The scene at Broadway and 89th Street after a truck hit a bicyclist. Photo by Maria.
Two people sustained severe injuries in crashes on the Upper West Side Thursday.
A 59-year-old bicyclist named Jing Yin Jiang was hit by a truck driver on Broadway between 88th and 89th Street around 11:30 a.m. on Thursday. The cyclist was taken to St. Luke’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to NYPD. The victim lived on Columbus Avenue and 103rd Street.
“Preliminary investigation revealed that a 30-year-old male operator of a white box truck was travelling northbound on Broadway when he struck the bicyclist operating an electric bicycle that was travelling in the same direction as he swerved to avoid a parked vehicle at West 88th Street. The driver remained at the scene.”
In another incident, a woman and man were hit by a car that jumped the curb at 96th and Columbus, with the woman sustaining a severe leg injury, according to NBC.
The SUV that jumped the curb. Photo by @above_96th.
“Police said that the woman, 63, and man, 53, were both hit by a car at Columbus Avenue and West 96th Street at about 11 a.m.”
We have updated the description of the fatality with new info from the police.
methinks this zero vision thingy is not working out too well
confused– was truck driver or bicyclist killed???
Thanks for pointing that out. Fixed it.
“A 59-year-old bicyclist was hit by a truck driver on Broadway and 88th Street around noon on Thursday. The driver was taken to St. Luke’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to NYPD.”
I think you meant to say the cyclist was taken to St. Luke’s, which to be precise, is now Mount Sinai St. Luke’s.
Sorry, thanks for pointing that out. Fixed it.
There was also an alleged drunk driver wreck last night around 2am at 91st and Amsterdam.
WHICH one ‘swerved to avoid a parked vehicle’ ???
I had the same question. If the truck swerved, than I assume the biker was in a car lane. If the bike swerved, than the truck seemingly clipped him. If so, why did the biker not hear the truck at his back? Either way, a terrible tragedy. My bike has been hanging for about 10 years now. I’m simply too nervous to ride it in the city now – including the park.
I feel the same way. My bike stays in the bicycle room of my building these days. I was an avid cyclist, but all these freakish accidents that have occurred since the introduction of these damn bike lanes have changed the ‘ hood for the worse. I never needed a bike lane, and have survived seven decades without one. Up here on he upper west side, there just isn’t enough usage to justify the waste of space and the resulting traffic tie-ups. I wish they’d just plain be removed.
Jeff French Segall said: Up here on he upper west side, there just isn’t enough usage to justify the waste of space and the resulting traffic tie-ups.
Jeff, come on man! If you’re going to troll, you have to be more original than this.
Me thinks you’re full of crap. The protected bike lanes are fantastic for everyone, including my elderly parents who can now get across Amsterdam before the pedestrian signal changes.
It’s unclear from the NYPD’s account whether it was the truck driver or the cyclist who swerved to avoid the parked vehicle, and whether the “parked vehicle” was legally parked or double-parked. In any case, Broadway is the most dangerous street on the Upper West Side and needs the Vision Zero treatment, right now.
Who came up with the name “Vision Zero” for a safety program, anyway? Seems to be prophetic, unfortunately.
So true. Personally, on tuesday alone, I was nearly hit twice on broadway. People do not stop at the lights in the median and they turn into pedestrians with reckless abandon.
Obviously nobody should be running pedestrians off the road but it is also true that drivers making a left from Broadway are not required to stop. If you aren’t in the crosswalk when they start their turn there is no reason for them to stop in the median.
Yes, there is a reason for them to stop: because they see a pedestrian and know that the legal penalty for jaywalking in this country isn’t death.
Motorists are required to always exercise due care and stop for pedestrians. Nit-pick all you want, but car vs pedestrian never ends well for pedestrians.
There is no reason why anyone driving the 25MPH speed limit and paying attention should ever hit anything.
Maybe NYC should post signs indicating the current speed limit. Other than the one announcement I haven’t heard anything about the speed limit and have only seen one sign.
Cyclists are crazy to use Broadway when there is a quite excellent bike lane one block to the East. Why would you put yourself in harm’s way?
Replace the word “cyclist” with “driver” and see how this works for you. Pretty annoying to be told you can’t drive on Broadway, right?
Agree, The Amsterdam Ave. bike was very controversial because of it’s impact on traffic and parking. It should be used. Yesterday I was a 23rd and Fifth and was almost hit by a cyclist who was traveling south on the west side of the street, but the bike lane is on the east side of the street. Last week I was almost hit by a cyclist traveling south in the northbound Amsterdam Ave. bike lane at 105th St. None of my near misses involved “struggling immigrant delivery people”. They were all well dress middle aged caucasians who probably consider themselves very law abiding.
