On February 28 of this year, Gerardo Marciales, 41, was riding a Divvy bicycle across DuSable Lake Shore Drive at Balbo Drive when a lawbreaking driver fatally struck him. Last night his loved ones were joined by over 60 members of the Chicago bike community for the installation of a ghost bike shrine in Gerardo’s memory.
The Chicago Police Department crash report on the case indicated that the northbound driver was in a left-turn lane with green turn arrow at the time, but instead proceeded straight through the red light and struck the cyclist. The motorist was cited for improper lane use.
Chicago Department of Transportation records show that during a February 2018 Mayor’s Pedestrian Advisory Council, an attendee told CDOT that this is a common illegal move on the drive, which endangers people crossing to and from the Lakefront Trail with a walk signal. However, the city took no action to address the problem.
Last June Gerardo, who worked as a technical consulting engineer for the tech company Cisco, had gotten engaged to Jaime Bolognone. She was was present at the vigil along with Gerardo’s sisters and other family members. It was particularly tragic that Gerardo's life was cut short before the couple had the opportunity to experience married life together. Speaking before the installation, Jaime described him as a funny, vivacious person who loved deeply.
Gerardo’s older sister, Dubraska Diaz, shared that when she tells people how her brother died, many of them assume that he had done something wrong, such as riding against traffic, or crossing without a walk signal. Many online commenters jumped to the same conclusion, since an initial statement from Police News Affairs said the driver was not ticketed.
Diaz recalled her brother telling her a number of times that he didn’t want a car because he felt it was unnecessary in Chicago. She urged city officials to do all that they can to fix the intersection where her brother was killed and said she wants drivers to take their responsibility behind the wheel seriously.
After the remarks, Gerardo’s loved ones, joined by Christina Whitehouse from the bikeway advocacy website Bike Lane Uprising, which helped organize the vigil, chained the white-painted bicycle to a pole in the median of the intersection. The intention was to notify motorists that a person had been killed on a bike there, and urge them to drive safely.
Police blocked car traffic as attendees lined the intersection. Although drivers were delayed for less than a minute, when their light turned green, many of them honked with impatience.
I visited the intersection after most attendees had cleared the area. I observed a few drivers illegally going straight through a turn lane, like the motorist who killed Gerardo.
According to an NBC Chicago report, CDOT plans to add new street markings and bollards to help prevent drivers from misusing the left turn lane. The department did not immediately reply to Streetsblog's question about whether the bollards will be flimsy plastic posts, which would probably be quickly demolished by motorists, or made of a sturdier material like concrete or metal.
Gerardo es amado y extrañado todos los días. ('Gerardo is loved and missed every day.') 10/9/1980-3/2/2022." Photo: Courtney Cobbs
On April 21, Bike Lane Uprising led volunteers in a guerrilla traffic study of the intersection where Gerardo was killed. I went out to observe and record conditions. I was honestly shocked at how common it was to see drivers stationed or moving in the crosswalk during the walk signal, and motorists illegally using the turn lane to proceed through the light, often at high speeds.
Gerardo was not the only vulnerable road user killed near this location in recent years. For example, in October 2015 a motorcyclist ran a red and killed Katrin Kutscheidt, a 25-year-old visitor from Germany, as she was walking across the drive at Buckingham Fountain, two blocks north of Balbo.
My hope is that their deaths, and those of countless other Chicago traffic violence victims, will not have been in vain. We must learn from their stories and implement policies and street designs that prioritize human life over convenient driving.
