While remembering those cyclists and pedestrians who were killed over the course of the past year, cyclists and pedestrians occasionally found their own lives endangered yesterday, during the 7th Annual Memorial Ride and Walk. On Staten Island, the mother of a cyclist killed by a hit-and-run driver last month told the Staten Island Advance that while putting up her son's memorial, she and others were nearly hit by a speeding driver, at the same spot where her son died. "We almost got run off the road," Nancy Tillman, mother of RJ Tillman, told the Advance.
Photos: Killed Cyclists Remembered With Ghost Bike Memorials
"Unnamed" Ghost Bike Memorial To Be Installed Outside 90th Precinct Station In Williamsburg Sunday
This Sunday the NYC Street Memorial Project will hold the 7th Annual Memorial Ride and Walk, to remember pedestrians and cyclists killed in NYC over the past year. (Details here.) Cyclists will ride from locations in Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island and Brooklyn and traverse the city, stopping at sixteen ghost bikes, laying flowers, and paying respects to bicyclists killed since 2011. Walkers, meanwhile, will visit the locations of pedestrian fatalities along McGuinness Boulevard since 1995.
Next Sunday: 7th Annual "Ghost Bike" Memorial Ride
Next Sunday, the Seventh Annual Memorial Ride and Walk will take place across all five boroughs to commemorate cyclists who have been killed on the streets of New York City in the past year.
City Backpedals on Ghost Bike Removal
The Sanitation Department has quickly reversed itself on a plan to remove all of the approximately 50 Ghost Bike memorials locked up around town. The original removal plan was part of a larger initiative to clear the sidewalks of derelict, broken down bikes that have been locked to city property (street signs, etc.) and forgotten. Those bikes would still be targeted under the proposal [pdf], but late yesterday the Sanitation Department issued a statement saying that a "memorial bicycle (ghost rider) will only be removed... if the memorial bicycle meets the derelict bicycle criteria."
Drunk Driver Who Fatally Hit Bicyclist Sentenced
Eugenio Cidron, the man who killed bicyclist Eric Ng in 2006 after driving drunk down the West Side bike path instead of the West Side Highway following a holiday party at Chelsea Piers, was sentenced yesterday to three to 10 years in prison. Cidron had driven over a plastic pylon to enter the path from Chelsea Piers and had been driving south for a mile before hitting Ng, who was traveling north.

