A 47-year-old Berkeley man fatally struck by a San Francisco Municipal Railway bus while bicycling on San Francisco’s Market Street Sunday afternoon has been identified by the medical examiner’s office.
Mark Heryer died when he apparently lost his balance and fell off a bike while cycling between two westbound Muni buses in the Financial District, according to investigators.
The first report of the collision came in at 3:23 p.m. Sunday in the 500 block of Market Street, near Sutter Street, according to police.
Heryer died when he went under one of the bus tires, police spokeswoman Officer Grace Gatpandan said.
Gatpandan said police will be conducting a thorough investigation and that officers are reviewing surveillance video and witness statements.
She said police have not yet made an official decision on who was at fault in the death.
SFMTA spokesman Paul Rose said the bus driver will undergo drug and alcohol testing and SFMTA officials will be working with police to determine how the collision occurred.
Video surveillance footage from other buses nearby will be reviewed during the investigation, Rose said.
Later that same day, at about 4 p.m., a woman was injured when a southbound truck struck her as she was riding a bike at the intersection of The Embarcadero and Chestnut Street, Gatpandan said.
The woman was taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries that are not considered life-threatening, Gatpandan said.
The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition released a statement following Sunday’s collisions, expressing their condolences to Heryer’s family as well as wishing the injured bicyclist a quick and thorough recovery.
The coalition called on police to thoroughly investigate the incidents and identify the primary contributing factors in both bicycle collisions.
“(Sunday’s) tragedies demonstrate yet again that our city’s elected leaders and agencies owe it to the growing number of people here who bike, and to the families of those who can no longer join them, to redouble their efforts and investments to deliver engineering solutions without delay, expand safety education, and ensure that the SFPD’s priorities honor yesterday’s tragedies and data through smart enforcement tomorrow,” the coalition wrote in a statement.
SFMTA director of transportation Ed Reiskin expressed the condolences of the agency’s employees to Heryer’s family and said the SFMTA is committed to Vision Zero, the goal of eliminating all traffic deaths in San Francisco by 2024.
He said the SFMTA “will work closely with SFPD to ascertain all facts of this truly unfortunate event.”
Hannah Albarazi, Bay City News
