Ghost Bikes commemorating fallen bike riders won't disappear

As difficult as it may be to observe in many parts of the city, wherever they're allowed to ride, cyclists have the right of way before vehicles. That holds true even for the six persons now recently deceased while riding their bicycles in Brooklyn: The five Ghost Bikes commemorating them stay alive, now that the NY Dept. of Sanitation has specified that derelict bikes don't include Ghost Bikes.

Whether you're for or against them, the Ghost Bikes, which are powerful visual reminders to all passersby that lives were unnecessarily lost very near the spots where the ghost bikes are erected, will stay in place.

The Ghost Bike for Johnathon Millstein was removed by NYPD, due to complaints by a few immediate locals. However, even though since the recent ruling I haven't been to President Street and Eighth Avenue, where he died while cycling to work on the morning of Sept. 10, 2008, if another Ghost Bike isn't already back in place, I'm sure it won't be long.

Not forgotten, too, is "The Little Professor," 8-year-old Alexander Toulouse, who on Sept. 6, 2008, only a few days earlier than the aforementioned Johnathon Millstein, died on the corner of Boerum Place and Livingston Street.

Julian Miller still has the right of way on the corner of Greene and Washington Avenues, even though he died there on Sept. 18, 2009.

Elizabeth Padilla's Ghost Bike, the first ghost bike erected in NYC, June 9, 2005, at the corner of Prospect Street and Fifth Avenue, in the Prospect Heights/Park Slope section of Brooklyn, will continue, long commemorating her memory.

And while the name of the 75-year-old man, who died when struck by a van while riding his bicycle last year, was never released to the public, the Ghost Bike erected for him at Fifth Avenue and Dean Street will keep identifying him.

Sources:

Ghost Bike Memorials Saved, by Daniel Bush, Brooklyn Downtown Star, http://www.brooklyndowntownstar.com/view/full_story/9520483/article-%E2%80%98Ghost-Bikes%E2%80%99-memorials-saved?instance=home_news_1st_left

Ghost Bikes, http://www.ghostbikes.org/new-york-city/unnamed-3