BY JACKSON CHEN | A Brooklyn resident was killed on Mon., June 12 when the Citi Bike he was riding collided with a bus on W. 26th St., between Seventh and Eighth Aves., police said.
Dan Hanegby, a 36-year-old investment banker, was on his way to work at Credit Suisse when he was struck by a charter bus at around 8:15 a.m., according to police. Police said the cyclist swerved to get around a parked van, fell off the bike, collided with a bus that was travelling the same direction, and was run over by the rear tires. Hanegby is the first fatality since Citi Bike’s start four years ago, according to a Citi Bike spokesperson.
Police said Hanegby was brought to Bellevue Hospital Center where he was pronounced dead shortly after. Police said the bus driver stayed on the scene and was not charged. The Daily News identified the Coach USA operator, who passed sobriety tests following the incident, as 52-year-old Dave Lewis from Poughkeepsie.
Christine Berthet, Transportation Planning Committee co-chair of Community Board 4 (CB4), said that W. 26th St. between Seventh and Eighth Aves. (which does not have a bike lane) is often congested with vehicles, adding that buses shouldn’t be allowed down that street.
“This bus should have never been on that street because this is not a truck route,” Berthet said. “Buses go everywhere and trying to control them and get them on the right track is very difficult.”
According to CB4, the city inadvertently funneled large tour buses onto W. 26th St. after banning left turns for eastbound traffic on W. 23rd trying to get onto Eighth Ave. (see the Chelsea Now Feb. 8, 2017 article “Turn Restriction Shifts Tour Buses to Side Streets”).
While W. 26th St. currently doesn’t allow trucks, CB4 penned a letter to the city’s Department of Transportation in February requesting the truck restriction to include buses due to safety concerns and community complaints. “Commercial bus traffic on such a busy residential street is putting all these parents, children and seniors in danger,” the letter read.
According to NYPD’s Motor Vehicle Collision stats, W. 26th St. between Seventh and Eighth Aves. has seen more than 100 incidents — two of which involved injured cyclists — in the last five years. Following the incident, police officers near where Hanegby was struck were seen ticketing Citi Bike riders going the wrong direction and double-parked cars.
When asked multiple times about any statistics Citi Bike keeps of injuries or collisions, the company reps could not provide any information.
Hanegby lived in Brooklyn Heights and is survived by his wife and two children. He was born in Israel where he became the country’s number 1 ranked tennis player by 16, according to a report by Brown University’s campus newspaper. The Brown Daily Herald also reported that he moved to the US in 2003 to study at Binghamton University before transferring to Brown. Hanegby also served in the Israel Defense Forces from December 1999 to December 2002, according to his LinkedIn page.
Citi Bike currently has 10,000 bikes throughout the city and has been used for 43 million rides.
“Together with the City of New York, we wish to express our heartfelt condolences to the rider’s family and loved ones on this terrible tragedy,” Citi Bike spokesperson Dani Simons said in a statement.
