37-year-old Citi Bike driver dies after collision with van in New York: police

Authorities said a 37-year-old woman riding a Citi Bike e-bike died in a collision with a box truck in Brooklyn early Tuesday morning.

The woman was pedaling east on Ninth Street near Second Avenue in Gowanus around 7:20 a.m. when she collided with a van heading in the same direction, police said.

The cyclist died at the scene.

Her name has not been released until the family is notified.

The box truck driver, a 39-year-old man, remained at the scene and no arrests were made.

The advocacy group Transportation Alternatives said the crash happened at a known trouble spot.

“At the crash site, the design of Ninth Street creates a dangerous environment for cyclists. Ninth Street goes from one lane for cars and one lane for cyclists, reserved only for painting, to a turning lane and a common lane for cars and bicycles, which prioritizes the number of cars over the number of people,” the organization said in a statement. “It forces vehicles to merge into the bike lane, resulting in fatalities, as happened today.”

Since 2017, two pedestrians and one motorist have also died within a half-mile radius of the site, according to the organization.

The group said seven cyclists have been injured on Ninth Street in the last two years on the stretch between Smith and Third Avenue.

The accident marks the second death of a cyclist on the streets of the Big Apple this year.

Tamara Chuchi Kao, 62, who also rode a Citi Bike, was the victim of the first fatal collision, police said.

She was heading east on 24th Avenue near 29th Street in Astoria just after 5 p.m. Thursday when she was fatally hit by a cement truck, police said.

The truck stopped at a red light on 29th Street when Kao passed between it and cars parked on the south side of 24th Avenue, police said.

When the light turned green, the truck driver turned right and, according to the police, hit Kao with the front of the car.

Kao fell on the roadway and suffered a head injury. She was also pronounced dead at the scene.

The city recorded 17 cyclist fatalities in 2022 and 19 in 2021, according to statistics from the city’s Department of Transportation.

In total, 26 cyclists died in the Big Apple in 2020, and 28 in 2019.

Less than 12 hours before the Gowanus crash, a 32-year-old man riding an e-bike suffered life-threatening injuries when he crashed into a minivan on Union Street and Hughes Street in Williamsburg around 7:45 p.m. Monday, police said.

He was taken to the Elmhurst Hospital Center, where his condition was assessed as critical.

The minibus driver remained at the scene.

“Road violence is a public health crisis that requires urgent action,” said Danny Harris, chief executive of Transportation Alternatives. “We are heartbroken to learn of another person killed on a bicycle by a truck driver on our roads – the second in less than a week. We express our deepest condolences to her loved ones.”

“While more and more New Yorkers are cycling, the City of New York has a duty to ensure the safety of cyclists,” Harris said. “These deaths are a tragic and predictable result of a failure to protect people on bicycles, including the city’s failure to comply with the legal requirements of the New York City Street Plan.”

Mayor [Eric] Adams and Commissioner (Ministry of Transportation) [Ydanis] Rodriguez must urgently implement proven street safety solutions in every borough of New York. No one should fear death or injury on our roads.”