Houston is running out of ghost bikes
More loved ones of cyclists struck and killed seeking memorials
May is National Bike Month, when everyone everywhere is encouraged to get out there and ride. But for many traffic-challenged Houstonians, this means that May is also “Why Is That Damn Cyclist in Front of Me” Month.
Or “If You’re Dumb Enough to Get on a Bike and Ride Houston’s Streets, Then It’s Not the Driver’s Fault When You Get Fatally Struck by a Vehicle” Month.
We hear you. And we see you troll the comment section online after every news article, video and feature of a cycling fatality in Houston.
But here’s something you didn’t know: May almost became “We Ran Out of Ghost Bikes” Month.
I am part of a volunteer group of average, dedicated cyclists who place the white bikes all over Houston (and beyond). We’re sure you’ve driven past them, seen them, maybe wondered about them and possibly hated them as you’ve sped on your way.
Admittedly, it’s an odd thing to do in Houston’s car-centric culture: advocate that more people should get out and ride a bike, then dedicate spare time to placing a memorial that reminds everyone that someone died here while riding.
For a while, we were OK on our ghost-bike “inventory.” In fact, we were feeling pretty good. It appeared drivers were getting more considerate. The city passed the “Vulnerable Road User (Safe Passing) Ordinance,” which requires that all drivers stay clear, getting no closer than 3 feet while passing a cyclist. (Drivers of commercial vehicles must clear all vulnerable road users by 6 feet).
A rash of fatalities has made volunteers struggle to keep up with requests for ghost bikes.
Then Hurricane Harvey’s 51-inch rain hit. Some ghost bikes took a beating. After we dried out our homes, yanked out Sheetrock from our walls and made sure our cars were able to run, we did an audit and started to replace any damaged memorials.
We had enough white bikes to get that ball rolling. Then spring, and with it, April, and a rash of fatalities.
One of the more disturbing deaths happened in March. A 67-year-old cyclist was riding with her group from a parking lot to reach a trail in Spring. The group halted at a stop sign, saw there was no nearby approaching traffic and proceeded to cross when, according to witnesses, a driver in a pickup suddenly sped toward the group.
He flew through the crossing path between the parking lot and the trail, striking the 67year-old cyclist, killing her immediately. The driver crashed his truck, then ran away with another passenger.
A year earlier, another driver did the same thing in Waller County, only he struck and killed two cyclists on a charity ride and left a third severely injured.
With the mounting tragedies in mind, we organized a die-in in front of City Hall to alert our civic leaders and elected officials of our concerns and possibly get some answers about how in the world we’re supposed to get on a bike during National Bike Month when such incidents keep happening. (You’re welcome to join, even if you hate cyclists. We won’t hold that against you. In fact, some of us would like to talk to you, one on one, with no media cameras, no elected officials, just road user to road user, just person to person.)
The problem of running out of bikes is not because of recent tragedies, however. Managing the ghost-bike volunteer efforts and the shrinking “inventory” is getting complicated in a peculiar way.
When we started a few years back, we modeled our efforts after other cities’. We delegated tasks: One of our volunteers is an archivist, so she’s good at researching, scanning for news articles from the previous 24 hours, then posting them on our group page. Another volunteer stores the surplus bikes at his business.
Then we start the “investigation,” finding out where the incident happened, the family name (if any). We contact the family and gently state, “We place memorials — bicycles painted white — for cyclists no longer with us. If you’d like one, we will place it for you.”
A few said, “No,” and we respected their wishes. Some responded, “Let us think about it.” Then families would contact us a few days later: “Yes, please, we’d like a white bike.”
Next, we would investigate the site, check for a suitable place for securing the memorial, ask any local business nearby whether it had any objections. Most every business has cooperated. We get with the family for a date that works to place the ghost bike, create an event for the family to share with anyone it would like. A public memorial ceremony follows. After that, a band of volunteers checks on the bikes periodically for placing flowers, cleaning the area, clipping the grounds so maintenance crews can mow around them more easily, and sadly, vandalism.
Then a shift happened. Some time ago, we started getting messages before we learned the name of the cyclist. We received urgent requests to join our page, which we have to vet carefully for spam and trolls, cyberbullies, etc. We are protective of the tone of our page. We get messages like this one: “We know your page says Houston Ghost Bike, but we live in Santa Fe. Would you still bring us a ghost bike? Our son was out riding. He was hit and killed. The driver fled the scene. His little sister doesn’t understand why this happened.”
And: “Hey, you know that girl who rode with you all in East End? She moved to Crosby. She was killed by a driver last night while she was riding her bike.”
And: “Do you place ghost bikes for someone who was killed, but not recently? My son was hit by a driver in 2003. I’d like a bike for him.”
So you see our peculiar problem. Suddenly, the page is no longer for just cyclists but for their families. They want a place to talk, to share their grief with someone who knows their pain. They want answers. They might not ride, but they know someone who did. And now that someone is gone.
In their own respectful way, these families hold us accountable. And we are honored by that. So we organized the demonstration in front of City Hall. Our membership keeps growing and growing (as our inventory keeps dwindling and dwindling), from someone from Southern California messaging us for help on how to place a ghost bike to a mass of people from India requesting to join our page after Sudipta Roy was fatally struck in a crosswalk at the chaotic corner of Sunset and Main.
There’s more to tell, and maybe there will be “space” for it, just as many of you drivers on Houston’s busy streets have given me space while I ride to work, games for the Dash, Rockets and Dynamo, or events at the Houston Symphony and other venues.
But if you’re wondering whether I want a ghost bike should I get fatally struck by a driver, the answer is no. As you can see, it’s the busy season, and we’re short on volunteers.
And we keep running out of them.