So many reasons. Maybe you just got on or are about to get off your bike. Maybe you’re going five blocks or so on Broadway and don’t want to take a circuitous route to get there.
From the DNAinfo photo, there’s the possibility that this was a delivery cyclist. He could have been delivering to a building on Broadway or working for a restaurant on Broadway.
If it was a delivery cyclist, that is two UWS businesses in a week that are facing devastating harm to their employees. This is a tragic situation.
Another thing to think about is that the “excellent” bike lane on Columbus goes north. What if you have to go south? Then you have to find a way to Amsterdam, which is two long blocks away, and come back.
For most trips on the bike in manhatan you will find yourself at some point on a street where you are completely vulnerable to traffic.
Yes that’s the way UWS traffic flow is laid out. Bikes need to follow the traffic flow, so if you need to bike another block or three to get what you want, that’s what it is. Just like a car
If people actually follow the rules of traffic, Columbus goes south, Amsterdam goes North, and Amsterdam is in the middle of Broadway and Columbus making it only one long block from either.
If you are starting on North Broadway and need to bike to something else further south on Broadway, using Columbus adds 4 blocks to your trip.
Cato, in the words of your President-Elect: “Wrooong!”
Taking the subway, on the other hand, adds zero blocks to the trip, and might even get you there faster.
Columbus Ave. bike lane goes South, Mr. “think.” Which is why I referenced the bike on Amsterdam, which goes North. The same direction the victim was traveling.
And Amsterdam is not 2 blocks from Broadway, as you said. You’re directionally challenged and geographically clueless. I guess your nom de plume is a form of irony?
Actually, I ride both of those (Columbus and Amsterdam) every day as a commute.)
You are right, I got the directions wrong, because I wrote the comment quickly ….and for some reason I have always had trouble remembering the order of street names when I’m not actualy on the street riding. But still..the essence of what I say is true. If you want to travel a few blocks north from one point on Broadway to another point on Broadway, no-one—and I mean no-one on a bicycle—is going to take seriously the idea of riding east to Columbus and then taking it and then riding back again. Intersections are also deadly, and that forces you to navigate four rather than taking a straight path.
If you want to go South, then it would be even crazier to think most bike riders would consider traveling all the way to Columbus for a few blocks and then back again.
The protected paths are pretty good for commutes and decent if you are just needing to get around between Columbus and Amsterdam but there are many, many reasons for a bicyclist to ride on Broadway.
Yes, because so many people take the trouble to remove their bike from their wall, stuff it in the service elevator and go out onto the street to travel 3 blocks. What a genius you are.
Using that logic, you should demand that a subway entrance be built outside the door to your apartment.
Having to walk to the nearest existing entrance likely requires you to cross intersections and might even mean walking a couple of blocks. And we can’t have that, now, can we?
How does it feel to be the center of the universe, anyway?
Because sometimes when you are on a bicycle you have to go somewhere on Broadway or near Broadway.
It’s great that there are now bike lanes on Columbus and Amsterdam, but a. If you want to use them you have to get to them first and b. You have to get from them to wherever it is you need to get.
Please bikers, Broadway is not for bikers. There are dedicated bike paths on Amsterdam, Columbus, and Central Park West. There is no reason to ride on those streets unless you are a crazy food delivery person. Go to the .NYC and get a bike map:
https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/bikemaps.shtml
This is absolute nonsense to anyone who actually uses a bike to get around.
There is a citibike station at Bway and 84th. The street is eastgoing, one way. So, for instance, if you expect citibike riders to follow the rules of the road, then whenever they are returning their bikes to the kiosk, they will HAVE to ride north on Broadway at least one block or HAVE to cross Broadway from West End Avenue, an equally dangerous road with no bike lane, just a “double parking lane” .
Just one example, among many.
Please, think. unless you want bicycle riders to push their bikes on the sidewalk everywhere but Amsterdam, Columbus, or CPW, which would be quite iirritating to all involved…there’s no way for us to avoid riding on Broadway.
I stay away from it when I can, but as someone noted, this man who was killed was a delivery cyclist, I guess he should have been walking his bike?
Biker was a delivery biker on an electric bike, which would partly explain why he was on Broadway. From what I saw at the scene long after the tragedy, it would seem perhaps biker may have veered into the traffic and the truck.
