An 18-year-old cyclist who was struck and killed by a cement truck in Yorkville on Wednesday night is being remembered as a beloved son who had just graduated high school and was weeks away from starting university.
The victim, identified by family as Miguel Joshua Escanan, was cycling in a northbound curb lane along Avenue Road near Bloor Street at around 6:10 p.m. when he was struck by a dump truck headed in the same direction.
While the collision remains under investigation, police have said that it appears that the driver did not see Escanan in the curb lane and did not give him adequate space on the roadway.
“He was a good boy, not a problem from him,” Escanan’s mother told CTV News Toronto after dropping off flowers near the intersection where he was killed. “I don’t know what I can say. It is too painful for me.”
Renewed calls for investments in cycling infrastructure
According to his mother, Escanan had the day off from work on Wednesday and was just out for a bike ride when he was struck.
She said that she did have concerns about his safety travelling along Avenue Road, given that it does not have a bike lane.
The location of the collision, in fact, has prompted renewed calls for the city to make additional investments in separated bike lanes.
“We do need to continue to expand the cycling infrastructure in our city so that we don't continue to see things, senseless deaths, like this on our street,” Ward 11 Coun. Mike Layton told CP24 earlier on Thursday morning. “More people are cycling on an annual basis. That's a good thing. It's a good thing for not only the individual cycling but it's good for society because it decreases the amount of emissions in the city, decreases the amount of greenhouse gases and actually decreases the amount of congestion on our streets. But we need to build safe infrastructure so more people are invited to cycle and less people end up getting hurt.”
The city accelerated the installation of 25 kilometres of separated bike lanes at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic but Layton said that there is a still a need for additional cycling infrastructure.
He said that bike lanes should also go “beyond paint” and actually include barriers that separate vulnerable road users like cyclists from vehicles.
He said that is particularly true along Avenue Road, as it is used by many cyclists to connect with the separated bike lane that runs along Bloor Street.
“We want to see a street where our cycling infrastructure and our roads are welcoming of people of all ages and abilities. We're not there, we're taking steps towards that but the steps are not being taken fast enough and they're not significant enough,” he said.
So far this year there have been a total of 32 collisions involving cyclists and vehicles, including four that resulted in fatalities.
