— David W Trueman (@DavidTrueman) October 1, 2019

“This happens every single day, and no one is doing anything about it.”

As recently as Wednesday morning, Wright said a colleague of hers at the Perimeter Institute hit her head after losing control on the tracks across from Valu-mart near Erb and Caroline streets.

“So it’s happening all along that section,” Wright said.

Another one of her colleagues, Tibra Ali, said he had an accident at the Erb and Caroline intersection back in 2011 and injured his ribs.

Back in May, Wright said another friend broke her two front teeth at the Spur Line crossing at Union Street after getting her wheel caught.

On Sept. 5, Kate Pearce said she was riding from King Street toward Regina on the Laurel Trail (the alley that runs by the Button Factory).

“I was chatting with another cyclist, riding parallel to the railroad tracks, and then tried to cross from the left to right side of the tracks,” Pearce said, adding that she’s usually quite careful in this section. “I remember looking back to check where the other cyclist was (but) must have missed the angle on the tracks, felt my tire catch and then fell sideways,” she said.

Aside from some cuts and scrapes Pearce was OK, but she knows she could have been seriously hurt if she was travelling faster and was glad to be wearing a helmet.

“I usually avoid biking through this area because crossing the tracks makes me nervous, and when I have my kids in the bike trailer I'm extra cautious,” Pearce noted. “If you have never biked this stretch or tried to cross railroad tracks when you are parallel to them, you should.”

With more and more people taking up cycling, Wright believes it’s a growing safety concern.

“It’s not like we’re the only city with this problem,” Wright said in a tweet, pointing to research out of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville showing a person’s experience or cycling ability doesn’t play a factor in such incidents.

Local Coun. Tenille Bonoguore replied, acknowledging that the Spur Line trail between Regina and King is a serious trouble spot.

“Cyclists must cross rail tracks in alley to get to King St crossing, then cross tracks again to get back to the trail. Adding a cycle cross south of rail line could solve it,” Bonoguore suggested, directing the comment to some of her council colleagues.

Wright conceded that the train tracks need to be functional but said there are solutions being employed in other cities that can modify the crossings or tracks to make them safer.

“Maybe we shouldn’t dump the trail into this alleyway that doesn’t have adequate infrastructure for bicycles,” she said.

Getting the right people around the table could help with a vision of how to fix the issue, Wright believes.

“There might be a short-term solution and a long-term solution,” she said. “I mean, ultimately that’s what I’d like to see — some remediation in the immediate term and a final solution emerge from a roundtable conversation.”

Wright said she said intends to push for that conversation.

“I don’t want anyone to experience what this poor guy did the other day,” she said. “That sucked.”