A ghost bike in memory of Kim Staley was placed Sunday afternoon at the intersection of Mount Auburn and DeWolfe streets in Harvard Square, exactly two years after Staley died in a collision with a box truck. The crash is still under investigation.
Staley’s bike was installed by area activist and Boston Bike Party organizer Peter Cheung and MassBike executive director Galen Mook. Cheung has acted as the de facto ghost bike coordinator in the Boston area since 2015, placing 25 of the white-painted cycles in the Boston area, eight of them in Cambridge and Somerville, including the first, which commemorated Marcia Deihl after she was struck and killed while leaving the Whole Foods in Central Square.
“The meaning of a ghost bike is really twofold,” Cheung said. “One purpose is to pay homage to the cyclist who was killed and show respect for the rider. The other is to raise awareness among drivers and remind everyone to share the road with other vulnerable road users.”
The bike for Staley was originally designated for MIT doctoral candidate Minh-Thi Nguyen, who died two weeks later in a crash near Kendall Square. Nguyen’s family declined the memorial for cultural and religious reasons (she is not counted in Cheung’s total). Cheung said the ghost bike process is informal and done in collaboration with local groups like Cambridge Bike Safety, which reach out to the families to gain approval and also lend support.
For such installations, a public unveiling and memorial ceremony is usually held with the cycling community and members of the victim’s family in attendance, such as the one for John Corcoran last September, the same month he was struck and killed near the Boston University Boathouse along Memorial Drive. But since Staley was from Florida and a memorial is still being planned, this was an unveiling and was lightly attended.
While both Mount Auburn and DeWolfe streets have separated bike lanes, in the wake of the deadly crash, Cambridge Bike Safety appealed to the city for greater spatial separation and signal tweaks to improve safety and clarity at the intersection. Several of the requested improvements were implemented.
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