One morning in August, I ride my bike out near the intersection of Alvar Street and St. Claude Avenue in New Orleans, pumping the pedals in the early light.
At the corner, two school buildings face each other on opposing sides of the road. Heavy traffic zooms by. A white-painted bicycle bearing a sign reading "Michael Adam Milam" stands in the neutral ground, parked in summer grass.
It's the scene of a deadly bike crash that claimed the life of Milam, a 36-year-old bartender, in July.
"This was a hit and run. He was left there in the street alone to die," Eric Gabourel, an organizer with Critical Mass NOLA, said. The group advocates for bike users via a monthly protest ride.
An arrest was made in Milam's death and charges are being filed, online court records show. An attorney listed for the person who was arrested didn't immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Milam's crash was followed by the death of a 65-year-old cyclist elsewhere on St. Claude later that month. The incidents have underlined the stakes of a long-running conversation about making New Orleans safer for biking, and sparked fresh calls for change.
St. Claude Avenue, which is largely managed by the state as a section of highway LA-46, is well-trafficked by cyclists. Advocates say it has long been thought of as a trouble spot, and it’s also the site of multiple earlier deaths.
The fatalities also highlight an apparent contradiction in New Orleans, where cycling is popular and where the city has worked to grow its bike infrastructure. But it is also a place where cycling on some roads can still feel perilous, especially in an era of larger cars.
"I have a lot of friends that used to commute by bike that are like, 'I don't want to do it anymore. I don't feel safe,'" Laura Harris, education and policy manager for cycling advocacy group Bike Easy, said.
Three people have died in bike crashes in Orleans Parish this year, according to data from Bike Easy. A city transportation dashboard shows that bike crashes, overall, were up last year, continuing a trend of growth in such incidents since 2021.
A city Department of Public Works spokesperson attributes more crashes citywide to larger numbers of cyclists, with less traffic enforcement, since the COVID-19 pandemic. Agencies are "coordinating infrastructure, enforcement, and educational efforts in response to a rash of recent fatalities" and are seeing results, they said in an email. The New Orleans City Council recently passed a resolution asking the state Department of Transportation and Development to conduct a traffic study on St. Claude — which the agency is planning for — while requesting technical help from city agencies.
Along the avenue, Gabourel said the existing painted bike lane, which runs alongside heavy stop-and-go traffic, is insufficient. He often sees cars or ride-sharing vehicles idling in it.
After this summer's deaths, he helped organize die-in protests, where cyclists lay their bicycles and bodies in the road in silence to serve as an expression of solidarity.
"It's very clear: People are dying on St. Claude Avenue. Cyclists are being injured, and those — a lot of times — go unreported," Gabourel said.
@criticalmassnola @nolacitycouncil Representatives of District B: @lesliharris and District D: @voteeugenegreen Mayoral Candidates: @otforus @royce_duplessis and @helenamorenola State Representatives vested in the @la_dotd @knoxalonzo@willard4nola @rep.delishaboyd@aimee4nola@votelandry @repshaunmena @repnewell99@sengarycarter and @jimmy4nola We want to reiterate the points made in our open letter to the Louisiana Representatives vested in the DOTD, and make it clear that we do not approve of the bicycle infrastructure being painted on Broad Street. Paint-on-pavement bike lanes are illusory progress. The reality is that cars park in our bike lanes, idle in them, and vehicles are weaponized against our bodies when they drive in them. This is not only an issue on St. Claude and Broad Street—we want complete streets with protected or separated bike lanes, extended crosswalks, and floating bus stops on all state-controlled streets in New Orleans. The city is designed for cars, but both the people and the planet reject the fossil-fuel interests that shape streets for private profit. Planning for the safety of the community and the planet must take precedence. With Unwavering Resolve, CMN Organizing Committee #criticalmass #rideinpower #bikestrong #criticalmassnola #saferstreetsnow ♬ sonido original - Selectomusic | #GoodMusic
‘It just drops you off’
Conversations about cycling safety in New Orleans are happening as both biking and the infrastructure around it have grown.
In the years before Hurricane Katrina, the city’s bikeway network totaled about seven miles, according to DPW's spokesperson. Today, it’s more than 150 miles.
Some data show New Orleans has the highest percentage of bike commuters of any Southern city. And like many cities, New Orleans experienced a surge of interest in cycling during the COVID-19 pandemic. Core elements of the city — a "flat, compact, connected" street grid built out before the advent of cars, and little snow or ice — help make it bikeable, Harris said.
It is also a place where many locals don't have access to a car.
The city's bike infrastructure has grown in tandem with the interest in cycling, with 35 miles of bikeway added or improved since 2020, per DPW. Both advocates and city representatives can point to positive examples of bike infrastructure in the city, like a parking-protected bike lane on Tulane Avenue.
