Bicyclist Severely Injures Pedestrian In Unprotected Commonwealth Ave. Bike Lane Near Kenmore Square
A person on a bicycle crashed into a woman on Commonwealth Avenue near St. Mary’s Street and inflicted a serious head injury on Tuesday morning, according to Boston Police.
On Wednesday morning, Boston Police spokesperson Sgt. Det. John Boyle told StreetsblogMASS that “the victim’s condition is improving, and she is expected to live.”
The perpetrator in the crash was also hospitalized with minor injuries. Police have not identified either of the people involved.
An eyewitness of the crash, Boston University student Ashley Zeissler, told Boston.com that she heard the collision, then turned to see the victim hitting the pavement “headfirst.”
Zeissler also said that the person on the bike was in the street’s painted bike lane at the time of the crash.
Photos of the scene later in the morning from the Boston Globe showed the entire right lane and bike lane of Commonwealth Avenue cordoned off, including the crosswalk on the west side of the Commonwealth Avenue and St. Mary’s Street intersection, next to the B.U. West Green Line platform.
The Globe’s Lauren Albano and Bryan Hecht also reported that police were inspecting a Bianchi road bike at the scene.
Crash history and context
Commonwealth Avenue is a busy regional bike route, as well as one of the city’s busiest streets for foot traffic.
In Boston’s annual bike traffic surveys last Sept. 23rd, city officials counted 1,712 people on bikes riding on Commonwealth Avenue a few blocks east of the crash site. That day, bikes represented about 12 percent of the street’s vehicular traffic.
West of the Boston University Bridge, Commonwealth Avenue has sidewalk-level protected bike lanes that are separated from moving traffic.
The avenue is also the spine of Boston University’s campus, and with numerous Green Line stops situated in the avenue’s median, hundreds of pedestrians cross the mutli-lane avenue every hour.
The intersection of St. Mary’s Street in Commonwealth Avenue, where the crash occurred, has a traffic light. Its crosswalks are also the only point of access to the B.U. Central Green Line station.
MassDOT’s crash records database records only three other collisions within 100 feet of the intersection since 2018.
In March of this year, a teen driver crashed into a parked vehicle to the northeast of the intersection, inflicting minor injuries to two people.
In April 2024, a teenaged motorized scooter rider struck a pedestrian in the crosswalk at St. Mary’s Street, but there were no injuries reported.
And in March 2018, a driver in their early 20s rear-ended another vehicle in the westbound lanes at the traffic light, inflicting minor injuries.
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