Making space: Cyclist advocates for safer roads after collision

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This article was published 22/07/2022 (1313 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A routine bike ride home from a family birthday party ended with a missing finger and a dislocated shoulder for Grant Hamilton after he collided with a car.

Now, he wants to see more done to protect cyclists and pedestrians in the Wheat City.

On the night of June 27, Hamilton was cycling home from a family gathering.

The trip was “pretty straightforward” and a common ride for him, he said.

Then, just a few blocks from home while riding along Lorne Avenue East, he was hit by a driver turning onto Park Street, at the corner of Rideau Park, and he flipped over the hood.

“I had seen there was a westbound car that was oncoming, but then they pulled a quick left turn, swerved right into me … I did my best to avoid that, brake, swerve, whatever you can,” he said.

“They hit me pretty square on … I think if I had gone under, rather than over, we’d be having a very different conversation.”

The collision left Hamilton, the director of marketing and communications at Brandon University, badly banged up. He lost his left pinky finger in the crash after it caught on part of the vehicle as he careened over the hood.

“I flipped up and over the car and my left pinky decided it would like to stay on that side of the car — thanks. It was stuck in between the headlight and the hood, apparently. The police officer I talked to said he had to pop the hood to get the pinky out.”

He was left with 25 stitches in his left hand where the finger used to be. He also had a separated shoulder, torn meniscus in his knee, and scrapes and bruises all over his body.

Hamilton was rushed to hospital by ambulance and transported to Winnipeg, but doctors at the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre weren’t able to save his finger. He has since had followup surgery to close the wound and reshape his hand.

Now recovering from his injuries, Hamilton is calling for greater attention to bike and pedestrian safety in Brandon ahead of the fall’s municipal election.

“It’s tough to say it’s a blessing, but I keep thinking about how much worse it could have been. I’m pretty grateful I’m walking, I’m talking, I’m able to get out and enjoy the summer a little bit still,” he said.

“It could have been a lot worse.”

Both Hamilton and the driver who hit him seemingly felt safe entering the intersection at the same time — but in the end, it wasn’t safe.

The stretch of Lorne Avenue East where the collision happened has faded Share the Road symbols painted on the pavement, but that’s not enough, Hamilton said.

Brandon does have a number of multi-use pathways for biking and walking, but they’re not geared toward people commuting to work, school or many places in the city on two wheels, he said.

“It really feels that if you’re a pedestrian, a cyclist, or even a transit user, the city is not designed for you … You’re definitely shoe-horned in where the cars don’t fit and I think we end up paying for it.”

While other cities in North America took the opportunity of the pandemic to make changes to their respective cycling infrastructure, Hamilton said Brandon hasn’t done enough.

The Wheat City has a perimeter path around the city and some paths in the south end. The path is paved and separated from the road where cars drive, but it’s difficult to get to work or entertainment.

“It’s a great tour of suburban backyards, but it doesn’t get me where I need to go every day.”

With a municipal election scheduled for later this year, Hamilton said he hopes the candidates find the political will to make changes to Brandon’s active transportation infrastructure.

He said he believes the city can do better for Brandonites who aren’t driving.

Coun. Glen Parker (Riverview), who represents the area where Hamilton was hit, said he hasn’t heard specific complaints about biking in the area but said there are issues about speed on Park Street.

“Some drivers are pretty aggressive coming onto Park [Street] … and they seem to get going at a pretty good clip up Park Street — and that’s got the swimming pool at the water park,” he said.

Parker said he is open to suggestions and is in favour of better safety for cyclists, but doesn’t know what the exact solution is. It’s a concern for everyone and drivers need to be more aware.

“More often than not it takes an incident to spurn some actions. That’s the sad part.”

PeopleForBikes, a Colorado-based cycling advocacy organization, gives Brandon a grade of 36 out of 100 for its cycling network. Despite the failing grade, Brandon still ranks better than Winnipeg in the organization’s list, which received a 31.

The organization cites a lack of access to major transit hubs and retail in its score of Brandon.