Scott, I think I love you … 🙂
First off, the man who died was riding an electric bicycle which might look like a bicycle but is more of a motor scooter or motorcycle. I don’t know about the deceased but the delivery guys who ride them generally ride with reckless disregard. Those things weigh almost 100lb (versus a regular 25-35lb bike), accelerate instantly and go up to 25mph (with the same brakes as a regular bike).
I’m also interested to find out who did the swerving.
Broadway is very dangerous for bikes. When I make a run to Absolute Bagels, I use Amsterdam uptown and Columbus downtown even though they are several blocks out of my way.
it appears from my reading of the above that the biker swerved into the lane of the driver. Definitely a challenge out there for all…drivers, bikers, pedestrians….I’d say it’s mainly a huge connection with people looking at phones…walkers, drivers, bikers, etc…. some are pure accidents…some…people aren’t paying nearly enough attention due to ‘distractions’…
Was the cyclist hit by the truck driver or by the truck?
In answer to the misreporting here:
It was the truck who swerved, not the bike rider . And the truck was a huge one, not a box truck.
If you are driving a huge truck like that and you swerve to avoid a parked car, there’s something wrong with your driving.
It has been misreported everywhere but Streetsblog and DNAinfo, subtly blaming the cyclist rather than the truck driver and the illegally parked car.
https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20161117/upper-west-side/cyclist-killed-broadway-west-88th-street
I thought bikes with electric motors were illegal? If he had been on a pedal-powered bike, would he have been able to anticipate/stop rather than swerve? Would he have been able to hear the truck behind him? A bike is considered a wheeled vehicle and therefore has the right to occupy a traffic lane, so why was he (presumably) riding along the edge of the lane, between parked cars and traffic? So many of these accidents could be avoided if cyclists would just FOLLOW THE LAW.
I too thought electric bikes were illegal. If so, NYPD never seems to enforce the law. And the delivery guys are often going in the wrong direction on a one way street or even on the sidewalks. Still, sorry this guy died
NYC is really not a bike city like Copenhagen.
Just no good safe bike lanes .
Yes it is and yes there are
You know what NYC is not good for either? Pedestrians.
Pedestrian Fatalities: 98 and counting
Pedestrian Injuries: 7,569 and counting
That’s a crazy thing to say. Cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam also were not “bike cities” until the 80s when local government decided to build significant bike infrastructure. That’s now what we are trying to do here, to make NYC a “Bike City”
Deblasio needs to travel to the UWS and witness the delivery bike riders going the wrong way with no lights. Serious zero vision when it comes to reaching out to chain store owners like Dominos and Papa Johns.
Let me get this straight. A man riding a bicycle gets killed by the driver of a truck and two other people get injured by a curb jumper. However what you get out of this story is that cyclists are dangerous and deBlasio needs to look into it. Sound logic eludes you doesn’t it?
Why is the entire comments section ranting about bikes, and not the fact that a driver jumped the curb and hit a pedestrian?????
Talk about victim blaming.
Exactly.
Add to that
18 wheel truck swerves to avoid an illegally double parked car and kills bicyclist:
It must have been the bicyclist who wasn’t following the rules of the road, and he should have looked behind him before he swerved into the path of the truck, and he shouldn’t; have been on broadway because there are now bike paths on Columbus and Amsterdam, in case you didn’t know, and he was a crazy delivery man so it had to be his fault
Alta, a lot of WSR readers have a knee jerk reaction when it comes to bicyclists and pedestrian collisions. As you’ve read and noted the first reaction is blame the victim. For example:
-Driver runs light and kills cyclist. Reaction: Had the cyclist been in a car the outer structure of the vehicle and the air bag would’ve saved his life.
-Driver jumps curb and mows down pedestrians.
Reaction: What was that pedestrian doing there so late at night. Had he or she been in bed like a normal person they’d still be alive.
-Bicyclist gets injured avoiding a jaywalker.
Reaction: Why was this man riding an ultra high performance 1973 steel 10-speed bike in the park? Doesn’t he know that he’s too old to be riding at all. Bicycles are toys anyways!
-Driver claims to loose his breaks, guns it down Columbus and careens off onto the bike lane preventing the car from jumping the curb(thankfully nobody is injured).
Reaction: Damn bike lanes.
-Speeding garbage truck kills college student on Broadway.
Reaction: Oh poor kid but it’s his own fault for not being on the crosswalk, nobody ever gets killed while on the crosswalk.
-Psychotic cabby jumps the curb and cuts a young woman’s leg clean off below the knee.
Reaction: It was the bike messenger’s fault for getting into an argument with the cabby and naturally the cabby has the right to try to kill him with his car. What about the woman’s leg? Well, just an unfortunate incident. That cabby is back on the street mind you.
