Duwayne Carter, 10, reaches out to touch the arm of his mother, Patricia Short, while under the protective arm of his father, Cory Carter, on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Homewood South. The family was gathered for a ghost bike memorial honoring the passing of Courtney Carter, 9, who was fatally struck by a car as she rode her bike along Rosedale St. on Aug. 18. (Photos by Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource)
The death of Courtney Carter while cycling in Homewood brought out neighborhood residents and bike advocates, who echoed longstanding calls for safer streets.
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Courtney Carter’s 10-year-old brother, Duwayne, reached out to touch his mother’s arm as she watched people lay flowers on a white Ghost Bike in her daughter’s memory. A Barney doll and photos of the confident 9-year-old were attached to the white wheels and handlebars leaned against a Rosedale Street telephone pole in Homewood South, where Courtney was struck and killed by a car while riding her bike on Aug. 18. “We called her ‘Mama Bear,’” said Patricia Short, a nod to the way her daughter cared for her family and her classmates at Pittsburgh Faison K-5.
A crowd of children from Courtney’s afterschool group at The Promise Center of Homewood and members of Pittsburgh’s bicycle community paused for a moment of silence before pulling out together for a bike ride through the neighborhood in her memory. Staff from BikePGH was on hand to fit Courtney’s community members with helmets as the setting sun cast long shadows through the spinning bike wheels along the route. From the backseat of a car blocking traffic for the train of bikes, 3-year-old Antonio, who spent time with Courtney at The Promise Center, called to his grandma as they navigated intersections past people watching from their front porches.
From top: Kat Finch is joined by her cat, Squid the Eyeless, as they pause to place flowers on the Ghost Bike honoring Courtney Carter. Duwayne Carter, 10, crushes sidewalk chalk beside a drawing of a bike and a heart beside where his sister was fatally struck while riding her bike a few weeks prior. Community members start on a 1.5-mile family ride through the neighborhood in Courtney’s honor.
Half a block from where Courtney was killed, her mother pointed to a leafy branch hanging down in front of a stop sign, one of the things she wants to see changed as she sees Courtney’s life and death impact the street. Courtney’s father, Cory Carter, nodded in agreement. “I don’t want nobody’s family to go through what we had to go through,” he said. He hopes that the street will receive the traffic calming upgrades like more stop signs and speed bumps that neighbors have asked for along the stretch of Rosedale. The city’s Traffic Calming Requests page says the street is currently under evaluation for upgrades.
Mayor Ed Gainey increased the amount of funding for traffic calming projects in his 2024 budget by 136%, and passed a resolution with City Council emphasizing “Vision Zero” – a commitment to ending traffic fatalities and serious injuries. A 2019 study found that traffic calming measures reduced fatalities for all road users, not just bicyclists and pedestrians. Locally, crashes of all kinds — including those causing injuries — dropped after the installation of Downtown’s bike lanes. “There are proven ways that the city can redesign our infrastructure to prioritize the lives of people and to prevent speeding,” wrote Julie Walsh, BikePGH communications manager, in an email to PublicSource. “When vehicle speed is one of the biggest factors in whether someone lives or dies from a crash, it is infinitely important to ensure we have the resources allocated to fulfill the many traffic calming requests the city receives from so many of our neighbors.”
The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police announced an investigation of the crash, after which the driver was cooperative, but no update has been issued.
Photojournalists experience the city and the Greater Pittsburgh region in a unique way. They’re regularly sent out on assignments to make portraits, cover protests, document public meetings and envision people and places we talk about in PublicSource stories. But they see so much more. That’s The Glimpse.
Stephanie Strasburg is a photojournalist with PublicSource who can be reached at stephanie@publicsource.org, on Instagram @stephaniestrasburg or on Twitter @stephstrasburg.
This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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