2006-11-26 Journey’s End – NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/nyregion/thecity/26bike.html?ex=1165467600&en=098bec2c259c8781&ei=5070

New York Times | The City | November 26, 2006

By FRED R. CONRAD

YOU may have noticed scenes like these around the city. These photographs depict “ghost bikes,” memorials to bicyclists who have died in collisions with cars and trucks on New York streets.

Ghost bikes are typically old bicycles painted white and placed where bicyclists have died. Plaques identify the dead. The memorials are the work of Time’s Up!, an advocacy group, and Visual Resistance, a group of Brooklyn artists and activists. Inspired by similar campaigns in St. Louis and Pittsburgh, the two organizations have erected more than 20 such memorials.

According to the Department of Transportation, 109 bicyclists were killed on city streets from 2000 through 2005, and 11 more have died this year. Bicycle advocates are lobbying city officials to make New York a friendlier place for bicyclists.

However one feels about their proposals, there’s no question that each ghost bike represents a moment when something has gone horribly wrong.