Some municipal election candidates say bike and pedestrian safety is also an issue on their radar. Tyson Tame, who is running in the Green Acres ward, said he frequently uses pedestrian paths and safety has come up at the doorstep in his early campaigning.

“Both cycling safety and pedestrian safety will both be topics that I’ll be bringing up at the door and trying to find out where those deficiencies are and addressing them and bringing those enquires to council chambers,” he told the Sun.

Franco Chartier, who is also running in Green Acres, said he sees an issue with bike and pedestrian safety in both the ward and the city. People are driving too fast, he said.

“You get on 18th Street — that’s the death trap to be biking on,” he said, citing the road conditions.

If streets are wide enough, Chartier said he would support the city installing dedicated bike lanes.

Brandon City Council is moving to put more attention on bike and pedestrian safety said Coun. Shawn Berry (Linden Lanes). At its most recent meeting on July 18, councillors sent Berry to sit on the city’s Vision Zero task force.

Vision Zero is a traffic safety initiative that seeks to eliminate all road deaths, not just reduce them. There had been little talk of the concept at Brandon City Council until approximately a year ago, when Berry said a resident approached him with the idea after traffic issues along Durum Drive.

The idea has been adopted in larger cities such as Toronto and Hamilton, Ont., but Berry said there is lots that can be applied locally — even if it’s a hard sell.

“We’re at the point where society and the city has just gotten a little bit too much in a hurry and a little bit too much fast and we need to do something not necessarily to slow it down, but to make things safer both for pedestrians, for cyclists, for motorists,” he said.

There are many possible steps the city could take with Vision Zero, he said, including using photo radar and reducing speed limits.

“It’s all about safety … why should we wait for something bad to happen?” Berry said, citing Hamilton’s collision as an example.

When reached on July 19, Berry said he was unsure of what the next steps were for the Vision Zero’s task force, but Jennifer Coey, the city’s manager of strategic infrastructure, said the goal is to have the group together and meeting by the end of the year.

The task force will take into the “Five Es” of traffic safety: engineering, evaluation, enforcement, education and engagement. The goal is to bring recommendations to city council in the future, but there isn’t a timeline yet, she said.

While bike safety is an issue mayoral candidate Coun. Jeff Fawcett (Assiniboine) said he would like to put more attention on, it’s not quite at the top of the list. Fawcett said he himself does use the city’s bike paths and frequents them while running. He is currently the only candidate registered as running for mayor.

With more sales of electric bikes in the city and the rise of biking in the winter, he said it might be time for city administration to look at them as a more viable transportation option and how to accommodate them to a greater extent, he said.

“It is tough to change existing infrastructure a whole lot … but I would love to know if there are ways of enhancing our current trail system to make it more viable,” he said.

The city did install a temporary bike lane along Pacific Avenue in the summer of 2020 as a pilot project, but it hasn’t made a return since. Design concepts for a proposed redesign of the street show more permanent bike lanes along the downtown.

“With the way our roads have been built maybe the high usages of bikes and cars are not perfect, but absolutely we want to look at it. We’re not going to turn into Denmark overnight but we do want to look at it,” Fawcett said.

Coun. Shaun Cameron (University) said it’s important to look at Brandon as both pedestiran and cycling friendly. He echoed the importance of Vision Zero and said he would support looking at dedicated cycling lanes and speed limits.

“We have to move away from a mindset that vehicles are the only way that people navigate the city. We have to think of better ways to create city transit, better ways to create pedestrian corridors, cycling corridors… and not just how vehicles move about the city,” he said.

Despite the collision, Hamilton said he can’t wait to get back out on his bike. He’ll have to get a new one, though, as the bike he was riding during the collision is bent and the seat is broken.

“Its fun, you feel a little bit like you’re soaring, it’s an enjoyable activity as well as a useful activity … we’re a very flat city, we should be a cycling Mecca and we just haven’t invested the time, money or effort or will into making it easy.”

» dmay@brandonsun.com

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