Cyclist Killed In Broad Channel Crash Is 25th This Year

BROAD CHANNEL, QUEENS — A cyclist was killed Sunday in a crash on Cross Bay Boulevard in Queens, marking the city's 25th cyclist death so far this year.

Corona resident Bogdan Darmetko, 65, was riding his bicycle north on Cross Bay Boulevard about 2:40 p.m. when he started turning left by East 4th Road and collided with an SUV heading north on the boulevard, according to police.

EMS rushed the cyclist to St. John's Hospital, where he died.

Darmetko is the 25th cyclist killed on city streets this year, up from ten cyclist deaths in all of 2018.

A Broad Channel resident said on Twitter that the community has been asking for a traffic light on Cross Bay Boulevard, the main thoroughfare that connects mainland Queens to the Rockaways, to discourage speeding.

Today a bicyclist was hit outside our house in Broad Channel. We’ve been asking for a stoplight for safety reasons for ages, as people speed excessively through here all day and night.

This death was preventable. I’m shaken. pic.twitter.com/REARpZoT3U
— MATT MINER - @ Baltimore Con (@MattMinerXVX) October 13, 2019

"For years, residents and activists have been demanding protected bike lanes and design changes along the Cross Bay Boulevard due to a series of traffic deaths and serious injuries along the notoriously dangerous road," Transportation Alternatives' executive director, Danny Harris, said in a statement.