Truck Driver Kills Bicyclist in Harvard Square

Update (Sept. 1): Cambridge Police have identified the victim as Darryl Willis, aged 55.

The driver of a large tractor-trailer truck struck and killed a man riding a bicycle in Harvard Square this morning, according to Cambridge Police.

In a press release, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan reported that the tractor-trailer driver was heading westbound on Massachusetts Avenue when they stuck their victim near the former Out of Town News kiosk.

News photographs of the crash scene from Ann Ringwood for Wicked Local Cambridge show a large tractor trailer truck stopped in the right lane on Massachusetts Avenue where the street curves northward to meet Brattle Street. Behind the truck, a wrecked bicycle lies in the painted bike lane.

The operator of the tractor-trailer reportedly remained on the scene and the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, the Cambridge Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section are leading an investigation.

It's the second time in less than a year that a truck driver has killed someone in Harvard Square.

Last September, the driver of another large truck struck and killed Sharon Hamer, 67, a retired Boston Public Schools librarian, on Brattle Street just steps away from this morning's crash site.

Partly in response to that killing, City of Cambridge officials announced that they would expand the scope of a plaza reconstruction project to eliminate one lane of traffic from both Massachusetts Avenue and Brattle Street.

That plan (pictured at right) would not create physical protection for the Massachusetts Ave. bike lane, but it would give the bike lane an additional buffer, and could allow for a physically-protected bikeway in a future project.

That project had been expected to begin construction sometime in 2020.