Tourist's Death Leads To Calls For Protected Bike Lane On UWS

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — The Upper West Side's City Council representative is calling on the city to install a protected bike lane on Central Park West after an Australian tourist was hit and killed while biking on the street's unprotected lane.

City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal called the death of 23-year-old Madison Jane Lyden "a profound tragedy, even more so because it was preventable," in a statement released Monday night on Twitter.

"In many areas of our city, painted bike lanes are simply not enough to protect cyclists. We need a two-way protected bike lane on Central Park West. This should never happen again," Rosenthal's statement read.

Lyden was hit by private garbage truck on Friday as she biked along Central Park West with a friend, police said. She was riding inside the bike lane near West 67th Street around 4:45 p.m. and was forced to swerve when a livery cab pulled into the bike lane, police said. When Lyden swerved, she was struck by a private carting truck that was traveling north on Central Park West, police said.

The tourist suffered severe trauma to the body and was taken to Roosevelt Hospital where she was pronounced dead, police said.

Lyden, a resident of Greelong, Australia, was visiting New York City with her friend on what her parents described as the "trip of a lifetime," the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

"Madison was a beautiful, beautiful daughter. She was loyal, loving," Lyden's father told the Australian publication. "I used to call her a star. She was a star."

The truck driver, 44-year-old Felipe Chairez, was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated, police said.

A protected bike lane acts to separate bike traffic from car traffic through some sort of physical barrier. Most protected lanes in the city are formed by shifting curb-side parking into the street and giving the curb-side lane to cyclists. The current bike path on Central Park West is located directly in between a travel lane and a parking lane, so drivers have to cut across it in order to park or pull out into the road.

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