So as you can see, there is a pattern here. And as you’ve already noticed the tendency is to blame the hapless victim. The windshield perspective is strong in this culture and so is the entitlement.
ITA agree with everything you’ve listed here, and would also like to add that it’s infuriating when the majority of posters (not just in this story but everything every reported on the WSR) assume that pedestrians under the age of 30 are injured/killed because they’re out after midnight, drunk/high, or too busy looking at their iPhones. None of these things make them INVISIBLE to drivers!
I was wondering about that myself. We are not safe from cars on the UWS-not pedestrians, not bicyclists. I think a good use of everyone’s time would be to contact CB7 or Gale Brewer, Manhattan Borough President who lives up here.
They don’t care. I have complained about this issue to all mentioned offices and NYPD for years. All I gave gotten is excuses and the NYP D says truck traffic is not a priority.
Dan Zweig and Andrew Albert are the co-chair for the CB7 Transportation Committee. Both are ideological car-centric dinosaurs in positions capable of obstructing complete street designs that would otherwise be implemented sooner and improve quality of life. If those two were to be replaced with sensible leadership the UWS would have a better chance at making progress in this area.
while parallel parking one would be going about 0.5 miles an so how do you jump a curb and hit two people?
It was reported that the 96th Street crash was a 77 year old driver trying to parallel park, when she jumped the curb onto the sidewalk and severed a woman’s leg.
The cyclist was presumably moving out of the way of a double parked car when a truck ran him over. If you think trucks don’t speed on Broadway, think again.
Maybe we can quit griping about people in the neighborhood who walk and bike for one minute, and stop and reflect on what we could do to make the streets safer and livable. Is maximising the amount of free parking actually worth this human cost?
It would be nice to have a correction here because fifty percent of the comments have assumed it was the cyclist who swerved. It was not. It was the TRUCK DRIVER who swerved.
From Dnainfo:
“UPPER WEST SIDE — A cyclist was hit and killed by a truck driver who swerved into him Thursday, NYPD officials said.
Jing Yin Jiang, 59, was biking northbound on Broadway when he was hit by a truck driver headed in the same direction, police said.
The 30-year-old driver was swerving to avoid a parked car on the avenue at West 88th Street, police said. ?
Large trucks like these should be limited in NYC for so many reasons and this is just one of them.Go to many European cities and somehow they get by without this large and dangerous vehicles. They put pedestrians, cyclists and other car drivers in danger, they are two large to maneuver through small streets, can only double park to make deliveries and create significant noise and air pollution that is harmful to us all.
It was the truck driver who swerved to avoid the parked car.
I wish I could say this several times for each comment in which it is assumed from the languaging in the article that the bicyclist swerved.
It was the truck driver who swerved to avoide the parked car. The one who swerved in order to avoide the parked car was the truck driver. The swervee was the truck driver, the swervictim was the bicyclist.
From Dnainfo:
“UPPER WEST SIDE — A cyclist was hit and killed by a truck driver who swerved into him Thursday, NYPD officials said.
Jing Yin Jiang, 59, was biking northbound on Broadway when he was hit by a truck driver headed in the same direction, police said.
The 30-year-old driver was swerving to avoid a parked car on the avenue at West 88th Street, police said. ”
https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20161117/upper-west-side/cyclist-killed-broadway-west-88th-street
Wow – thanks for pointing that out. Wasn’t disclosed at first.
If a driver swerves into another lane and kills somebody, I believe he should face serious charges.
Te way I read it was the biker swerved when a car was pulling out.
Disregard my post
Terrible tragedies! But are you aware that electric bicycles are illegal in the city?
Yes, and? How does that change anything?
Why is a 77 year old woman allowed to be behind the wheel of a car? Was she texting?
hmm. This account differs from what I was told by people on the scene (I live nearby), and that was that the cyclist was riding the wrong way down Broadway…. and that there was also a car involved in the demise of the cyclist, a car that belongs to one of the shop owners on Broadway. When I saw the bike afterwards, it was facing the wrong way down Broadway, but who knows, it could have been moved. Also apparently the fellow had no helmet – I was told he was bleeding profusely from his head.
Mr. Bloomberg should be prosecuted for absolute STUPIDITY and IDIOCY for promoting bike riding in the city with his deadly bike lanes, and Citibikes. Bikes and city auto traffic cannot mix. There are more and more serious bike accidents. There are sidewalks for walking, and public transportation for riding. Bikes are a menace to everyone in Manhattan.
Actual data, common sense and anecdotal evidence indicate otherwise.
For your information, bicycling on the streets is perfectly legal as per state and federal laws.