Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 31, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba A TEENAGE cyclist was injured Monday after she was struck by a vehicle near the intersection of Wellington Crescent and Academy Road, renewing calls for better ac- tive-transportation infrastructure. Winnipeg police said the crash hap- pened at about 8:45 p.m. The teen, who was cycling with her father, was hospitalized but has since been released, Winnipeg Police Service spokesperson Const. Dani McKinnon said Tuesday. Her father was not in- jured. McKinnon said the driver, who re- mained at the scene, may have been ex- periencing a medical event at the time, and the investigation is continuing. Passerby Mark Hildahl blocked traffic with his vehicle immediately af- ter the collision. He used his paramedic training to keep the teen’s spine stable. “My heart sunk,” he said Tuesday. “She wasn’t moving; at first I thought she might be dead.” He said he didn’t notice that the vehicle’s driver was in medical dis- tress, but observed that she was “very distraught.” He was told the driver was later taken away by an ambulance. Hildahl described what happened Monday as “everybody’s worst night- mare” at a notoriously unsafe inter- section. “I travel through this intersection multiple times a week and it’s just hor- rible,” he said. “The entire design of the intersection at Wellington and Academy is designed for cars, there’s nothing that’s designed for pedestrians or cyclists, so it’s ex- tremely dangerous for everybody.” The crash happened a short distance from where Rob Jenner, 61, was killed June 6 in a hit-and-run on Wellington Crescent near Cockburn Street. Jenner had been cycling to his job at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Beckham Keneth Severight, 19, has been charged with dangerous driving causing death and failing to stop at the scene. Last week, more than 100 cyclists calling for improved infrastructure gathered outside the museum to honour Jenner’s memory. Among them was Patty Wiens, a dir- ector of Bike Winnipeg, who blamed poor infrastructure for the crashes. “Do you think this kid will ever get on a bike again? This is not OK. Our roads need better design,” she said. “That’s what it’s going to actually take. It’s not about enforcement, it’s about design.” About 180 cyclists blocked cars at the intersection of Academy and Welling- ton as a protest on Tuesday evening. Wiens said she wonders how many pedestrians and cyclists need to be hurt or killed before bike infrastructure be- comes a priority. “We are tired of protesting. I don’t want to be shutting down intersections once a week. It’s going to take some ser- ious political will,” she said. Following Jenner’s death last month, Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry Coun. Sherri Rollins called the stretch of Wellington Crescent a “known gap in the cycling plan for the city” and sug- gested her calls to install 30 km/h zones around the ward hadn’t been heard due to a lack of political will. Brent Bellamy, a Free Press colum- nist who writes on urban planning, was hit by a driver while cycling at the same intersection in 2019. He witnessed the aftermath of Monday’s collision. Both Wellington Crescent and Acad- emy Road are designed for commut- ers but are in the middle of a pedes- trian-dense residential area, and cars “fly by” the slip lanes on Wellington Crescent, he said. He noted that just across from where the crash happened, a piece of the fen- cing at St. Mary’s Academy is missing after being hit by a driver. “It doesn’t even have a stop sign for five kilometres, from Academy all the way to Assiniboine Park. It’s actually designed to be unsafe. It’s designed to prioritize speed and traffic volumes,” he said. Streets should be designed to account for medical emergencies, mistakes and freak accidents, Bellamy said, add- ing slower traffic, more narrow inter- sections and fewer lanes all reduce the amount of time cyclists and ped- estrians are interacting with cars and give them more time to escape danger- ous situations. “We have to design our streets to al- low things that aren’t normal to happen, and provide as much safety as we can, as much room for error as possible on our streets,” he said. malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca WEDNESDAY JULY 31, 2024 ● ASSOCIATE EDITOR, NEWS: STACEY THIDRICKSON 204-697-7292 ● CITY.DESK@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM SECTION B CONNECT WITH WINNIPEG’S NO. 1 NEWS SOURCE ▼ CITY ● BUSINESS MARK HILDAHL PHOTO Passerby Mark Hildahl used his truck to block traffic Monday after a teen was hit by a vehicle while riding her bike with her father. Cyclists demand safety improvements MALAK ABAS Teen on bike struck by vehicle at intersection of Wellington Crescent and Academy Road Government Services Minister Lisa Naylor and Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham announced the new funding on Tuesday. South Winnipeg high school to get $17-M vocational wing PEMBINA Trails Collegiate is getting $17 million to build a new addition with facilities to teach trade skills. Government Services Minister Lisa Naylor announced the provincial funding at a news conference Tuesday. The funds will be used to construct a 19,000-square- foot indoor and outdoor wing at the school where students will learn vocational skills, such as cooking, welding, ma- chining and carpentry. The facility will allow students to get “valuable training and hands-on skill development,” Naylor said. The Pembina Trails School Division said the addition will give hundreds of high school students in-house pro- gramming, expanding on a technical vocation education program already offered at the school. “The addition of the vocational wing is an important step forward for the Pembina Trails community and an incredible opportunity for our students to begin work- ing towards a career in a skilled trade,” board chair Tim Johnson said in a release. Planned outdoor workspaces will allow for large con- struction projects, and culinary students will have a gar- den space for homegrown produce, he said. Skills Manitoba, a not-for-profit organization promoting trades to youth, said in a statement that it is excited about the potential benefits from the addition. “With the increased demand in skilled trade careers, the vocational wing represents a wonderful opportunity to empower Manitoba’s youth to embrace skilled trades and technologies,” executive director Maria Pacella said. Naylor called the addition a “big step forward” in deliv- ering on a campaign promise to create the adjacent South Winnipeg Recreation Campus in one of the province’s fastest-growing communities. Mayor Scott Gillingham agreed, calling it a significant milestone in the development of the project. “It’s a campus that includes many different aspects and many different initiatives all together in one space,” Gillingham said, adding construction of the campus is set to begin in 2025. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS New 19,000-square-foot addition includes indoor and outdoor facilities JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS Members of the cycling community blocked cars at the intersection of Academy Road and Wellington Crescent Tuesday in a protest to call for safer road infrastructure. JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS ;