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Kim Staley was one of three cyclists killed in Cambridge in just a matter of months in 2024.

By Abby Patkin

June 18, 2026 | 11:03 AM

2 minutes to read

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Two years after Kim Staley was struck and killed while riding a bicycle in Harvard Square, fellow cyclists have propped up a white “ghost bike” there in her honor — a poignant memorial, but also a subtle protest against unsafe streets.

Stripped down, painted white, and perched at the site where a cyclist has been killed or injured in a crash, a ghost bike “remind[s] drivers and people sharing the road that there are other vulnerable road users that they should be aware of,” said local advocate Peter Cheung, who installed the new ghost bike last week at the corner of Mount Auburn and DeWolfe streets.

Staley, a 55-year-old from Florida, was biking down Mount Auburn Street when a box truck turned into her path and struck her on June 7, 2024. 

Cheung, the founder of Ghost Bikes Boston, said the group had some difficulty getting in touch with Staley’s relatives, given the geographical distance. They usually ask the victim’s family for their blessing before installing a ghost bike, also checking in with local authorities to ensure the memorial won’t be a hazard, he explained. 

Cheung and Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition executive director Galen Mook ultimately decided to install the ghost bike in Staley’s honor for the two-year anniversary of her death, forgoing a formal unveiling. However, he said cycling advocates are still entertaining the idea of a ghost bike ceremony down the line. 

“They are very powerful ceremonies,” Cheung explained. “It shows the visibility of the movement, and also lets people [be] aware of the vulnerable road users out there.”

Staley was one of three cyclists killed in Cambridge in just a matter of months in 2024. Two weeks after Staley died, Minh-Thi Nguyen, a 24-year-old doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was killed in a similar collision at Hampshire and Portland streets when a box truck turned into her path. According to Cheung, Nguyen’s family declined a ghost bike memorial for religious reasons. 

In September 2024, Newton resident John Corcoran was struck and killed by an SUV while biking on Memorial Drive. The driver was later charged with motor vehicle homicide, and a ghost bike ceremony to honor Corcoran drew several hundred local cyclists. 

Staley’s ghost bike is Harvard Square’s second; an earlier memorial placed in 2020 honors Darryl Willis, who was killed in a collision with a tractor-trailer near the Harvard Square MBTA station. 

And despite the lack of formal ceremony, Cheung said last week’s ghost bike installation didn’t go unnoticed. 

“People were walking by and driving by, like, ‘Oh my god, I was wondering when this ghost bike was coming, because I remember that day,’” he recalled. “It’s a lot of stories, a lot of touching stories that we encounter all the time doing this work.”