Where Do Those Painted White ‘Ghost Bikes’ Come From?

This is Street Wars, a weekly series on the battle for space on New York’s streets and sidewalks.

On a chilly Saturday evening in April, Kevin Daloia took a bicycle that he had painted white and locked it to a pole on East 161st Street and Melrose Avenue in the Bronx. Then he climbed up, stood on the seat of the bike and mounted a metal sign on the pole above it.

“Cyclist Killed Here/Rest In Peace,” the sign said.

The cyclist, Thierno Balde, was hit by a car on Feb. 23 while on his way home from prayers at his mosque. The driver fled after the crash and then ditched a crumpled Jeep Grand Cherokee a few blocks away, according to reports.

The police said Balde had run a red light. But the authorities also said the driver had been speeding.

Daloia didn’t know Balde, but that didn’t matter.

In his free time, Daloia volunteers to paint old bicycles and fasten them to poles as “ghost bikes” for the New York City Street Memorial Project, which consists of installations around the city marking locations where cyclists have died.

The bikes — completely white, including tires, spokes and pedals — serve as stark memorials, both an alert to passers-by that a cyclist was killed and a reminder of the dangerous conditions cyclists face in New York. The activists who install the bikes hope to catch the attention of drivers as well.

Daloia isn’t sure how many, exactly, he has erected. “I’ve done this for a long time,” he said. “Anything in the Bronx I’ve touched, and I’ve touched a lot more throughout the city. I don’t know the number, man. Probably 20, 25?”

Last year was the deadliest for cyclists in New York since 1999. Thirty cyclists were killed in 2023, according to the city’s Department of Transportation. Of those, 23 were riding e-bikes. Most fatalities occurred in collisions with cars and trucks — on streets that did not have dedicated bike lanes.

The concept of ghost bikes didn’t start in New York, but given the sobering recent death toll, you may have noticed more of them on our streets.

“It was an idea that spread from city to city,” said Leah Todd, another volunteer with the project.

In New York, a group of artists called Visual Resistance first put up ghost bikes in 2005 in response to a couple of cyclist deaths. “It was supposed to speak more powerfully than words,” Todd said. “A silent but very communicative memorial.”

The idea caught on and continues to gain momentum, Todd said. “We had some grand idea and hope that people would, you know, want to care — and want to limit these deaths,” she said.

Ghost bike volunteers receive donated bicycles from bike shops, friends or word of mouth. They remove a few essential parts from each bike, rendering it un-ridable and therefore less likely to be stolen.

Although cyclist fatalities are usually caused by car crashes, the volunteers who install ghost bikes are not necessarily anti-car.

Daloia describes himself as “a Bronx cycling traffic safety advocate who starts his car every day.”

He drives, yes, but he still loves to ride his bike. “I actually see things differently than from in my car,” he said.

Daloia believes cars, people and bicycles should be able to coexist peacefully. “I want some of the roads around here to be safer for pedestrians and cyclists,” he said. “And I want them to know there are cyclists out there.”

With a flourishing bike-share program and ongoing projects to expand bike routes, John Orcutt, the director of advocacy for Bike New York, describes a city in flux. “We’re in this place right now where it’s hard to say whether it’s the best of times or the worst of times for bicycling,” he said. “More people are doing it than ever. And e-bikes have something to do with that. And the delivery world has a lot to do with that.”

The downside, of course, is the danger.

Orcutt sees an urgent need for more dedicated bike lanes. “The bike network is still really disconnected,” he said. “And worse than that, it’s just routinely, ubiquitously, chronically full of cars and trucks.”

Steve Scofield, another New Yorker involved with the ghost bike project, finds comfort in New York’s intergenerational cycling community. “I always say I live in the biggest city in the country, but I also live in a small town: Bikeville,” he said. “Because I always run into people I know.”

Still, Scofield, who is 73, said that riding comes with a deep undercurrent of vulnerability. “I’m not a reckless rider,” he said. “But even the most careful rider could be victimized at any time.”

Five big ideas for bike safety

• Inform or remind bikers of the rules. An organization called Pedestrians For Bike Safety has been handing out informative fliers to cyclists around the city. Printed in three languages, the fliers remind cyclists that it is illegal to ride bicycles on sidewalks, it is illegal to ride against the traffic flow of the street, and mopeds and scooters are not allowed in bike lanes. “There’s a serious lack in public awareness and communications from the city to remind people who goes where and what — what the rules are,” said Catie Savage, a co-founder of the group and a self-proclaimed “dedicated pedestrian.”

• Improve the infrastructure. “Do a protected bike lane network,” John Orcutt of Bike New York urged the city. “The capacity needs to expand.” He said that there are places in New York where “bikes are reaching the capacity of what’s been provided for them.” Having more space allocated makes biking safer, he said.

• Get creative. With an increasing number of regular bike riders and a growing number of delivery riders on e-bikes, New York should think about dividing space accordingly, said Janette Sadik-Khan, principal at Bloomberg Associates and the former commissioner of New York City’s Department of Transportation. The city should get delivery e-bikes “out of the general bike lane where they don’t belong, and get them in an electric lane,” she said.

• Human decency! “The reality is, we have several deaths in bike lanes,” said Leah Todd, a volunteer with the New York City Street Memorial Project. “These improvements alone do not resolve things.” She’d like New Yorkers to think about safety holistically, to create a sense that “everyone should be safe, that everyone should be respected on the road, that everyone does have a responsibility to be cautious and look out for others.”

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The Scorchers of Yesteryear

In the 1890s, cycling was so popular here that The New York Times had a regular column, Gossip of the Cyclers, that kept tabs not only on the “wheelmen” who raced bikes but also on various crashes, safety complaints and bike outings.

The Times even encouraged cycling by offering trophies in certain bike races. But not everyone was a big fan.

“Have pedestrians any rights in crossing the street that bicyclists should respect?” a letter writer to The Times asked in 1895.

The irate resident described “hoodlums” who were “scorching along” near 72nd Street, heads down, “with no regard to the safety of persons crossing.”

Still, it was big news when bike paths were created. In April 1896, The Times reported that “cyclists everywhere are receiving many favors nowadays, but in no city are the pedalers more fortunate than in Brooklyn.” A cycle path across Prospect Park was announced, as well as “a bungalow for wheelmen to rest under” and a “new and larger shelter house at Coney Island.”

Also news (in 1893)? A new bicycle skirt for ladies: “Perfect of its kind and the invention of a woman.” Groundbreaking!

Quote of the Week

“Hundreds of miles of streets were closed to cars during the pandemic. They’ve given us all kinds of ways of doing things. Kids could go to school there. You could do your shopping there. You could go out and have a meal. You could listen to a band play or just simply walk without worrying about being hit by a car. It reminded us of the joy of sharing our streets. It’s reminded us that this is public space — that it’s actually a place that we can make into what we want it to be.”

— Alison Sant, urban designer and author of “From the Ground Up: Local Efforts to Create Resilient Cities.”