Bicyclist killed in chelsea

A 36-year-old Brooklyn bicyclist riding a Citi Bike was killed yesterday morning after colliding with a charter bus on 26th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, marking the first fatal accident involving the bike-sharing program in New York City, according to news reports.

Police said the bicyclist, Dan Hanegby, collided with the charter bus at 8:15 a.m. after swerving to avoid a parked van. He fell from the bicycle and under the bus’ rear wheels, police said. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead.

The New York Times reported that Hanegby, an Israeli, lived in Brooklyn with his wife and two children. He was director of investment banking at Credit Suisse, the paper said. He had once been the top-ranked tennis player in Israel. He graduated from Brown University with an economics degree in 2007, according to his Facebook page.

The Citi Bike bike-share program was implemented four years ago, and has since become the largest share program in the country with 593 active stations stretching across New York City, according to a recent report by NYC Bike Share, which operates City Bike. In April, there were 13 reported crashes, the report said.

The executive director of Transportation Alternatives, Paul Steely White, said city data tied to the Vision Zero traffic initiative suggests the need for additional bike lanes citywide. “Since 2013, no cyclists have been killed while traveling within protected bike lanes. Queens Boulevard, long a notoriously deadly route for cyclists, has seen no fatalities since it was redesigned to include protected bike lanes,” he said in a statement. “On the contrary, in the current design, there is room for a lane of parking on both sides of one-way 26th Street — yet no allocation for cyclists. This is despite the fact that the street is a popular route for cyclists riding crosstown from the West Side Greenway.”

The New York City Department of Transportation has added 73.4 miles of protected bike lanes since 2007, with an additional 30.5 miles projected to be added by the end of 2017 across all five boroughs, according to the DOT.