First Cycling Death on the Island of Montreal in over a year occurs at Forden Ave in Westmount

I sent this email to Allison Hanes, City Columnist for the Montreal Gazette, on the 5 July 2020.

Dear Ms Hanes

 

     On the evening of June 16th, my wife came home to our apartment in Westmount and told me that a head on collision between a bicycle and a car had occurred on Forden Avenue & Forden Crescent.  The cyclist had been transported to the Montreal General Hospital.  A week later we heard that the cyclist had died.  I believe this was the first cycling-related death on the Island of Montreal in over a year. ( News report no cycling deaths on Montreal roads in 2019) .    The initial collison  was reported as a  small item in The Gazette on June 17th.  From a posting on the McGill website I learned that the victim's name was  Maximilian Keywan Eivaskhani, a doctoral student from Germany in the Department of Biochemistry .

 

  Since hearing of his death. I have been looking in newspapers, listening to the CBC and searching the internet for news reports, yet aside from the above links I found nothing.  I find this most unusual, given that his was the first cycling death in a long time. This young man was an accomplished Graduate Student of McGill.  As the reporter who handles cycling issues at the Gazette, were you aware of his death?   Could you explain why there is an absence of news reports about it?

 

   People who live near the crash site have told me his parents came from Germany to be with their son and stayed with him until he died. They are still in Montreal arranging to bring their son home.   A small memorial of flowers and candles is kept at the crash site and maintained by family, colleagues and Forden Crescent neighbors.  It is a shame that a tragedy of this nature should go unnoticed by the news media.

 

   The only Gazette report of the incident contained the following two pieces of information:

 

"The cyclist, who was not wearing a helmet, was taken to hospital with serious injuries but by late Tuesday his life was not deemed to be in danger."

 

   "Police suspect the driver might have been blinded by sunlight when the incident occurred."

 

   This would lead Gazette readers to conclude that the cyclist was at fault for not wearing a helmet yet will recover, and  the car driver was not at fault as the sun was in his eyes. I feel these comments entirely miss the point.   The entrance to Forden Crescent is an unusual, hilly, curving Y shape affording poor visibility.  It should be a one way street southbound, as indicated on Google Maps, but it is not.  If the road design was modified the car would not have been attempting to enter that narrow passage in the first place.

 

   In addition the curving street designs of this hillside residential area seem to encourage high speed driving to such an extent that neighbors tell me that they worry about their children walking to nearby schools.

 

  The current news records of this incident are shamefully inadequate.

 

 

Malcolm McRae

Updates: 

    On the 7 July, The Westmount Independent became the first news outlet to report on the death of Maximillian.  The same issue of the newspaper also reported in regards to Sherbrooke Street "the previous idea of removing one traffic lane in each direction had been ruled out."  This was the idea proposed for years by cycling advocates.

     When I first read that Maximilian was from Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany the place name seemed familiar.  Further checking confirmed that it is the town known as the bicycle capital of Germany.  In addition to having a pedestrianized historic center, a new development area, Vauban, was built to be entirely car free.

Will changes to Westmount's streets be judged as actions of a progressive, bicycle friendly city?

  On the 18 July, the CBC news reported the death of Maximilian Keywan Eivaskhani.