Woman On CitiBike Killed In Truck Crash On Upper East Side: NYPD

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A young woman riding a CitiBike down a quiet Upper East Side street was fatally struck by a truck Tuesday morning, according to police.

Updates: Woman Killed In UES Truck Crash Identified As Yorkville Resident; UES Shot Down Bike Lane On Street Where Yorkville Woman Was Killed

The 28-year-old woman was biking west along East 85th Street between Madison and Park avenues about 10:50 a.m when she was hit by the tractor-trailer moving in the same direction, according to police. (Police initially said the woman was biking against traffic, but later clarified that she was moving in the right direction.)

The woman suffered severe head trauma, an NYPD spokesperson said.

Medics rushed the woman to Weill Cornell Medical Center but doctors could not save her life, police said.

The truck driver stayed at the scene, police said.

Police had no description of the truck.

Video posted to the Citizen app showed what appeared to be a large food-distribution truck stopped in the middle of the street, which was cordoned off by police tape after the crash. The mostly-residential block is also home to Regis High School and Park Avenue Christian Church.

East 85th Street is not among the official truck routes that commercial vehicles are supposed to use in New York City — though nearby East 86th Street is.

Danny Harris, executive director of the street-safety group Transportation Alternatives, condemned the woman's death in a statement Tuesday evening.

"Another New Yorker is dead while trying to ride a bicycle on the Upper East Side," Harris said. "Despite decades of advocacy, New York City has failed to build adequate crosstown protected bike lanes in this neighborhood. The absence of safe biking infrastructure on the Upper East Side is deadly."

New York also does not allow 53-foot-long tractor-trailers — the larger of the two standard trailer lengths — to make pickups or deliveries within the five boroughs, though some advocates point out that the rule is often violated.

The size of the truck involved in Tuesday's crash was not clear.