Deaths Of Two Chelsea Cyclists Increase Demand For Safer Streets

CHELSEA, NY — Demand to make New York City's streets safer for cyclists has increased after a second bike rider in less than a week was killed in Chelsea.

Michael Mamoukakis was hit and killed by a bus on Saturday while biking near the intersection of West 29th Street and Seventh Avenue. Police say that both Mamoukakis, 80, and the charter bus were traveling south on Seventh Avenue when the bus tried to make a right turn onto West 29th Street.

Days earlier and just blocks aways, cyclist Dan Hanegby was killed when he was struck by a charter bus. Hanegby, a 30-year-old banker who lived in Brooklyn Heights with his family, had been riding a Citi Bike eastbound on West 26th Street, police said. Hanegby's death was the first in the ride-share's four-year history in New York City.

Hanegby and Mamoukakis were the sixth and seventh cyclists to be killed in crashes so far this year, according to city data. Last year, 18 cyclists were killed on New York City streets, compared to 14 in 2015 and 20 in 2014.

As part of Vision Zero, the city's initiative to reduce traffic injuries and fatalities, more bike lanes and infrastructure upgrades have been implemented throughout the city. Seventh Avenue, where Mamoukakis was biking, is set to get a protected bike lane, the city's transportation department announced earlier this year. (Want more local news? Subscribe here for free breaking news alerts, features and community updates from Patch.)

Seventh Avenue was designated by the city's transportation department as a "priority corridor" during Vision Zero reviews. Between 2011 and 2015, 38 people were seriously injured and one person was killed on the stretch of Seventh Avenue between Chelsea and Greenwich Village, according to transportation department data. The city plans to extend the bike lane along Seventh Avenue from W 30th Street to Clarkson Street. The four vehicular travel lanes along Seventh will be reduced to three, according to the department's current plans.

Cycling advocates, however, say that the expansion of protected lanes on high-trafficked city corridors isn't enough to keep a large biking population safe. The activist group Transportation Alternatives is calling for additional bike lanes on side streets, like the one Hanegby was riding on. According to the organization, no NYC cyclists have died while in protected biking lanes since 2013.

City council Member Corey Johnson, who represents Chelsea, said he wanted to organize a meeting between local leaders, the city's transportation department and representatives from the many charter buses that travel in and out of the city each day. Police said that the drivers of both buses remained on scene after the crash, and no charges have yet been filed in connection with either death.

Gothamist reported on Friday that a local advisory board in Chelsea had previously expressed concern about the prevalence of charter buses on side streets in the neighborhood. Community Board 4, which includes Chelsea, wrote a letter to the city's transportation department last year asking the to review the number of charter buses using side routes that were not designated as truck routes. The board's transportation committee is scheduled to discuss "biking and pedestrian safety issues" during its monthly meeting on Wednesday. Johnson's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Patch.

Lead image via Shutterstock.