Help Us Build 24 Ghost Bikes

A Ghost Bike is a simple bicycle, painted white, installed with a plaque at the site where a cyclist was killed. Ghost Bikes serves as a memorial space for the community, a reminder of what happened there, and a call to prevent these tragedies from occurring. The NYC Ghost Bike Project began in 2007 as political street art. The goal was to draw attention to an increasing number of cyclists killed on city streets. Since that time, we have installed hundreds of Ghost Bikes on city streets, and the project has been replicated in over 200 cities around the world. 

In the past year, a huge number of cyclists were killed on city streets, and due to COVID-19, there is a large backlog of Ghost Bikes to be built. We are devastated by this loss, and these continued, preventable tragedies. And we are in need of help to pay for making so many new Ghost Bikes. 

It costs about $60 for the paint, lock, chain, and other supplies required to build one Ghost Bike. We need to build at least 24 Ghost Bikes for those cyclists who have already been killed on city streets.

Sadly, statistics tell us that we can anticipate the need to build another 15-25 Ghost Bikes in the coming year. Please help us buy the paint, sandpaper, and padlocks that allow us to create these moving memorials on the street. 

1. Buy supplies: Crates of white spray paint, lengths of chain, sandpaper, padlocks, and more.

2. Collect donated bicycles: We only make Ghost Bikes out of bicycles that can no longer be used for riding.

3. Organize a series of workdays: Our friends at the Greenpoint Reform Church allow us to build Ghost Bikes in their backyard. It will take two workdays to build all the Ghost Bikes we need to create. 

4. Gather a volunteer installation team and a volunteer building team: This project is 100% run by volunteers.

5. Build: We will create at least 24 Ghost Bikes and install them across NYC.

Bicycles are good for New York. In a city plagued by congestion, asthma, and smog, with a failing transit network and rising transportation costs, bicycles are a cure-all. It is a highly affordable, environmentally friendly, hyper-efficient way to get around.

When a person is killed on a bicycle, all of these benefits are negated. These fatalities are completely preventable. We hope to make bicycling an option for more New Yorkers, and make clear that no person killed in a preventable traffic crash will be forgotten.