KINGSTON, N.Y. – Mayor Steve Noble has requested that city lawmakers revisit his suggestion that $35,000 be used for a traffic safety campaign after two recent bicyclist deaths in the city.
“In the time since my request for funding was denied, two members of our community have died in vehicle vs. bicycle crashes,” Noble said in his letter. “While no one can say for sure whether an educational campaign for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists would have prevented the deaths, I feel that the city must act to make sure that we are doing everything we can to help raise awareness about traffic safety, traffic rules, and our new traffic patterns here in Kingston as we move to transform our outdated infrastructure to one where we will have complete streets that are safe for all users.”
A bicyclist was killed Saturday afternoon in a collision involving a tractor-trailer, the Kingston Police Department said.
The department said the accident happened at approximately 1:31 p.m. in the area of Broadway and East St. James St. Officers arriving at the scene found that the bicyclist had suffered severe injuries and was later pronounced dead at the scene, the post said.
The Facebook post did not identify the bicyclist. An update was not immediately available Monday.
The accident is being investigated by the police department’s detective bureau, the Ulster County District Attorney’s Office, state police investigators, and the Ulster County Crash Reconstruction Team.
On July 20, a bicyclist died after being struck by and pinned beneath a vehicle on Washington Avenue near the Esopus Creek crossing, the Kingston Police Department said then.
The 57-year-old Albany man, later identified as John Justin Lynch, was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash, which happened about 8:10 p.m., police said.
Police have said that the vehicle was southbound on Washington Avenue, heading toward Schwenk Drive, when it struck the bicyclist as he tried to cross the road from the area of the Best Western Plus hotel toward the Dutch Village apartment complex, which stands next to the creek, just inside city limits.
The police department said officers rendered first aid to the man until emergency medical responders from the Kingston Fire department and Mobile Life Support Services arrived, but that he succumbed to his injuries.
There was a third fatal collision involving a bicycle in the last year.
On Nov. 4, a 54-year-old city man died when he collided with and was run over by a school bus on Greenkill Avenue, the Kingston Police Department said.
The man, later identified as Darryl Savage, was pronounced dead at HealthAlliance Hospital’s Broadway Campus shortly after the 2:15 p.m. incident at the corner Wilbur and Greenkill avenues, police said.
The school bus, owned by Birnie Bus Co., was heading northeast on Greenkill Avenue, driven by a 43-year-old Rosendale woman, police said then. The bus had no passengers, police said.
In his letter on Monday, Noble said that he is hoping the Common Council takes up his new request for the safety campaign.
“It is my understanding that in order to hear this plea again, one of the members of the Common Council who voted down the proposal would need to bring this forward,” Noble wrote.
The Common Council members who voted against the Traffic Safety Education Campaign were Jeffrey Ventura Morell, D-Ward 1; Rita Worthington, D-Ward 4; Tony Davis, D-Ward 6; Patrick O’Reilly, a non-enrolled voter who represents Ward 7; and Michele Hirsch, D-Ward 9.
