Family mourns woman killed near Rogers Centre
SUV crashed through sidewalk market stand
For more than a year, Algie Parucha, her sister and sister-in-law dreamed of running a business together.
Just eight weeks after the dream became reality, a nightmare shattered their family: The 38-year-old mother of two was struck and killed by an SUV that crashed into their market stand across from the Rogers Centre. “We are saddened. We are shocked,” Karen Parucha told the Star. “She was just starting her life.” Working part time as an independent travel agent, Algie was in the midst of transitioning to work full time on the family company, JamCo Boutique, where the three would create and sell homemade hair accessories for children.
“She was so creative,” Karen said. “Everything she did, she did with passion, and you saw it in her craft.”
Tuesday afternoon, Algie and her sister Allane were working at their stand at the City Place Urban Market when the vehicle mounted the sidewalk and crashed through the stand — killing Algie instantly. Allane suffered only minor injuries, but her family says she is traumatized.
“Their family is such a close-knit family that I was blessed to be a part of it,” another sister-in-law wrote on Facebook. “Algie was the main person who keeps all of us intact.”
The Urban Market has been postponed until Saturday, according to Gary Pieters, a moderator for the City Place Toronto community on Facebook.
“My condolences are extended to loved ones and everyone affected by Tuesday’s tragic event,” he wrote in a post Wednesday afternoon.
In a news release Tuesday, Mayor John Tory said he was “deeply saddened” by the woman’s death.
“As mayor, I am committed to ensuring that all those who use our roads — pedestrians, cyclists and drivers — are safe,” Tory said.
“As a city, we will do more to prevent these tragedies and keep each other safe.”
Jeime Bernette, Algie’s sister-inlaw, wrote: “Thank you for being my business partner in a dream that we will do our best to keep alive,” in a Facebook post. “Thank you for showing me how creative we can be.”
Police are investigating, but have not said if charges will be laid in connection with the incident. With files from Brennan Doherty
“The car is not the one committing the offences; it’s the pedestrians.”
That’s what police Const. Clint Stibbe told a reporter from Metro on Tuesday morning.
Cops were out at some major intersections directing traffic in the first day of the mayor’s ballyhooed new traffic initiative and, Stibbe complained, many pedestrians on Front St. were insisting on trying to cross the street when the traffic signal countdown was on.
Now, most of us have assumed — be- cause it is the most reasonable assumption to draw from the countdown concept — that a flashing “26” means we have 26 seconds to cross the street, so lots of time. But no. Apparently, the counterintuitive (and, thus, useless) intention behind the countdowns is that once they start, you can no longer step off the curb to enter the intersection.
Metro says Stibbe clarified, “the countdown is to signal to pedestrians already in the intersection that they have to clear out so drivers can make turns.”
Ha! You may have thought those pedestrian signals were intended to keep pedestrians safe.