Chicago Ride of Silence honors bicyclists who were struck, killed by vehicles in Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Fallen bicyclists were honored Wednesday evening in a 10-mile Ride of Silence throughout Chicago.

The annual ride includes stops for silent reflection at sites where bikers were killed by drivers over the past several years.

The event was intended to call attention to the right of bicyclists to use the road, and the urgent need for infrastructure to make biking in Chicago safer.

According to the Active Transportation Alliance, the ride unofficially departed from Queens Landing – on DuSable Lake Shore Drive directly east of Buckingham Fountain, and headed north for an official ride starting point at Dickens Greenway Plaza – on Dickens Drive at Lincoln Park West near the Lincoln Park Zoo. Dickens Drive between Lincoln Park West and Stockton Drive was recently closed to vehicular traffic, but is open for bicyclists.

The ride then proceeded silently along an 11-mile route through the city's North and Northwest sides – with stops at sites where cyclists were struck and killed or injured by vehicles. They included:

• The Ghost Bike of Tyler Fabeck, 22, who was on his bicycle at Western Avenue and Logan Boulevard beneath the Kennedy Expressway when he was struck and killed by a driver on April 20, 2008.
• The Ghost Bike of Kevin Clark, 32, who was struck and killed while biking at the same intersection as Fabeck some 13 years later – on May 26, 2021. Clark was famous for appearing as the drummer in the film "School of Rock" as a youngster.
• The Ghost Bike of Ron Mendoza, 43, a bike rider who was struck by a driver at Wrightwood Avenue and Pulaski Road on June 5 of last year, and died of his injuries two days later.
• The Ghost Bike of Joshua Anleu, 16, who was struck and killed by a vehicle at Waveland and Long avenues while biking on Oct. 4 of last year.
• The Ghost Bike of Ernesto Vargas, 18, who was struck and critically injured by a Jeep in a hit-and-run on Feb. 27 at Long Avenue and Grace Street – a block from where Anleu was struck and killed. Vargas
• The Ghost Bike of Carla Aiello, 37, who was riding a bike in the bike lane at Milwaukee and Kilbourn avenues on Nov. 6, 2019, when she was struck and killed by a turning dump truck driver.
• The Ghost Bike of Nick Parlingayan, 22, who was struck and killed on his bike on May 4, 2022, at the same location as Aiello.

A post-ride gathering at Sleeping Village, 3734 W. Belmont Ave., was set to honor other Chicagoans who have been struck and killed while riding their bikes – including George Christensen. As Streetsblog Chicago editor John Greenfield wrote, Christensen – who was known for his cycling trips all over the world – was struck and killed by a semi-trailer truck in Ridgeway, South Carolina, on Monday, April 22.

The Active Transportation Alliance reported an average of five to six bicyclists were killed in Chicago every year between 2012 and 2023. But nine were killed in 2020, 10 in 2021, and eight in 2022, the organization said.