Road where dump truck struck cyclist was approved for bike-lane study by council in April

Ottawa council had already approved a study into the feasibility of adding a bike lane to a stretch of road where a cyclist was struck by a dump truck on Friday and sent to hospital with life-threatening injuries.

A woman was rushed to hospital in critical condition after she was struck just before 7:45 a.m. while cycling at the corner of Rochester Street and Gladstone Avenue in Ottawa’s Little Italy neighbourhood.

The site of the collision is known to local residents as a treacherous place for cyclists, Somerset ward Coun. Ariel Troster said.

“For years I said it when my daughter was a baby on the back of my bike — that Gladstone Avenue is really not safe for cyclists,” she said. “We need to figure out how to make this road safer. We need safe cycling infrastructure.”

In Ottawa between 2018 and 2021, 54 cyclists were seriously injured in collisions and seven people died.

At its April 26 meeting, council approved a feasibility study to consider adding “cycling facilities” on Gladstone Avenue between Percy Street and the planned Corso Italia station currently under construction for the LRT’s Trillium Line.

The facilities would stretch roughly from Preston Street to the McNabb Arena and Community Centre and may include additional options to the west.

According to the city’s transportation master plan, feasibility study projects have a “high degree of risk or unknowns” and funding is not guaranteed.

Project timeline too slow, councillor says

Active transportation projects will be implemented from 2024 onwards, the report said, and will be rolled out based on available funding.

Troster said those timelines aren’t fast enough.

“I don’t want to wait years for this,” she said. “I think we need to throw down a quick build to make the street as safe as possible.”

Somerset ward Coun. Ariel Troster, photographed at the corner of Gladstone Avenue and Rochester Street, says safety improvements to the intersection should be made soon. (Ben Andrews/CBC News)

Fundamentally changing a street is expensive and time-consuming, Troster said, but stop-gap measures can significantly improve safety in the meantime.

Concrete barriers, flex posts and better signage are examples of short-term improvements, she said.

With the area home to a daycare, school and future LRT station, Troster said the city must also open a discussion about the place of trucks in the downtown core.

“I cycled down this exact patch of road on Sunday with my family,” Troster said. “I take this really seriously and we’re going to work really hard to improve the safety here.”

Woman in critical condition in hospital

As of the latest update from Ottawa police Friday afternoon, the woman struck by the dump truck remained in critical condition in hospital.

No one else was treated at the scene.

The dump truck involved belongs to T.G. Carroll Cartage Ltd., an Ottawa-based company that works in excavation, among other things.

Reached by phone Friday, owner Thomas Carroll said he didn’t have details about the collision and didn’t have any other comment to make.

The intersection was closed until early Friday afternoon.

The Ottawa police collisions unit is investigating. Anyone who witnessed the collision is asked to get in touch with police.