It has been five years since a drunken motorist drove through a group of cyclists on Esplanade Avenue following the 2019 Krewe of Endymion parade. The crash killed two people, Sharree Walls and David Hynes, and injured several others, including Nellie Catzen. Catzen now advocates for safer streets for all road users as co-chair of New Orleans Complete Streets Coalition.
At the inaugural Bike Easy Ride to Remember, held Sunday (May 19) at Lake Lawn Metairie Cemetery, Catzen reflected on the past five years without her friends Walls and Hynes. She read from her journal entry on March 2, 2020, one year after the crash.
“I got through this year folding laundry and dusting plants and sweeping the stairs,” Katzen said, reading from her journal. “I weeded the garden. I cared for Sharree’s plants.”
Catzen said she had not spent a lot of time on a bicycle since the crash. But on Sunday, she joined a group of cyclists – some who are loved ones of people killed while riding their bikes – as they followed Bike Easy Community Programs Manager David Meza through the winding maze of pathways surrounding the cemetery’s historic memorials.
Among the riders were Cassandra and Rashid Brooks, mother and brother of Ralph “Peedy” Brooks, who died on May 30, 2023 near the intersection of St. Louis Street and North Claiborne Avenue. They said the past year has been hard. Some days they don’t believe he died the way he did.
“He was a very careful person. It’s hard to believe how he lost his life,” Cassandra Brooks said. “Because this is the month of [the] anniversary of his death, I had to be here and hopefully I’ll get some closure and honor the memory of Peedy.”
Bike Easy Executive Director Allene La Spina said honoring loved ones and strengthening community is what the event is about.
“We want to give people resources to become better advocates and demand safer streets. There [are] ways that we can prevent a lot of the things that have happened with better designs, more enforcement [and] more awareness,” La Spina said.
The event featured a dedication to cyclists who have passed from the Rev. Gary Taylor of the Trinity Episcopal Church.
It was followed by a small group of cyclists who biked from the cemetery to a different memorial – the tangled pile of ghost bikes at the intersection of Elysian Fields and St. Claude Avenues. The group was led by Clark Thompson, a representative of New Orleans Ghost Bikes. The cyclists aimed to deconsecrate and say goodbye to the pile, as the city intends to remove the unpermitted sculpture this week. The sculpture was erected more than seven years ago to commemorate bicyclists killed near the intersection, which is surrounded by individual ghost bikes remembering people who passed as recently as last summer. Thompson used a metal grinder to remove parts of the sculpture as keepsakes after the pile is removed.
As Thompson spoke, a large SUV sped along Elysian Fields Avenue and across the street.
“We have to watch for that guy because he doesn’t give a damn. He thinks he’s driving a big 5,000-pound toy,” Thompson said. “This is a daily reminder that we have to ride with eyes in the back of our head and watch these people. This isn’t the end of this site. This is a new chapter.”
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