A solitary white bicycle stands sentinel on Kitchens Lane in West Mt. Airy, its stark presence a somber reminder of lives lost and unsafe roads. This "ghost bike," installed on June 22, joins 14 others installed across Philadelphia in a silent vigil for cyclists killed on city streets.

The memorial tells a story three decades in the making, one that has haunted local resident Walt Crimm for years.

"This is a memorial to a friend of mine, Andy McNabb, a 35-year-old sculptor and architect, who was killed on his bike here in July of 1993," said Crimm, who lives about 100 yards from the new ghost bike. "I think about Andy every day, and I walk all the time past the spot where he was killed. He had a daughter about the same age as my kids."

“While Andy's death happened a long time ago,” Crimm continued, “this also highlights that safety on bikes is an old problem in Northwest Philadelphia. Further, the neighbors are trying to get the city to install speed cushions and deal with stormwater issues which have scoured the road and made it very narrow and in exceedingly poor condition."

During the installation, a gathering of representatives from from the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, Streets Department Pedestrian and Bike Safety coordinators, three parents whose adult children have been killed in bike crashes and neighbors on Kitchens Lane, Scotforth Road and Wissahickon Avenue remembered the loved ones they’ve lost, and discussed safety, city support for traffic calming.

“We lost our 17-year-old son, Samuel, on Father’s Day in 2020 to traffic violence on Henry Avenue at Barnes Street (in Roxborough),” said Mindy Maslin, who lives in Germantown/Blue Bell Hill with her husband, Sid Ozer. “Ghost bikes are a stirring reminder for drivers to slow down, but they are not enough. The memorial placed for our son at Henry and Barnes was struck twice by vehicles. Ghost bikes are a start, but protected bike lanes and speed cameras are critical.” Samuel had just graduated from AIM Academy in Conshohocken.

Frank Daley, of Roxborough, lost two family members. His niece, Erin Wilson, was killed while walking on Lehigh Avenue in 2016. “A guy went through a full red light and hit Erin in the crosswalk,” he said. It was a cruel reminder that many years ago, in the early morning of Dec. 29, 1923, his grandfather was riding a bicycle home from work, was struck by a car and died almost instantly. 

“A hundred years later I still think of my grandfather when I pass that spot in Merion and how different my life would have been had he not been killed that day. The ghost bikes are grim reminders that something very tragic had happened at that place and that people, both living and as yet unborn, have had their lives dramatically changed. There is another ghost bike four blocks from my house.”

The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia is a 52-year-old nonprofit whose goal is to make the region safe, accessible and friendly to bicycle riders. Nicole Brunet, policy director for the Bicycle Coalition and liaison for Families for Safe Streets, another nonprofit trying to prevent traffic injuries and deaths, told us that 10 cyclists were killed in Philadelphia last year. “That was the most in the past 30 years,” she said.

The Philadelphia chapter of Families for Safe Streets, which was established in 2018, has about 50 members of families whose loved ones have been killed or severely injured by aggressive, reckless or careless driving. They advocate for legislation that they feel will significantly reduce what they refer to as “traffic violence.”

“There are roads in the Northwest like Kitchens Lane with no sidewalks or barriers for safety,” said Crimm. “I was there today, and a guy was coming up the hill in his car who must have been going 50 miles per hour. Some people don't think it's an entrance to the park until they're in the parking lot. And Wissahickon Avenue has no shoulder and no sidewalks. Shrubs are eight inches from the roadway. I walk to the co-op. It's a dangerous horror show.”  

McNabb's widow, Chestnut Hill resident Sharon Church McNabb, was a renowned jewelry maker whose works are in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Yale University Art Gallery and many others. She died on Christmas Day, 2022, of progressive supranuclear palsy at age 74.

For more information, visit familiesforsafestreets.org or bicyclecoalition.org. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com