When: Friday, October 2, riders stop at "ghost bike" at 7 pm
Where: South side of Queens Boulevard at 69th Street, Woodside, Queens,
Who: 40 bicyclists biking home on Queens Boulevard together, stopping to dedicate the white "ghost bike" of James Langergaard

This past August, a longtime cyclist and dedicated T.A. volunteer, James Langergaard, was struck and killed by a car at Queens Boulevard and 69th Street. T.A. will be holding a special Queens Boulevard Bike Pool ride in honor of James this Friday. The ride will pause at the site of James' crash to dedicate his ghost bike.

Every month, Transportation Alternatives volunteers lead an escorted bike ride along Queens Boulevard from the Queensboro Bridge to Forest Hills, providing riders with a safe group in which to get home. The rides are part of Zero on Queens Boulevard, a campaign to eliminate traffic fatalities on Queens Boulevard through pedestrian safety improvements and a protected bicycle lane along the service roadways.

Despite the dangers of biking on Queens Boulevard, thousands of riders are compelled to use it each day because so few parallel routes exist, and because it links so many of the borough's neighborhoods and transit hubs together.

"We miss James terribly," says Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives. "Cars aren't the only vehicles on Queens Boulevard, and it's time the City stopped thinking of this street as a high-speed highway."

###