Accident near trestle illustrates need for roundabout

In her May 19 column, Patricia Coppard said we need speed limits on the Galloping Goose “before someone gets seriously hurt.”

Unfortunately, this has already happened several times.

I have been a commuter and pleasure cyclist my entire adult life. Back in the 1990s, when the Goose was a dream, I followed traffic on the Trans-Canada Highway, going back and forth from Victoria to Langford and from Langford to Saanich Commonwealth Pool. No accidents.

I cycled to work in heavy traffic in major cities including Montreal, Budapest, Barcelona and London.

I have cycled in the San Juan and Gulf Islands, as well as Eastern Europe. I've ridden my bike, on the road, with cars, in snowstorms, in Ottawa. I did triathlons – and I won, in my age group.

Apart from being knocked off a village road by a drunk driver at the age of 10 and being pulled over in Ottawa in my 20s, I never had a cycling accident until returning to Victoria and, in 2015, I had a horrible accident on the Galloping Goose, on my way home from swimming at Banfield Park. Yeah.

Another cyclist came out of Tyee Road on the Goose, speeding to cross the trestle, just as I was coming down the hill out of the park.

It was colliding and having two cyclists maimed, or falling. I got off and was taken to the emergency room in an ambulance. The x-rays showed a broken left wrist, a broken right elbow, and of course, a rash on my right side.

The nice gentleman who lived next to this section of the Goose, and who came to help me and stored my bike until I could get it back, told me that he had witnessed many accidents and near misses. -accidents at this intersection.

I went to a mayor's meeting at city hall to express my concern and propose a roundabout for the intersection. Instead, we received Share with Care signs.

We really need a roundabout at this intersection, where five trails converge on the West Vic side of the trestle.

Unfortunately, I've pretty much given up on cycling. The Galloping Goose is an overcrowded nightmare, for all the reasons Coppard mentions. I didn't like and never used the separated two-way bike lanes in Montreal, feeling safer on the road going in the same direction as the cars.

These days, I enjoy the luxury of taking the time to live life in step. Sometimes I'm driving and it reminds me how important it is for cyclists to wear high visibility clothing.

Unfortunately, many of them wear gray clothes and cycle at night without lights.