PLEASE SUPPORT W42ST
W42ST runs on limited resources to keep Hell’s Kitchen connected, updated and upbeat. Access is totally free. Please consider supporting what we do so that we can continue our work!
A Citi Bike rider was stuck by an unidentified driver early Sunday morning on W51st Street and 11th Avenue, the latest in a series of serious crashes in Hell’s Kitchen.
NYPD received a 911 call at around 6:48am on Sunday morning relaying that a 30-year-old injured male was unconscious and unresponsive on W51st Street with significant trauma to his body. A bicycle was found nearby and no one else was on the scene, leaving officers to believe the suspect fled. The victim was taken to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital and is in critical but stable condition. The incident is currently under investigation. Other witnesses told The New York Post that the driver was in an SUV, and briefly got out of his car to look at the victim before fleeing.
The hit-and-run occurred just a day after a car crash on W42nd Street and 11th Avenue and a year after 66-year old cyclist Kwok Kwan was doored by a car passenger on 11th Avenue and W37th Street, later dying of his injuries. According to incident data collector NYC Crash Mapper, there were 542 motor vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian-involved crashes within the boundaries of Community Board 4 in 2022, resulting in two cyclist fatalities and 139 injuries. Shortly after Kwan’s death in February 2022, Streetsblog reported that there were 913 crashes over a three-year period on 11th Avenue between West Street and W57th Street, injuring 32 cyclists, 48 pedestrians and 118 motorists, with a cyclist and a pedestrian being killed.
Pedestrian and cyclist safety is a hot-button issue in Hell’s Kitchen, where politicians have called for the city to fast-track the installation of pedestrian refuge islands, split-phase intersection signals to improve crossing coordination, as well as clear and protected bike lanes on busy streets. While 9th Avenue has recently gained an additional set of pedestrian walkways and a new bike lane from W50th to W59th Street, community advocates have consistently campaigned for more effective physical barriers, the build out of additional car-free bike areas — such as on the West Side Highway — and clearer intersection design to reduce risks.
Hell’s Kitchen cyclists like Charlie Todd told W42ST that in the wake of yet another serious crash, safety improvements were urgently needed. “This is a very dangerous block with zero cycling infrastructure, despite it being one block away from the busiest bike lane in the United States,” said Todd. “The DOT needs to do more to provide safe access to the Hudson River Greenway from Hell’s Kitchen. There is no crosstown protected bike route to the greenway between 55th Street and 40th Street.”
He added: “On this block on 51st Street on Sundays (when the crash occurred) DOT allows two lanes for the free storage of private vehicles and one an extra wide lane for moving vehicles and often double-parked cars. We have to stop prioritizing cars and start prioritizing pedestrians and cyclists, particularly given the extremely low rate of car ownership in our neighborhood. It is infuriating to see hit and runs like this. I can only hope that the motorist didn’t have an illegally defaced license plate and a security camera can help identify him.”
“Another preventable tragedy on our streets has occurred, and I hope this person survives,” said Jeffrey LeFrancois, chair of Manhattan Community Board 4.“Manhattan CB4 has worked incredibly hard to bring protected bike lanes and expanded walk lanes to our streets. But we’re up against the ever expanding and ever growing size of SUVs on the city’s busy, limited streets — and that’s alarming. Even with our reasonable network of protected bike lanes, drivers, and in particular on 11th Avenue, regularly intrude on cyclists’ right of way. We need safer streets for all users, and it’s a matter of design: the Department of Transportation needs to get out from behind it’s own windshield view to make our streets safe for every user, not just those who chose to drive.”
He added, “I CitiBike every day and live on 11th Avenue, two blocks from where this tragedy occurred. It took us a decade to get the bike lane installed, and we’re still dreaming of the bus lane. We know that dedicating space on streets for bike and bus lanes slows down and better manages private traffic, significantly improving safety for all users. How many more lives will be lost until our streets are complete and safe for all?”
This is a developing story and we will update it as more details become available.
The time has come to kick cars off our street. New York is not supposed to be New Jersey’s parking lot. I grieve for the family.
