by a curb but mix with regular traffic at intersections — the exchange guided by green paint and symbols.
“As a motorist, I’m extremely cautious at this corner. I leave my garage every morning praying that I’m not going to hit anyone. There is, inevitably, a blind spot.”
Ali Motadghi, 21, was staying with a friend on the sixth floor of McAuley Place, at 450 Laurier, when he heard a crash and commotion just before 8 a.m. He was on the balcony moments later and says he heard a woman crying out “my dog,” then saw the victim lying face-up in distress.
He said two passersby came to her aid and tried to extract her from under the truck until first responders arrived. He began to digitally record the events and his time stamp said 7:52 a.m.
Kendra Forbes lives a few blocks away. In her early 60s, she cycled by at about 10:30 a.m., wearing a helmet and bright yellow jacket. She said a neighbour alerted her about the collision early Thursday just as she was about to leave home.
“It really hits you emotionally, because it happens so close to home. You wonder, ‘Was it someone I know’?”
She uses the Laurier lanes almost daily, as cycling is her main mode of transportation, even tucking her groceries into saddle bags or a pull-cart.
“She was only 23, you know? You think of her friends, her family. She hasn’t had a life.”
She too spoke of the hyper-vigilance necessary to cycle downtown, especially at intersections, and the need to anticipate what drivers might do in turning situations. This is particularly true in a season when huge amounts of construction are underway downtown, involving convoys of heavy equipment.
Ivy Bourgeault, 48, a professor at the University of Ottawa, lives only blocks away and was the first to arrive with flowers.
“I just think we should take a moment to pause and show some respect when someone dies like this.”
A mother with children roughly the same age as the victim, she stressed that such crashes are preventable. Why, she asked, are right-turns even permitted at the busy intersection when vehicles need to cross the bike path?
“My daughter came back from the Netherlands. Now she won’t drive her bike here. It’s just not safe.”
This is the “built environment” we’ve created, she said, and we can do a lot better. “This is what we consider, as parents, to be a very safe place to tell our children — ‘Here’s the way to get to the university, all the way there’.”
And then this happens.
“Nobody should die going to work,” she said. “I drive, I walk, I bike. It’s all about being safe in those different modes of transportation. This is preventable.”
Before the truck was moved, Ottawa police investigators could be seen testing its brake and signal lights and doing an inspection of the wheels and undercarriage.
And then the truck was gone, the road reopened and all the little pieces taken away, pieces that will never be put back together.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
查看原文...
She was gone. It was beginning to sink in.
The front bike wheel was mangled and the forks looked snapped off the purple frame. Once removed, a single sandal could be seen beside the tires — there are ten of them, as high as your waist — and a police officer took out a clear plastic bag and began picking up all the little pieces on the road.
So, so many little pieces.
At the corner of Laurier Avenue and Lyon Street, there was a tangible sense of horror Thursday when, on a beautiful, fresh September morning, Nusrat Jahan, a 23-year-old cyclist, was killed in a collision with a Tomlinson dump truck.
From an assessment of the scene on Thursday, it appears they were both travelling eastbound when the cyclist was “right-hooked,” or struck as the truck turned right onto Lyon and she proceeded east on Laurier. And this, on the city’s Cadillac “segregated” bicycle system downtown.
A number of cyclists and pedestrians, upon seeing the size of the truck, its angle at impact, the likely spot the body was found, were visibly shaken.
“I was in tears,” said teacher Diana Perry, who lives just a couple of buildings east, and was standing on the corner, still moved hours later. “I couldn’t believe it. I was in shock.”
She was about to bicycle to work when the building superintendent alerted her to the collision. “I was going to be on that same path.”
Perry was among the residents who live or cycle downtown to talk about the daily anxiety of dealing with the Laurier Avenue bicycle corridor, on which cyclists are segregated by a curb but mix with regular traffic at intersections — the exchange guided by green paint and symbols.
“As a motorist, I’m extremely cautious at this corner. I leave my garage every morning praying that I’m not going to hit anyone. There is, inevitably, a blind spot.”
Ali Motadghi, 21, was staying with a friend on the sixth floor of McAuley Place, at 450 Laurier, when he heard a crash and commotion just before 8 a.m. He was on the balcony moments later and says he heard a woman crying out “my dog,” then saw the victim lying face-up in distress.
He said two passersby came to her aid and tried to extract her from under the truck until first responders arrived. He began to digitally record the events and his time stamp said 7:52 a.m.
Kendra Forbes lives a few blocks away. In her early 60s, she cycled by at about 10:30 a.m., wearing a helmet and bright yellow jacket. She said a neighbour alerted her about the collision early Thursday just as she was about to leave home.
“It really hits you emotionally, because it happens so close to home. You wonder, ‘Was it someone I know’?”
She uses the Laurier lanes almost daily, as cycling is her main mode of transportation, even tucking her groceries into saddle bags or a pull-cart.
“She was only 23, you know? You think of her friends, her family. She hasn’t had a life.”
She too spoke of the hyper-vigilance necessary to cycle downtown, especially at intersections, and the need to anticipate what drivers might do in turning situations. This is particularly true in a season when huge amounts of construction are underway downtown, involving convoys of heavy equipment.
Ivy Bourgeault, 48, a professor at the University of Ottawa, lives only blocks away and was the first to arrive with flowers.
“I just think we should take a moment to pause and show some respect when someone dies like this.”
A mother with children roughly the same age as the victim, she stressed that such crashes are preventable. Why, she asked, are right-turns even permitted at the busy intersection when vehicles need to cross the bike path?
“My daughter came back from the Netherlands. Now she won’t drive her bike here. It’s just not safe.”
This is the “built environment” we’ve created, she said, and we can do a lot better. “This is what we consider, as parents, to be a very safe place to tell our children — ‘Here’s the way to get to the university, all the way there’.”
And then this happens.
“Nobody should die going to work,” she said. “I drive, I walk, I bike. It’s all about being safe in those different modes of transportation. This is preventable.”
Before the truck was moved, Ottawa police investigators could be seen testing its brake and signal lights and doing an inspection of the wheels and undercarriage.
And then the truck was gone, the road reopened and all the little pieces taken away, pieces that will never be put back together.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
查看原文...
