A bicyclist died after being hit by a truck at around 4:30 p.m. Friday at Mount Auburn and DeWolfe streets, south of Harvard Square in the Riverside neighborhood, according to police.
Cambridge and state police are investigating, said Cambridge Police Department spokesperson Robert Goulston. The name of the victim hasn’t been released, but was identified late Friday as a 55-year-old Florida woman. (Update on June 24, 2024: The victim was identified later as Kim Staley of Naples, Florida.)
The woman was on a rented Bluebike near St. Paul’s Parish when a truck with no side guards turned right across a cyclist going straight across the intersection, according to the Cambridge Bicycle Group. A member was on the scene shortly after the crash, along with several police officers. A preliminary investigation suggested that the truck and bicycle were traveling the same direction on Mount Auburn and the truck turned onto DeWolf Street, police said.
First responders treated the woman on the scene and took her to CHA Cambridge Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The truck operator remained on scene, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan and Cambridge police commissioner Christine Elow said in a 9:12 p.m. mail confirming an investigation was underway.
The most recent previous death of a bicyclist was in Somerville, as Stephen Conley, 72, died in August 2022 on Broadway near Teele Square from a “dooring” incident – the driver of an SUV opened a car door and hit him. A month before that, Cantabrigian George Clemmer was killed in a collision with a dump truck in Boston. Paula Sharaga, died February 19 in a traffic crash in Boston when a cement truck hit her bicycle in an intersection.
There have been previous truck deaths in Cambridge, including of Matthew Barker in a parking lot in The Port near Central Square in September 2022; Darryl Willis in August 2020 by a tractor-trailer near the Harvard Square T Station; Jie Zhao, killed by a dump truck in October 2018 in Cambridgeport; and Bernard “Joe” Lavins, who was hit by a tractor-trailer in October 2016 in Porter Square.
The Cambridge Bicycle Safety group gave a statement Friday evening: “We are heartbroken to hear of the fatal crash involving a person riding a bike in Cambridge today. We extend our deepest condolences to their family and friends. Cambridge Bicycle Safety remains committed to a future where no one needs to endure such tragedies. We have more to do to improve our infrastructure to make our streets safe for everyone who travels them.”
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There are bike infrastructure treatments for intersections: https://www.mass.gov/doc/chapter-4-intersection-design-0/download
City council is a political position, doing their job can mean just about anything and it depends on their political priorities. In this case 5 councilors chose to do their tax payer funded job by delaying street safety improvements that hundreds of residents came to speak out against. That is worthy of criticism.
It is a study that includes Cambridge among a variety of other locations in the US. It finds: “The use of flexible delineator posts consistently resulted in a decrease in total crashes.” if you look at the charts you can see that is a 50% reduction, which is really significant.
You are obfuscating or don’t understand how scientific facts work. The study has a clear result, it is just inconvenient for your anti-bike lane argument, if you want to continue to claim to care about bike safety.
OK, @Slaw-I “don’t understand … scientific facts,” despite having worked on a medical journal for 14 years. Nevertheless, many of the bike lanes aren’t increasing safety for anyone other than cyclists. I drove someone who is disabled to a medical appointment yesterday and had nowhere to pull up so that she could forego the walk from the distant parking space to the facility, as the entire stretch of road had been converted to a bike lane. And I missed being mowed down by a speeding cyclist by mere seconds; he didn’t even hesitate as he barreled toward me out of nowhere. So you’re correct that I oppose “safety” measures when they endanger other groups of road users–pedestrians and disabled–who far outnumber cyclists.
No one has ever died from being hit by a cyclist in the Boston area. You oppose real safety improvements that protect people from the actual danger posed by automobiles because of a perceived but highly exaggerated danger of reckless cyclists. And yeah that guy sounds like an asshole. When I see people doing things like that I tell them so.
That being said there is a lot of evidence that bike lanes also improve pedestrian safety. They narrow lanes slowing cars down, they narrow the distance you need to cross, and they provide a barrier between sidewalks and traffic.
Just FYI for pickup and drop off it is fully legal to simply block the general travel lane.
