Yesterday the province decided not to prosecute Michael Bryant. According to the Star, here’s what happened the night Darcy Allan Sheppard died.

This is the part that gets me:

He succeeds at restarting the engine and the Saab accelerates into Sheppard, who lands on the hood. Bryant hits the brakes when he sees Sheppard. Sheppard falls off the hood. (2.5 seconds elapses between the car starting and stopping. It travels two car lengths before Bryant stops.) Sheppard stands up within two seconds, not seriously injured. Bryant reverses and drives forward, trying to get around the bike.

I’m not saying that Bryant purposefully murdered Sheppard, as I agree that it sounds like sheer panic. Nor am I saying that Sheppard is remotely close to being a good cycling role model. However, it bothers me that this car “lurching” forward two car lengths, striking a human being, is not a bigger deal. It certainly explains why Sheppard grabs onto the car (not that it’s a good idea). I don’t see why the charges don’t involve vehicular manslaughter, careless driving, and leaving the scene of a crime no matter how angry and drunk the victim was.

That said, IANAL and perhaps lesser charges will now be forthcoming. But it would be a shame if Bryant escapes all blame, as it sends the message that it’s okay to kill cyclists if they seem angry or drunk.

A number of divisive transit issues have been in front of the council here in Toronto. The latest is the Jarvis redesign, in which the fifth lane is sacrificed in order to widen the sidewalks and install bike lanes. It passed after much controversy.

From my point of view, any new bike lanes are good, and I’ll take a walkable street ahead of a highway for Rosedale fatcats any day. However, I have some concerns here. There is already a bike lane the next major street east, on Sherbourne. That’s a big deal when you consider the downtown has only two(!) north-south bike lanes, Sherbourne and Beverly-St. George. (No, I’m not considering the Death By Cab shared lane on Bay a viable route.) The Jarvis lane doesn’t make much sense in the context of the city’s own bikeway network plan. We must then wonder if the Jarvis lane is an easy bone to throw to cyclists, in preparation for disappointments elsewhere. Indeed, word comes that the proposed Bloor-Danforth bike lane has been shunted off to an as-yet unspecified consultant, and “Mr. Heaps said … that if the study showed the lanes would hurt local businesses, he would not support them.”

The downtown portion of the bikeway network; dotted means not yet built. I’ve put in the Jarvis route in yellow.

That same article mentions a possible protected lane on University, which would be nice – but again, not part of the city’s own bikeway network plan. The bike plan is good, and it should be implemented. Lanes outside the network are great, but not if they take away political will to actually implement it, and especially not if they are in areas already reasonably well served by the network. I fear Jarvis may hit both these negatives.

I rarely talk about biking here, for some reason. Well, that’s about to change!

Here’s an interesting interview in the Star with bizarro Clive Owen, a bike safety expert since being run over by a truck while in a bike lane. Notable (I quote):

• Research shows the average duration of time spent in a car has gone up by over 200 per cent over the last 20 years. The distance people are driving has also increased.
• drivers were largely culpable in 74 per cent of all of accidents and partially culpable in another 16 per cent.
• 97 per cent of the drivers in cases of fatal accidents involving cyclists were male. It is highly unlikely to get that kind of statistic by random chance.
• The Netherlands has the lowest cycling fatality rate in the world per kilometre cycled or per cyclist, and their rate of helmet use is less than 1 per cent.