After cycling from 110th Street in Manhattan to Park Slope and back to City Hall, Ken Stanek stooped over and placed a flower in front of a lone bicycle on the steps. Stanek was one of 100 cyclists who had assembled for a vigil at City Hal on June 16 to remember 204 NYC cyclists who have fallen since 1995, and to demand safer streets.The group started their pilgrimage at 5th Avenue and Warren Street in Brooklyn, where a 28-year-old attorney, Elizabeth Padilla, was recently killed on her bike. Elizabeth Padilla was crushed by a large delivery truck in Park Slope in Brooklyn on 5th Avenue exactly one week ago today, said Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives. Two other New York City cyclists, Jerome Allen and Brandie Bailey have also died within the last six weeks.But White said it is not cycling itself that is dangerous. "Bicycling is not an inherently dangerous activity," White told the crowd. "Jerome, Brandie, and Elizabeth died not because they were engaging in risky behavior. They died because the vast majority of our streets and designed and managed for one purpose and one purpose only: To convey and store great hulking motor vehicles."White announced that a letter had been sent to Bloomberg to demand that he cooperates with cyclists and creates a task force to prevent further deaths. "We have sent a letter to the mayor requesting that the city makes cycling safe on all our New York City streets," said White. Betsy Gotbaum, Public Advocate for New York City, who joined the rally, said she would do just that. "As the former Parks Commissioner of New York City, I know how important it is to have a clean green city," said Gotbaum, who pledged to convene a task force of the Department of Transportation, the Police Department, the Department of Health, and the City Planning Commission to take the ideas of cyclists and make New York a safe and friendly city. The other recent deaths were in Manhattan. Allen, a 59-year-old banking administrator was hit from behind an SUV on Hylan Boulevard in Staten Island on April 26, and a 21-year-old waitress, Bailey, was struck by a sanitation truck on Avenue A in Manhattan on the way to her Williamsburg home. The three died in a city that has seen a 50 percent increase in fatalities over the same period in 2004, according to Transportation Alternatives. The vigil was personal for the cyclists, many of who have lost friends or relatives, or have survived accidents themselves. Rodney Seymour, a 45-year-old former corrections officer turned bicycle advocate, joined the ride in Brooklyn. In his early 20s, Seymour was knocked from his bike when the driver of a truck, which was double-parked, opened the door into his path. "We need more courtesy from cars and trucks," said Seymour, who now owns a brownstone on Bergen Street in Brooklyn. "It's very dangerous out there for riders.""All the accidents happened on streets that are carrying more cyclists than before," White said. Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn is a recommended bike route, according to the 2005 NYC Cycling Map published by the City of New York. Noah Budnick, a spokesperson for Transportation Alternatives, who survived an accident that left him with no memory of the incident near the exit of the Brooklyn side of Manhattan Bridge, said he feels lucky to be alive. "Of the cyclists who crashed and were injured and killed, I can say that I was one of the lucky ones - because I am here," Budnick said. The vigil was attended by a coalition of Transportation Alternatives, Time’s Up, Right of Way, the New York City Bicycle Messenger Association, Free Wheels, and the Staten Island Bicycling Association. "With cycling as dangerous as it - we are risking the lives all New Yorkers," said Judd Schechtman, an environmental specialist from the borough president’s Office. "Unfortunately these tragedies remind us cycling is unacceptably dangerous in this city." He said that the New York Police Department should do more to enforce traffic laws to prevent dangerous driving, which puts cyclists and dangerous. He said it was an outrage that cyclists who help reduce pollution, congestion and improve the quality of life in the city should risk their lives when they ride. The alliance unveiled their demands for action, to study all the fatal accidents over the past decade, to expand the city’s personal capacity plan, to improve safety standards on city streets, to introduce 15 mph speed limits on some streets, to make changes to city traffic law to prevent "dooring", to provide cyclist awareness training for motorists, to require operators to retrofit large trucks with side guards, and to fill potholes, especially along bike routes. Safe cycling requires more greenways and protected on- street bike lanes that should be at least five feet wide with a two-foot buffer between the bike lane and motorized traffic, according to a Transportation Alternatives statement.