If you are in a bike lane you have to make sure there is no cyclist coming much like when you cross a road. It is to the cyclist interest to be cautious about inattentive pedestrians but it is the pedestrian responsibility to pay attention. Agan, as I said before nothing can fix this problem more than educating every participant in traffic. American cities are not built with the bike in mind, but that doesn’t mean we all through our hands in the air and quit. Like it or not, in hubs like metro Boston there will be more and more people which means more and more cars, but the streets number and size will be the same and some point it will be a total gridlock especially during commute times. Therefore bikes will never go away, in fact there will be more and more of them. I’d say get used to it and instead of complaining about the current infrastructure which is nowhere near perfect you should advocate for traffic rules and enforcements that benefit all vulnerable participants especially cyclists (some of these need to be educated as well and some traffic tickets will be well deserved by some – I see cyclists texting while cycling with no hands for crying out loud – that is case of true darwinism)
@Slaw thanks for acknowledging that the behavior of the cyclist I described is unacceptable. At the speed that he was traveling I think a hit could well have led to a fatality. If not a fatality, then permanent disability, which isn’t much better. As for the legality of stopping in the travel lane for a dropoff, that would have been inviting a rear-end collision in the particular location.
@ucu I have in fact for better enforcement on a number of occasions. The significant safety- and climate-related changes, IMO, would have to come from radical improvements, including wider connectivity, in the public transit system and implementation of high-speed rail, as other developed countries have managed to do.
There is not a single example of a cyclist killing a pedestrian in or around Boston I can find. I have tried. Serious injuries in these crashes are also extremely, extremely rare. I recently saw a similar incident where someone wasn’t paying attention and was walking cluelessly in the bike lane. Someone ahead of me going over 15 mph (I know because that was the speed I was going and they were going faster) clipped them. The person was annoyed but absolutely fine, not even knocked over, at worst they would have a bruise. I still stepped into gear and caught up to the cyclist at the next light to tell them they were an asshole.
Stopping in the travel lane is legal. Stopping in the bike lane isn’t. You should really consider why your fear of someone hitting your car should take precedence over the risk of forcing cyclists into a blind merge into traffic around your car. Put on your hazard lights, you will be fine.
Also he didn’t hit you, showing that again the danger is exaggerated. Even fast moving cyclists are moving much slower than cars can go and are still pretty damn good at avoiding other people.
Sorry to see that you’re back to your usual ridiculing tone. Regarding “You should really consider why your fear of someone hitting your car should take precedence over the risk of forcing cyclists into a blind merge into traffic around your car”: This is a grossly erroneous guess at the actual situation. First, I was dropping off someone who was using a walker (which had to be removed from the trunk) and was moving very slowly. This was a section of Mass Ave abutting the law school, which the cyclist, who came careening toward me, was navigating at bat-out-of-hell speed. He was in no danger whatsoever. And “the danger” to me was not “exaggerated”–unless you consider cyclists’ claims about having to dangerously slam on their brakes as people sometimes heedlessly open their car doors as equally exaggerated.
So if a cyclist doesn’t actually end up being doored, was their fear “exaggerated”? And do you think a pedestrian struck by a cyclist riding at 20+ mph (which he was) would be any less injured than a moving cyclist who contacted a door? And is it OK if speeding drivers are “pretty damn good” at skirting cyclists within inches without actually hitting them? Perhaps their dexterity absolves them?
Re: “There is not a single example of a cyclist killing a pedestrian in or around Boston”: Some have been seriously injured here; is that OK? And there have been deaths, in NYC and elsewhere, and numerous grave injuries. Studies acknowledge that the data for cyclist-on-pedestrian collisions is underreported. As greater numbers of cyclists flock to the bike infrastructure that’s being built at such a rapid pace, it’s inconceivable that morbidity and mortality will remain at past levels, given the amount of reckless riding.
That wasn’t ridicule it was a genuine question. You have been far ruder to me than I have to you.
You dodged the question btw. Your choice to block bike infrastructure puts bicyclists at risk of being hit by cars (a very real thing that happens) You justify it by claiming your car is at risk of being rear ended (a pretty unlikely scenario if you put on your hazard lights). So again why does the perceived risk to your vehicle take greater precedence than the real risk to human beings?
your comparisons are without merit. Cyclists can die from being doored. Again no one has died from being hit by a bike in this city and there are only one or two examples in the whole country any time recently. It is extremely rare. Dooring having serious consequences is much more common. Someone was doored and injured on one of the streets with delayed bike lanes about a week ago, a woman was seriously injured after being doored into a bus last year, a couple years ago an elderly man was killed in Somerville after being doored. There are many more examples of that. Again you place your assumed risk from a 100 something pound person on a 20 pound bike as a greater issue than those people being hit and run over by thousand pound vehicles. Now this is a bit of ridicule: get a sense of perspective.
