An Audi driver struck and killed bicycle rider Matthew McCallum, 52, at an unsignalized North Branch Trail crossing in Niles

Tragically, the driver of a Audi sedan fatally struck bicycle rider Matthew McCallum, 52, last Saturday evening as he crossed Harts Road in Niles while riding on the North Branch Trail. It was the second time a street crossing death had occurred on the popular cycling route since July 2024.

The July 2024 crash in Morton Grove

On the morning of Tuesday, July 9, 2024, 74-year-old Michael Rapp was bicycling on the trail when he attempted to ride across Dempster Street at Lehigh Avenue in Morton Grove, local police said. Dempster has five lanes in this location, which encourages speeding by drivers.

A person driving a car on Dempster struck the bike rider, according to police. Rapp, a retired schoolteacher and architect who lived in Skokie, was transported to Lutheran General Hospital and pronounced dead.

A Streetsblog reader who posted about the crash later told me he arrived at the scene after the collision, and witnesses said the driver had the green. Police did not mention whether speeding by the motorist and/or distracted driving may have been factors in their inability to avoid striking Rapp.

Saturday’s collision in Niles

Less than three miles south on the trail from Michael Rapp’s crash site at Dempster/Lehigh, on Saturday the Audi driver struck Matthew McCallum at the path crossing at Harts Road and Riverside Drive in Skokie.

According to a report by Tom Robb in Journal & Topic, police said on Saturday around 6:47 p.m., McCallum was cycling on a black bike when he entered the North Branch Trail’s unsignalized intersection with two-lane Harts Road, riding in the intersection. The 46-year-old eastbound driver of the Audi sedan then struck him.

McCallum, who lived in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood, was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. He was pronounced dead at 7:40 p.m.

Police said the driver stayed on the scene and did not appear to be intoxicated, and no charges or citations had been filed as of Monday, the Journal & Times reported.

“Unlike other North Branch Trail crossings, Harts Road has no [rectangular rapid] flashing beacons,” Tom Robb wrote in the Journal & Topics. “Niles Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee Chairman Craig Niedermeier said Harts is a state road and that installing flashing beacons on state roads is difficult. He said there have not been any other recent crashes at Harts and Riverside near the North Branch Trail, and the village has not applied to have a beacon at that intersection.” 

There is a downsides to rectangular rapid flashing beacons, which are located at intersections where there are no traffic signals or four-way stop signs, and are activated by pushing a button. Unlike a stoplight, they don’t require drivers to stop when they see flashing lights, but only when a pedestrian or bike rider is already in the crosswalk, the same as if there was no RRFB.

Worse, the beacons may give vulnerable road users a false sense of security that a motorist is going to stop for them, when that might not be the case. Within roughly the last decade, there have been at least two fatal bike crashes at RRFB intersections in Chicagoland.

A better solution for unsignalized trail crossings, such as the one where Matthew McCallum was killed on Saturday, would be pedestrian-activated stoplights. Last month it was announced that Chicago’s first-such signal is coming to Ridge, Hollywood and Wayne avenues, in McCallum’s Edgewater community. Sadly, if there had been one at the North Branch Trail crossing at Harts Road, McCallum might still be alive.

Read the Journal & Topics report here.

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