I totally agree
Tell the bicyclists to follow rules and safety rules. The bikes are a hazzard. Give them all these bike lanes and they don’t use them . They are a menace
A car driver put a cyclist in critical condition and fled the scene, and this is your reaction? SMH
How can you make that make that type of comment without knowing the facts? How disgusting
How about its time for bicyclists follow the rules. They are unsafe, nasty when you tell them 9th ave has a new pedestrian lane and expect us to jump out of the way so they don’t hit us. Im sorry for this family but enough about cars and tell these bicyclists to follow rules
I don’t even understand what this comments even means. NJ’s parking lot? How about the time has come for drivers to pay attention and have a little empathy if (God forbid) they hit someone! What would “kicking cars off the street” do?
There are two truths to this situation: there are terrible drivers, and there are terrible cyclists. Both need better enforcement, and cyclists need better protection. 11th avenue has A L W A Y S been a dangerous path for cyclists. Before the islands were installed, cars, UPS trucks, sanitation trucks, cabs, would all use the bike lane as an express lane. It’s terrible and unacceptable!
Looking at the comments on the linked NY Post article, I’m reminded why I avoid that awful tabloid. The cruelty and bigotry on display from commenters when a human being is in critical condition in the hospital – it’s nauseating, and par for the course in the NY Post.
That particular spot, 51st and 11th, is dangerous because a vehicle turning right cannot see cyclists easily. As a driver, I always take that turn slowly. As a citibike user, traveling down 11th, I always cross this intersection with care.
What jumps out for me in these reports of pedestrians/bicyclists getting hit/killed: the number of hit and RUNS!! So shocking that anyone could actually get out, see the injured person, and FLEE!
Is anyone keeping track of these facts? Yes, we have some cameras, but how many fleeing drivers are actually caught and prosecuted?
I don’t know what exactly happened in this case. The driver obviously should have stayed at the scene and got this poor guy help. But I have to drive up 51st between 12th/11th and I see EVERYDAY cyclists blow right through the red light without even looking right to see if a car is driving east on 51st. It’s frightening. So it’s not always a car issue!
It goes without saying how terrible this is. So very sad. It’s my own 3x/week route to and from my office, and I think about this happening to me every time I set out on a Citibike.
As a side note, the “both sides” arguments that inevitably happen when a cyclist needlessly dies need to stop (see the NY Post comments for 100+ examples, if you can stomach it). A car is 4,000 pounds and exponentially faster and more powerful than a cyclist and bike that together weigh around 200 pounds.
You’re far less likely to survive an incident with an idiot in a car than an idiot on a bike.
Be safe out there, everyone.
Exactly
Why not Mount Sinai West @ W 59th St & 9th Ave? Instead the ambulance went a lot further away to Mount Sinai Morningside @ W 114th St & Amsterdam Ave. Shouldn’t an unconscious victim be taken to the closest trauma center? Do ambulances make more $ by delivering to different hospital centers?
Morningside is level 1 trauma – which is exactly what that cyclist needed.
It is time for NYC to stop inviting private cars into the city. Improve public transportation, follow the lead of Amsterdam and other European cities, it’s possible to greatly reduce this madness. Car tourists and NJ commuters can park in NJ and take a boat or a bus to enter the city. Let’s make the people who live here the priority…do something!
I was sideswiped by an ebike delivery guy, while in my citibike on 42nd st & 8th ave, 2 weeks ago!
The delivery guy situation is dire… they gotta pay attention to bike rules, and get those mopeds out of the bike lane!
He knocked me into traffic, didn’t stop and I was lucky not to be hit by a car.
#gratefulinHK
When someone describes themselves as ‘a cyclist’ but decries “the free storage of private vehicles on public streets,” they’re not simply a cyclist or a bike advocate. They’re a hardliner who wants all cars garaged – which can’t happen – or for cars to be taken from old people who can’t afford garaging.
It just sounds like they want car owners to pay to park on public property. That doesn’t seem so unfair or “hardline.”
We are now living in a construction site! Sad but true.
Add more busses and subways.
Have mandatory but free license plates for cyclists.
Fine cyclists who ignore red lights.
FINE cyclists who ignore one way signs.
Of course, hit and run drivers are inexcusable.