“And do you think a pedestrian struck by a cyclist riding at 20+ mph (which he was) would be any less injured than a moving cyclist who contacted a door?”
Yes I literally do. I have seen the impact of both and even when dooring someone doesn’t kill them it frequently results in serious injuries to hands, arms, heads, and necks, a bike hitting a person doesnt feel good but it is nowhere similar in terms of injury rate or severity. Stop trying to draw false equivalencies.
“And is it OK if speeding drivers are “pretty damn good” at skirting cyclists within inches without actually hitting them?”
You realize speeding drivers are breaking the law right? A bicyclist going 20 mph in a bike lane is entirely within their rights and yeah considering they were still able to avoid you I don’t see the problem. Again you are attempting to draw a comparison between things that are not comparable. Speeding cars kill people “speeding bikes” (likely still way below the speed limit) are at worst a danger to themselves, but more typically are just a discomfort.
See: https://www.iihs.org/topics/speed
See also: https://www.ite.org/technical-resources/topics/speed-management-for-safety/speed-as-a-safety-problem/
“Some have been seriously injured here; is that OK?“ find one. I can find dozens of examples of people (both bicyclists and pedestrians) being killed and injured by cars. I don’t think it is good for people to be injured but again you are comparing something extremely, extremely rare to something that actually happens all the time and acting like the former is the bigger issue.
There has been, from what I’ve seen, a death caused by a E-bicyclist in NYC. That is tragic, no one should die on our streets, but if you are upset about that you should be livid about the hundreds of people killed by cars in the same city. Again please get a sense of perspective, these issues are not comparable but you seem to care a lot more about the materially smaller issue.
Your doomsday scenario of increased biking meaning more dangers for pedestrians also doesn’t track. Countries with higher cycling rates have much lower rates of pedestrian injuries and fatalities because again, the real threat to pedestrians isn’t bikes it is cars. In fact making streets safer for bikes is part of how those countries reduced the rate of pedestrian injuries and fatalities: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-26/u-s-lessons-from-the-dutch-traffic-safety-revolution
See also how easily bikes and pedestrians coexist when you get the cars in check: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqQSwQLDIK8
Bikes aren’t the issue for pedestrians, cars are. Your dedication to presenting this as if it is an equivalent or greater problem is without merit, completely in contradiction to all evidence, and yes exaggerated. Bikes and pedestrians shouldn’t be fighting over scraps while the automobile still dominates our streets and adding more dedicated space for bikes will only reduce the number of conflicts (regardless of their predicted or real severity) between bikes and pedestrians.
A person has died in a tragic accident. A family and friends are mourning. That is a terrible event.
For those who engage in doing so, please stop the rank exploitation of that poor woman’s death for your own political agenda
The actions of the five councilors have not one single connection to this tragedy. There are separated bike lanes before and after the intersection. There are appropriate vehicle and bike lights at the intersection. There are no separated bike lanes in any intersection where there are turns. Please stop it.
Just tried to submit a comment in reply to that slaw comment about my post. It appears I was denied as being a duplicative comment. It was replying more specifically and with a different message to stop exploiting the death of this poor woman. Yet I see multiple comments from all the people who are doing just that – exploiting her death.
@ Slaw I don’t respond to rants or personal attacks. Enjoy your echo chamber.
@Barbara Anthony I agree.
@AllisS You just responded. Also what personal attack? I addressed all your questions and comments with evidence. You are refusing to engage with evidence that contradicts your narrative, but accuse me of being in an echo chamber… ha!
Sorry it annoys you that the facts don’t fit your agenda but, frankly, facts don’t care about your feelings.
@Barbara “There are separated bike lanes before and after the intersection.” There are not. If the cyclist was turning from MT auburn to Dewolfe as is suggested there is no south bound bike lane on Dewolfe at all. The protection on the Mt auburn lane amounts entirely to flex posts and could be considerably hardened as well. Stop attempting to separate the consequences of political choices from the people who made those political choices.
I’ll believe you care at all about ” rank exploitation” when people like you who oppose bike infrastructure stop claiming every closed business is the fault of bike lanes.
“There are no separated bike lanes in any intersection where there are turns.” False. I already linked this to you: There are bike infrastructure treatments for intersections: https://www.mass.gov/doc/chapter-4-intersection-design-0/download
If I am killed by a car/truck while on a bike please “exploit” my death to push for safer streets and better bike infrastructure.
For people who are interested in increasing safety in intersections: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/prevent-bicyclist-deaths-before-they-happen-both-in-and-out-of-intersections/