Bike advocates are calling for increased investment in infrastructure and better educational outreach following last Tuesday’s cyclist-involved crash on Walnut Street.

The late afternoon accident along a section of Walnut Street with no parking and a bike lane sent a 17-year-old Newton cyclist to the hospital with serious injuries.

Newton Police were still investigating the crash and had not filed charges against the 93-year-old Newton driver, who remained on scene, as of deadline.

Police have released few details about the crash, but advocates said the near-tragic accident spotlighted more general concerns about bike safety in Newton.

“Whenever a crash like this happens we can’t seem to make any progress on anything specific,” said Alicia Bowman, president of the nonprofit Bike Newton. “In the last five years, we have not made much of any progress. As far as real infrastructure, it just hasn’t happened.”

Several cyclists interviewed for this story said Newton could be doing more, arguing the Garden City was falling behind neighbors like Boston, Cambridge and Brookline when it comes to bike safety.

“There has been incremental improvement, but not the kind of pace and kind of changes that are necessary in Newton,” said Nathan Phillips. “We need to move much faster on making our streets safer for all users.”

Advocates were cautiously optimistic about the future, however, with the recent hiring of a new transportation director, Nicole Freedman, an Olympic cyclist who previously spearheaded bike infrastructure upgrades in Boston.

A draft of the city’s transportation strategy, expected to include sections on bike safety, was provided to councilors last week. City officials were unavailable to provide comment for this story by deadline.

Sean Roche, who has biked to work for the past 15 years, said the city should be proactively adding bike lanes and other facilities to separate cars from bikes, throughout the city.

Roche said there was a noticeable difference between cycling in places like Cambridge or Boston, and biking in Newton.

“Other communities are adding miles and miles and miles of bike lanes and separated facilities and sharrows,” Roche said. “And we just haven't. We haven't done that great. We put these nice bike lanes on Centre Street and now the paint is fading.”

Advocates said educating cyclists and drivers about safety should be a higher priority.

George Kirby, a member of the Newton Bicycle/Pedestrian Task Force, said distracted driving was one of the biggest issues in bicycle safety, advocating for stricter municipal laws about using cell phones while driving.

“In general we should be encouraging people to ride bikes more and the way we need to do that is by improving safety better than what we have,” Kirby said, adding that cycling was good for the environment and reducing traffic.

On Walnut Street, Kirby said prohibiting parking and adding a bike lane had improved safety there dramatically. Another recent victory was changing municipal ordinances to allow bikes on sidewalks outside of business districts, in keeping with state law, he said.

Bowman said police should proactively provide biking and driving safety tips following crashes like the one last Tuesday, just as they might provide tips to homeowners following a rash of break-ins. And in general, Bowman said, kids need more bike education.

A small group of bike advocates met last Friday in reaction to the Walnut Street crash, which took place near Duncklee Street.

Phillips said change in this area would require citizens demand “livable streets – streets that are safe for walking and biking and motor vehicles and for transit.”

“That’s the concept of ‘complete streets.’ The city of Newton has signed onto that concept of complete streets,” he said. “It needs to move much faster than it has been in order to make a difference for our kids.”