Article content

Even councillors regularly feel like they might die when they ride their bikes on Ottawa’s marquee bike route.

The bike lanes on Laurier Avenue are supposed to be the safest in the city, part of an east-west bikeway through downtown Ottawa opened proudly in 2011. They go right to city hall. On Thursday morning, a woman was killed on her bike at Laurier and Lyon Street, apparently by a right-turning truck. It was the fifth collision involving a cyclist in a week.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Reevely: The first step to safe streets is really wanting them Back to video

“I obey the rules of the road. I stop at red lights. And then I have the right of way, and several times a week I am nearly right-hooked. And it happens to all of us as cyclists,” Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper told a rally gathered at noon in Marion Dewar Plaza, thrown together quickly with Coun. Catherine McKenney. About 75 people clapped and rang bike bells in the plaza below councillors’ offices.

Both conceded they don’t know precisely what happened in the collision. But both said they know, from personal experience and from numerous constituents, that the Laurier bike lanes aren’t safe enough. And it’s specifically designed for high volumes of all kinds of traffic. The city’s statistics and engineering research shows that Laurier has far more cyclists on it now than it did before 2011, and far fewer collisions.