Cyclist says Saskatoon a 'hostile' environment for riders in wake of recent death
Miki Mappin says she has been hit by vehicles two times while biking in the city
Saskatoon cyclist Miki Mappin was hit by a vehicle on Avenue P about five years ago, and the recent death of another cyclist highlights safety concerns for riders in the city.
On Wednesday, 36-year-old Darin Leon Kinniewess was hit and killed by a vehicle driven by a motorist near the intersection of 19th Street West and Avenue P South. He was taken to hospital, but died the next morning due to injuries sustained in the crash.
"It kind of brings up a sort of a traumatic reaction in me to think about people dying on bicycles so often," said Mappin, who rides her bike every day in Saskatoon's west end. "When I'm riding my bicycle, I fear that."
Mappin, who lives in the Pleasant Hill neighbourhood, has been a cyclist for nearly 40 years. About five years ago, while biking uphill on Avenue P in the winter, Mappin says she was sideswiped by a school bus.
"Instead of waiting, the school bus tried to squeeze past me and pulled in and the back part of the bus kind of pushed against the side of me," she said.
While Mappin wasn't injured or knocked from her bicycle, she said the incident was still "extremely frightening" because of the potential danger.
Then in 2020, while on her way home from a grocery store on 22nd Street, she was struck by a vehicle and fell off her bicycle onto the cement.
"The motorist that had sideswiped me, actually stopped and got out of the car and came and accused me of damaging his car," said Mappin.
Bystanders help during crash
At the site of the crash where Kinniewess was hit, bystanders rushed to help last week.
Vivian Caisse said she was there when it happened, and she heard a loud bang followed by a scream.
Caisse rushed over to find Kinniewess stuck under the vehicle.
"Like [he] couldn't move, and I was trying to keep him calm, telling him to lay still ... And he kept saying it hurts, and I kept telling him he just got hit by a vehicle," she said.
The police and fire department arrived at 5:45 p.m. CST. Cassie said she and about five others helped lift the vehicle from on top of Kinniewess.
"The only thing [Kinniewess] said is 'I just wanna go home and eat.' That's it. He just wanted to go home and eat," Cassie said.
Changing city
Mappin says driver aggression seems to have gotten worse in Saskatoon since the removal of a dedicated bike lane on Fourth Avenue North in 2019.
"Things have changed in Saskatoon and I feel like, especially in the last decade, drivers have been getting less and less considerate. I almost feel like there's been a marked increase in driver aggression," she said.
According to statistics provided by SGI, from the years 2017 to 2022, Saskatoon had 323 total collisions involving a bicycle on an urban street, with one fatal collision occurring in 2021 on 33rd Street and Avenue G.
There were 232 crashes that resulted in injury.
There were six total fatalities across the province in that period, and four of them took place on urban streets. Regina holds the highest death count in the province with three.
Kinniewess's death marked the second cycling fatality of the year in Saskatoon — after Natasha Fox was killed in May in a collision with a cement truck on Wiggins Avenue and College Drive.
'We're all upset'
James Arnold, a board member of Saskatoon Cycles, says the area where Kinniewess died on Avenue P is not unique.
"We have many such intersections in Saskatoon and it's a sign of Saskatoon lagging in doing appropriate design to make road travel safe for all road users, not just car users," said Arnold.
"I'm very upset. We're all upset. It's something we're just thinking about, ongoing."
He said in the instance of Natasha Fox's death, the intersection at College and Wiggins was studied almost a decade ago, but city council "kicked it down the road."
In June, council voted unanimously to get a third-party road safety audit at that intersection.
The city's transportation department said it will review proposals from consultants next week. After successful negotiation, a report on the road safety audit at the corner of Wiggins Avenue and College Drive can be expected by the second quarter of 2024.
Last week, Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark offered his condolences to the family and friends of Kinniewess and provided his thoughts on the collision.
"It's always that much more worrying because of how much more harm can be done … if you're hit while you're walking or cycling. So obviously we'll be looking into it and understanding it," Clark said.
Saskatoon Ward 6 Coun. Cynthia Block said "it's heart-wrenching" for the family and for the whole community.
Block said work is ongoing to make cycling safer in Saskatoon, but more needs to be done.
"I think in the situation that we're in, the death that we've seen this summer, I think it really behooves us to take a closer look at that plan," Block said.
She said the city needs to work aggressively toward identifying spots that are highly used for transportation — including pedestrians, cyclists or any other mode of transportation other than a vehicle — and figure out a game plan for that.
She mentioned the use of rapid deployment tools, where temporary bicycle lanes are tested for several weeks and to see if they work, and suggested that can help make quicker decisions on those pinch points that see more cyclists and pedestrians.
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With files from Theresa Kliem, Dayne Patterson, Laura Sciarpelletti and Saskatoon Morning