Photo: Landon Bradshaw
A ghost bike has been installed next to Highway 97 near the Kelowna-Lake Country boundary, marking the spot where a cyclist died in May.
Bill Urquhart, 70, died after being hit by a vehicle while trying to cross the road near the intersection of Parkinson Drive at the northern end of Lake Ellison.
Urquhart lived nearby and headed to the city center to attend a university community support worker program, a trip he has made regularly for years.
“He dreamed of working with homeless and addicted people,” says a sign on the ghost bike. “He had actually been helping people all his life, as a paramedic, district manager of the SHARE company, life coach and anger management specialist. He had an amazing life and would have given his life to save. another, without thinking twice.
Landon Bradshaw, president of the Kelowna Area Cycling Coalition, says this is the first ghost bike they have had to install in about three years. They currently have four in the city and usually stay between three and five years.
White bikes are intended to “memorize and help keep in everyone’s mind what has happened and what continues to happen,” Bradshaw said.
Numerous studies have shown that keeping drivers aware of cyclists makes roads safer for everyone, he added.
Urquhart’s death has renewed calls for the opening of the Okanagan Rail Trail on the east side of Lake Ellison via OKIB land.
The railroad opened in 2018, but this stretch has remained closed due to the bureaucracy involved in the transfer of land to the First Nation by the federal government. If the road had been open, Urquhart would have been there, instead of the freeway. Local mayors and MP Tracy Gray have called for the case to be moved, but no resolution is yet in sight.
Bradshaw said Urquhart, two years ago, had been calling the town of Kelowna “trying to figure out what was going on with the railroad track and trying to open that stretch of railroad track.”
He probably knew that where he died was the most dangerous part of his journey through the city center.
“This was a guy who had a very community mindset, and losing him is a loss for everyone,” Bradshaw said, adding that he would like people to take care of each other on the roads.
Photo: contributed
Bill Urquhart