Huntington News

Issue date: 4/11/07 Section: News

Media Credit: News Photo/Eric Baumann A white bicycle is chained on Huntington Avenue where 22-year-old Gordon Riker was struck and killed last week.

A cyclist was killed at the intersection of Huntington Avenue and Forsyth Street Wednesday afternoon after a collision with a taxi caused his bike to skid under a truck, police said.

Emergency services took Gordon Riker, a 22-year-old Massachusetts College of Art graduate, to Brigham and Women's Hospital where he was pronounced dead of trauma.

J.D. Ferry, a second-year student at the Northeastern School of Law, said he saw Riker riding between the taxi and truck on the 400 block of Huntington Avenue.

When they reached the intersection, he said, the taxi's fender hit the back tire of the bike, which knocked Riker and his bike beneath the truck's rear set of tires.

"He was face down, not moving, after that," Ferry said. "I'm not sure if the truck driver knew what happened."

Police arrived moments later, Ferry said, and blocked off Huntington Avenue from Parker Street to Gainsborough Street with caution tape. They stopped the taxi and the truck on Huntington Avenue.

The dump truck belonged to MacAuley and Sons Concrete Contractors and was carrying a full bed of scrap concrete. Both the taxi and truck drivers are under investigation, police said.

Police carried the fixed-gear bike, which had a mangled front wheel, to a squad car, along with a cell phone, a right shoe, a messenger bag and a broken helmet.

Jennifer Wolfson, a third-year student at Northeastern School of Law, was also hit last week while riding on Massachusetts Avenue.

Wolfson said she was riding in the bike lane when she collided head-on with a truck turning left out of a side street. Her head and her bike's front wheel hit the hood and bumper of the truck, and she was thrown backward onto the street.

She suffered minor injuries to her face and backside but declined medical treatment.

Wolfson said despite her accident and Riker's death last week, she believes Boston is safer for biking than cities like New York and Washington, D.C.   

 "There are more people on bikes in Boston than there were a few years ago, and that makes things safer," she said. "I feel like the more people there are riding, the safer we are as a whole."

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