Cycling advocates joined Jack Roper’s friends and family at an East York intersection Friday morning to mark the place where the 84-year-old cyclist was struck and killed one week ago.
Roper died after being hit by a car traveling south on Greenwood Ave. at Plains Rd. on the morning of Friday, August 5. The driver was an 81-year-old man. Police have not said whether either man was at fault for the accident, but friends say Roper never wore a helmet.
“He was hardcore,” Jim Yoksimovich said of Roper, his friend of about 35 years. “He rode his bike all year round. He had the body of a 60-year-old, and the mind of a 60-year-old.”
Roper was born in Britain and served in the British army during the Second World War. When he moved to Canada he got a job at the Post Office.
At 8 am on Friday, pro-bike group Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists led about two dozen riders from Bloor St. and Spadina Ave. up to the accident site. They placed an all-white “ghost bike” at the intersection, a temporary monument the group erects whenever a cyclist in the city is killed.
“It’s a landmark, like a lighthouse or a buoy for other cyclists to be warned about this intersection and for it to stay in the mind of cyclists and motorists alike,” said ARC spokesperson Geoffrey Bercarich. “The ghost bike is not designed to place blame on anybody. It’s trying to make people step back and know that a cyclist died. That’s all that’s important to us.”
After asking permission from the owner of a house on the corner, ARC chained the ghost bike up to a signpost on the lawn and held a moment of silence for Roper. His relatives in the crowd shed tears as activists stopped traffic and bowed their heads. Two bikers held a sign that read “A cyclist was killed here last week.”
The intersection at Greenwood Ave. and Plains Rd. is deceptively quiet. While in a residential area, it’s directly south of an off-ramp from the Don Valley Parkway and drivers use Greenwood to head towards the Danforth. With straight roads in all directions and few traffic-calming measures, some residents say it’s a recipe for speeding.
“They come off the parkway and they’re still in a parkway mode,” said Yoksimovich.
The intersection has four-way stop signs as well as a flashing red beacon, but some say more could be done to make the neighbourhood safe for cyclists and pedestrians.
Local Councillor Mary Fragedakis was one of the roughly 30 people who attended the memorial Friday morning, and said that she’s been in discussion with city staff for months to find ways to slow traffic in the area. She said during David Miller’s administration there was a study done on the possibility of putting speed humps on Plains Rd, but then-councillor Case Ootes opposed the idea.
“Those speed humps are actually kind of expensive, so in this current climate of fiscal responsibility, we’re trying to figure out alternatives,” Fragedakis said. One measure being considered would see permit parking installed on alternating sides of the street to encourage drivers to slow down.
