“Speeding is a scourge on our city”; Statement After Speeding Driver Kills One Person on a Bike, Critically Injures Another, and Injures Three People in Parked Cars on West 125th Street

Less than 1% of streets in Council District 9, where the crash occurred, have a protected bike lane.West 125th Street is a Vision Zero Priority Corridor, meaning New Yorkers are killed and injured there at a significantly higher rate than other city streets.

Delivery work is the deadliest job in New York City, five times deadlier than the second most dangerous job, construction work.

NEW YORK, NY — On Thursday evening, a speeding driver struck two people on bikes, both delivery workers, on West 125th Street near Frederick Douglass Boulevard. The driver continued without stopping, striking two parked cars, both with occupants. One of the people on bikes, a 28-year-old man, was killed. The other was injured, along with three occupants of the parked cars.

The 28-year-old man killed on his bike was the fifth cyclist killed on New York City streets, and the 34th New Yorker killed in a traffic crash so far this year. Despite being a dense, transit-rich neighborhood with heavy foot and bike traffic, less than 1% of streets in City Council District 9 have protected bike lanes — fewer than 70% of New York City Council Districts. Local activists have long called for the creation of a Central Harlem Bikeway to connect residents across the neighborhood, but the bike lane remains unbuilt.

This fatal crash comes as New Yorkers demand new tools to fight an epidemic of speeding, including a bill in Albany to install speed limiters on the vehicles of the most reckless “super speeders,” the implementation of Sammy’s Law with 24-hour-a-day slow zones around schools and on neighborhood streets, regulatory safeguards to rein in the predatory employment practices of food delivery companies, and the relaunching of the Streets Master Plan, which could require safe streets infrastructure such as protected bike lanes, hardened pedestrian islands, and daylighting to slow speeding drivers.

Statement from Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Ben Furnas:

“We’re horrified to learn that a single driver was able to speed through one of the busiest corridors in Harlem, striking multiple people in a matter of seconds and killing one while injuring four others. We refuse to live in a New York City where this is normal. 

“Speeding is a scourge on our city. It terrorizes our neighborhoods, terrifies our children and parents, kills our neighbors every week, and makes our beautiful streets into miserable places to be. This crash was not an anomaly but a constant recurrence. The drivers may change, but the threat to New Yorkers remains the same. We need to be better protected from speeding drivers, and the City of New York needs more tools to protect us.

“New Yorkers should not have to risk their lives just to get to work, make a delivery, or move through their own neighborhood. We know how to stop this. The City of New York must use Sammy’s Law aggressively and expansively to reduce speed limits to 20 mph, and install a network of protected bike lanes to connect every New York City neighborhood, starting with Adam Clayton Powell Drive.”