Cycling advocates held a memorial ride Wednesday night (December 9) to pay tribute to 23-year old Alex Amaro. Hundreds of cyclists departed Bloor and Spadina and biked down to the Queen’s Park Legislature.
Amaro, a florist and aspiring journalist, was killed on the night of December 2 where Dufferin Street and Sylvan Avenue meet outside of the Dufferin Mall, a stretch cycling advocates refer to as “notoriously dangerous” and “a highway for cars.”
Emma Rogers remembers Amaro as an adventurer with a love of exploring the city through walking, hiking and biking. “She went everywhere. She was Toronto. She knew every place.”
Amaro’s grandfather, Ron Orme, said “She was the light of our eyes. She was our life.”
Holding back tears, Amaro’s grandmother, Myra Orme, said an annual highlight for her’s was to see her grandaughter’s recitals and her performances in the Pia Bouman School of Ballet’s Nutcracker, in which she danced as the Harlequin Doll and the tulip from ages 3 to 18. “She was just the most beautiful dancer.”
A makeshift memorial, which includes Amaro’s ballet flats, stands attached to a stop sign near the corner where she was killed. It is also adorned with bouquets of flowers, photos, a pineapple, messages in bottles and a lock with Amaro’s name.
A minute of silence was held for Amaro after the names of 14 other cyclists killed in the GTA this year were read aloud.
The Ontario Legislature was chosen as the endpoint for the ride to support NDP MPP Jessica Bell’s private members Bill 62, the Protecting Vulnerable Road Users Act. The bill proposes tougher penalties for drivers who are breaking the law when they kill or seriously injure cyclists and pedestrians. Bell says drivers who kill cyclists or pedestrians should have their license suspended and required to retake driver education courses.
Lawyer Dave Shellnutt, one of the participants at the memorial, says he has represented cyclists in “countless cases where people are injured for life and the driver got about a $100 ticket and it didn’t affect their insurance.”
Shellnutt says politicians who have resisted tougher penalties for drivers who kill or injure vulnerable road users “share some responsibility” for Amaro’s death.
Ward 9 City Councillor Ana Bailao released a statement on Twitter about improving safety on Dufferin.
In the statement, Bailao says she has moved motions to review ways to make Dufferin safer for cyclists and pedestrians. Those include “consideration of traffic signal installations, red-light cameras, and speed enforcement cameras and a review of street lighting.”
Jessica Spieker of Friends and Families for Safe Streets says a complete redo of Dufferin that includes physically separated bike lanes is what’s needed.
Spieker is critical of Bailao’s record on road safety, noting that in 2012 Bailao voted to remove bike lanes on Jarvis.
“Our politicians seem to fear inconveniencing drivers but they don’t seem to fear that people are going to be killed,” says Spieker.
For example, Spieker notes that one lane of Dufferin southbound between Alma and Peel just north of Queen has been blocked for a residential development project called The Brixton. With no proper signage, it has become a dangerous choke point for cyclists heading south.
Spieker points to the blocked lane on Dufferin as evidence that “reallocating road space does not cause the demise of the city. If it was a cycle track instead of a construction zone, people’s lives could be saved.”
Opposite the Dufferin Mall, a friend of Amaro’s says of the grief over her death, “It comes in waves.”
