Young bicyclist’s death prompts safety review
City hall is undertaking an immediate safety review of Toronto’s approximately 300-kilometre network of multi-use trails following the death last week of a boy riding his bike along Martin Goodman Trail.
The first order of business will be addressing pressing safety risks, including problems on the stretch of Lake Shore Blvd. W. where 5-yearold Xavier Morgan died after falling from a bike path into traffic.
Safety advocates have said a guardrail could have saved the boy’s life.
In an interview, Mayor John Tory said he wants to do everything possible to ensure no child or adult can fall onto a roadway from that trail.
“It’s just not something that is an acceptable risk, and sometimes you learn the tragic way,” he said.
Councillor Jaye Robinson, chair of the city’s public works and infrastructure committee, will meet Monday with Toronto’s general manager of transportation services to begin a review of trails.
The aim will be both to make immediate changes to problem areas and to consider longer-term solutions that may require construction, or even moving a trail that may be too close to a roadway.
Tory said the review will consider issues that arise when trails are ad- jacent to vehicle traffic, as well as paths where the danger might arise from a busy mix of cyclists, pedestrians, skateboarders, rollerbladers and more — particularly as the weather gets warmer and traffic increases.
Tory says he expects a report “within a very short period.”
Xavier, called an “exuberant, loving and happy little boy” by his school principal, was with an adult Wednesday evening when he lost control, fell onto the road and was struck by a car.
Police arrived at the site, near Lake Shore Blvd. W. and Jameson Ave., at about 6:30 p.m. The driver of the vehicle remained at the scene.
Paramedics took the boy to the Hospital for Sick Children, where he died.
Jared Kolb, with the advocacy group Cycle Toronto, said last week that he puts the blame for the death squarely on city infrastructure.
“I don’t put blame on the driver, the parent or whoever was with the child,” Kolb said.
Xavier Morgan was a junior kindergarten student at Swansea Public School. On Friday, a group of his classmates and their parents gathered at the school to remember him. The flag was lowered to half-staff.
Abike ride in Xavier’s honour, organized by the group Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists, is planned Saturday at 10 a.m., beginning at Spadina Ave. and Bloor St. W.