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3 | W aterloo C hronicle | T hursday,O ctober 10,2019 w aterloochronicle.ca BARDISH CHAGGER A strong voice for you #ChooseForward Authorized by the official agent for Bardish Chagger @BardishKW /Bardish.Chagger @Bardish_Chagger (519) 747-3731 team@bardishchagger.ca www.bardishchagger.ca pavement and was in a pool of his own blood, so I waited with him while he came to, and that took about three or four minutes." Wright said it was un- clear where else the man was injured because his feet were still tangled up in the bicycle and his arms were underneath his body. "He was able to get up in- to a seated position, and so we took over from that point and didn't let him get up entirely," Wright said. "He was non-verbal and not able to answer any ques- tions we had for him. We kept talking to him and kept him calm until EMS got there and he went away on a stretcher." The man's face was cut and bleeding, but the blood wasn't the worst of it, she said. "It's whatever hap- pened to his head." Wright said the man, who appeared to be wearing chef attire and on his way to or from a local place of em- ployment, is just the latest victim of what she believes to be a preventable hazard - skewed railway crossings in the vicinity, more specifi- cally along the Spur Line Trail. "If you cross the tracks at the wrong angle and your wheels get into the grooves, you're going to go flying. That's just the physics of it," she said. I took some video for the benefit of observers who may not be intimately fa- miliar with the location. It is definitely problematic. I think it would help to have directional arrows (keep to the right) as well as paint to encourage a perpendicular crossing for bikes at both ends. pic.twitter.com/ s8Ue9c7X38- David W True- man (@DavidTrueman) Oc- tober 1, 2019"This happens every single day, and no one is doing anything about it." As recently as Wednes- day morning, Wright said a colleague of hers at the Pe- rimeter Institute hit her head after losing control on the tracks across from Va- lu-mart near Erb and Caro- line streets. "So it's happening all along that section," Wright said. Another one of her col- leagues, 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 al- ley that runs by the Button Factory). "I was chatting with an- other 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 re- member looking back to check where the other cy- clist 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 paral- lel to them, you should." With more and more people taking up cycling, Wright believes it's a grow- ing safety concern. "It's not like we're the on- ly city with this problem," Wright said in a tweet, pointing to research out of the University of Tennes- see-Knoxville showing a person's experience or cy- cling ability doesn't play a factor in such incidents. Local Coun. Tenille Bo- noguore replied, acknowl- edging 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 em- ployed in other cities that can modify the crossings or tracks to make them safer. "Maybe we shouldn't dump the trail into this al- leyway that doesn't have ad- equate 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 re- mediation in the immediate term and a final solution emerge from a roundtable conversation." Wright said she said in- tends to push for that con- versation. "I don't want anyone to experience what this poor guy did the other day," she said. "That sucked." NEWS Cyclists travelling west toward King. Bill Jackson/Torstar THE ISSUE: CYCLISTS ARE BEING INJURED DUE TO THEIR TIRES GETTING STUCK IN RAILWAY TRACKS ON LOCAL TRAILS AND ROAD CROSSINGS. LOCAL IMPACT: THEY'RE CALLING FOR SAFETY MEASURES AND AT LEAST ONE LOCAL COUNCILLOR IS IN SUPPORT. Continued from page 1 SOLUTION TO CYCLING HAZARD COULD INVOLVE LONG- AND SHORT-TERM SOLUTIONS STORY BEHIND THE STORY Waterloo isn't the first area to experience such a safety hazard, however the local cycling network is growing along with ridership.