'Ghost Bike' Ceremony Set for Cyclist Killed in Cambridge

CAMBRIDGE, MA — Friends, colleagues and the cycling community will congregate Tuesday in Porter Square to dedicate a ghost bike erected in memory of Bernard "Joe" Lavins, struck and killed by an 18-wheeler while biking down Mass. Ave. last week.

The ceremony is set for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, at the Porter Square T Station.

It comes less than a week after Lavins, 60, was hit near Porter Square. The fatal collision remains under investigation, according to the Cambridge Police Department and Essex County District Attorney's office.

Read More: Victim Identified in Fatal Porter Square Bicycle Crash

Ghost bikes are the white-painted bicycles installed to commemorate a rider's death, and to raise awareness.

As the event organizers wrote on Facebook:

"We gather so we do not grieve alone. ... We gather to dedicate a ghost bike, a visible sign of an invisible reality- that we are fragile humans, only here for a little while. We gather to make visible sign of a dawning awareness- that we must peacefully coexist on these shared roads for all of us to stay alive. We gather honor Joe's life, to pray for all who grieve his death, torededicate ourselves to the day when there are zero fatalities on our city’s roads, a peaceable city, not paved with gold but with protected cycletracks."

The T station is a temporary gathering place, the event page notes, saying there's work underway to secure a location closer to the site of the crash, on Mass. Ave.

Photo courtesy Peter Cheung