Posted on August 27, 2019 at 10:42 am by West Sider



File photo by Stephen Harmon.

A series of bicycle crashes around 72nd Street inside Central Park brought out a large police presence on Monday, as one of the crashes left a cyclist in critical condition.

The cyclist, who was on an e-bike, crashed into an elderly pedestrian who was walking in the crosswalk on Terrace Drive — the road that runs through the park east to west at 72nd — according to the Daily News. The cyclist appeared to suffer head injuries, a witness told the newspaper. Three other bicycle crashes also occurred “within feet of the crash,” the News reported.

A CBS News reporter covering the e-bike crash witnessed at least one of them as she stood there.

“As police investigated the incident, a woman was hit by a cyclist as she rode her bike with a group in almost the same area. Moments later, Mike Ryan wiped out on his bike right in front of CBS2’s crew.

Police stood in the roadway afterwards, cautioning cyclists to slow down. “Yo, yo, stop your bike right there, stop,” one officer told a cyclist. “One, you got headphones on. That’s against the law. Two, you’re riding like a maniac.”