Projects like the Lafitte Greenway are among "true success stories," DPW's spokesperson said. The city also has plans for a "super connector" centralized bikeway that will connect the Greenway and other high-volume bikeways like North Rampart Street to various neighborhoods, work for which is expected in the next few years.
"We have some good bike infrastructure — but sometimes it just drops you off, and leaves you with no infrastructure," Harris said.
Wide roadways, like near Carrollton Avenue's highway exits, are among areas that can be daunting and could use improvements, she said, adding that many potential riders are most scared of sharing the road with cars — especially when they see drivers flouting red lights.
On the city side, hiccups can come from the process of involving public feedback and traffic studies, which are helpful but can slow down the process of delivering change, DPW's spokesperson said. The city also recently lost federal funds for a project aimed at developing bike and walking trails in New Orleans East.
Clark Thompson, who is secretary-treasurer of New Orleans Ghost Bikes — the organization whose spectral white-painted bikes mark road deaths — said he's long considered St. Claude another area that needs attention. A naval architect in his day job, he's been pushing for change there with state engineers for years.
"Everywhere you look is another way to get yourself killed on this road," he said.
'There’s going to be challenges’
At the end of July, neighbors packed a meeting at St. Roch Community Church to ask for solutions for the St. Claude corridor. They were met by a cadre of city and state officials, state lawmakers and police officers, who explained more about jurisdiction issues for the roadway that have frustrated some advocates.
Those issues mean city work alone can't solve problems on St. Claude. Though lined with bars, restaurants and schools, the avenue's primary identity as Highway LA-46 requires the state's DOTD to lead improvements in an area with a complex traffic pattern.
"There's a large mix of pedestrian[s] and bicyclists with a very, very high mix of 18-wheeler trucks, some speeding, some recklessness," explained Scott Boyle, engineer administrator for DOTD District 02, drawing an incredulous "Some?!" from the crowd.
In a later phone interview, he said the department is organizing preliminary details such as funding for a study of the area and will consider several options for updates. Those could include "everything from the protected bike lanes, to a bike lane in the median, to doing curb-type ramps at major intersections, to putting in crosswalks."
For some of those choices, there are potential hurdles to think through. The area fields 30,000 cars a day, has lots of street parking, and is an unavoidable route for trucks traveling to nearby ports and docks. It’s also heavily trafficked by cyclists — perhaps as a connecting route to other parts of the city.
"These are not insurmountable types of scenarios that we can't engineer our way out of, but there's going to be challenges," he said.
After the meeting, attendee Kari Rohland, who lives nearby, said she doesn't see the point in building out further bike lanes unless they are protected. But she had been reminded by the meeting that the road is under state control, and that truck traffic is likely to stay there.
She is among those who have been seriously injured in a bike crash, hit by a distracted driver on Esplanade Avenue. She said the incident gave her a concussion and broke her hand.
She'd agreed with a comment at the meeting about "the traffic rates of injury and death in this city — it's a public-health crisis," she said.
More protected lanes needed
An ongoing ask of advocates for St. Claude Avenue and elsewhere is for protected or separated bike lanes. They can take the form of the bike lane running behind a stretch of parked cars, a curb or another barrier, and have sometimes had a mixed reception in the city.
But Chris Monsere, a vice provost for faculty success and professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering at Portland State University, said the movement around those structures has been going on in the U.S. for some time. Many cities start with lower-cost arrangements, such as using plastic bollards, and then switch over to more expensive, permanent structures.
One benefit of protected lanes, he said, is simply that riders feel safer. A painted lane next to high-speed traffic with large vehicles lacks "comfort appeal," while protected lanes can appeal to people who are not your "Lance Armstrong spandex riders."
"There's a large swath of people who are sort of interested [in cycling] but concerned ... and so the quality of the facility really makes a difference for them about whether they would choose to ride or not on a particular roadway," Monsere said.
Among other changes like floating bus stops, Gabourel, of Critical Mass NOLA, said he'd love to see a citywide interconnected grid of separated bike lanes "where parents could bike with their children to school in the morning and feel safe and secure," he said.
When he was growing up, he said there was a classist stigma about adults riding bikes in New Orleans. Now, he sees people from all walks of life riding a bike.
Harris said she never thought she would hear state engineers talking about the need to make changes on St. Claude Avenue.
Overall, she falls somewhere between optimistic and pessimistic about what comes next citywide, but believes improvements are coming.
"I am frustrated with how long it's taken, and how many people have had to die," she said. "But because of that, I think people are finally waking up."
This story was produced by the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration between Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WBHM in Alabama, WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana and NPR.
