Cyclists ride and block traffic

June 21, 2018

Bells ring out in concert and, within minutes, Toronto cyclists take off, cutting a route to where a 58-year-old cyclist was killed by a flatbed truck last week.

There appeared to be about 200 cyclists who congregated in memory of Dalia Chako on Wednesday evening. Among the many faces were her son Skylor Brummans and his wife, Ashley, who are from Minneapolis.

Brummans, father of a 10-month-old daughter, said the loss of his mother is akin to “a roller-coaster ride.”

“It’s hard to describe,” he told the Star.

While he said he’s angry and upset, he feels compassion, because that’s what he’s received since arriving in Toronto, a place that’s already grappling with an “ongoing struggle” for cyclist safety, he said.

“She loved riding her bike,” Brummans said of his mother, “in the European sense.”

At the event, put on by the group Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists, people gathered at Bloor St. W. and Spadina Ave., and pedalled along a roundabout route, temporarily halting traffic, to Bloor and St. George Sts., where Chako was killed. At the intersection, a white bike was installed in honour of Chako. For about 12 years Geoffrey Bercarich, an organizer of the ride, has been making these “ghost bikes,” which are seen in several neighbourhoods around the city in honour of the dead.

He said the event is not a “political tool,” more of a shrine to inform people that someone lost their life at a “dangerous” junction.

Bercarich takes aim at Toronto’s “Wild West” intersections, characterizing them as being stuck in the 1950s. The city needs to change, he continued, by giving more time for pedestrians to cross streets, clamping down on drivers blowing through lights and having fewer vehicles in general, especially trucks. Bercarich said trucks should not make deliveries at peak traffic hours.

“Trucks really jump the curb and crush people. Nobody’s taking responsibility for the derelict form of our intersections,” Bercarich said, noting that the city’s Vision Zero plan falls short.