Ninth Street Needs Safety Fix After Deadly Citi Bike Crash: Locals

GOWANUS, BROOKLYN — A Citi Bike rider's death along an unprotected stretch of Ninth Street shows a safety fix is long overdue, locals said.

The fatal crash Tuesday near the Second Avenue intersection in Gowanus — where a painted bike lane narrows to one shared with cars — is only the latest in Ninth Street's "terrible" history, said Eric McClure, chair of Community Board 6.

McClure said the local board will raise concerns with Department of Transportation officials during an previously scheduled call Thursday.

"As we see, the status quo doesn’t cut it,” he told Patch.

Ninth Street indeed has a troubled, and deadly, history.

A fatal 2018 crash near Fifth Avenue in Park Slope claimed the lives of Joshua Lew, 1, and Abigail Blumenstein, 4. The crash prompted a new state law and safety updates such as protected bike lanes to Ninth Street from Prospect Park to Third Avenue.

But, as McClure noted, those safety features stop just short of Second Avenue, where bicyclists share the road with largely industrial traffic.

The crash Tuesday unfolded about 7:20 a.m. as a 37-year-old woman rode a Citi Bike east along Ninth Street, police said. She stopped at a red light at Second Avenue alongside a box truck driven by a 39-year-old man, authorities said.

When the light turned green, both the bicyclist and truck driver went through the intersection and up to where the bike and vehicle lanes narrow together, police said. It's there that police said the truck driver tried to overtake the woman, but she had suddenly turned her handlebars to the left into the vehicle's path.

The woman's handlebars hit the truck and threw her to the ground, where the truck's rear tires ran her over, police said. She suffered traumatic injuries to her head and body and died along the road, authorities said.

The truck's driver remained at the scene and has not been arrested as the investigation continues, police said.

After the crash, advocates with Transportation Alternatives quickly raised alarms about dangerous conditions for bike riders at the intersection. They noted vehicles are forced to merge into a paint-only bike lane.

Four fatal crashes have occurred within a half-mile of that intersection, advocates said. And the woman's death is the second fatal cyclist crash to occur within recent days, they said.

"These deaths are the tragic and predictable outcome of failing to protect people on bikes, including the City falling short on the legal requirements of the NYC Streets Plan," said Danny Harris, executive director for Transportation Alternatives, in a statement.

And this isn't the first time transportation officials were put on notice about safety problems along Ninth Street.

Community Board 6 members in 2018 approved a bike lane for Ninth Street with the condition that DOT make safety improvements west of Third Avenue, noted Michael Racioppo, the board's district manager.

McClure acknowledged potential difficulties creating a fix for the intersection, but said officials should look into a potential shared bicycle lane-pedestrian sidewalk, or even a one-way street.

"I’m not sure what the design answer there is, there are a lot of things in play,” he said.

"We understand that we have to keep traffic flowing around the neighborhood, but none of that should come at the expense of human life."