The Eighth Annual Ghost Bike Memorial Ride was held this past Sunday, hosted by the NYC Street Memorial Project. Each year, participants ride to honor cyclists and pedestrians who were killed by motorists in the preceding year, pausing at white-painted “ghost bikes” that have been installed at locations where fatal collisions have taken place.

Five rides took place in each of the five New York City boroughs simultaneously, stopping along the way at 20 ghost bikes installed in the past year — 18 of which memorialize cyclists who were fatally struck in 2012, along with two reported so far in 2013: Victor Lopez, struck at the intersection of New Utrecht Avenue and 58th Street in Brooklyn, and Jean Malizia, struck at East 23rd Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan.

Although the City has made vast improvements to support bicycling in the past six years, organizers of Sunday’s memorial ride emphasized the need for additional safety improvements in Queens. While Queens was home to 40 cyclist and pedestrian fatalities last year, along with almost 3,500 injuries, through the Fiscal Year 2012, Queens received only 3.3 new lane miles during the same time period. Additionally, Queens is left out of the list of bicycle route projects slated for Fiscal Year 2013.

This year, all five rides convened in Queens at the intersection of Jackson Avenue and Queens Boulevard, one of the Tri-State region’s most dangerous roads for walking. Pedestrian and cyclist crashes tend to be clustered in the neighborhoods near Queens Boulevard, which is in dire need of infrastructure improvements.

As bicycle ridership increases, and with Citi Bike’s launch just around the corner, there’s no better time to make New York City’s streets safer for all users.