BOSTON (WHDH) - State officials are warning cyclists to stay out of Boston tunnels following a Monday evening incident.
A woman was seen riding her bike with no helmet through the O’Neill Tunnel on Interstate 93 near mile marker 17.9 around 4:30 p.m. but exited before state troopers caught up with her, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts of Department of Transportation said.
Alex Kerr snapped a picture of the cyclist.
“I saw this small light coming around the corner, and all of a sudden it looks like this Hubway bike with this girl on it,” Kerr said.
Kerr was driving Monday afternoon during rush hour when he says he spotted the biker. He snapped some pictures and called 911.
“At first, I thought it was funny, and then I realized right before me, traffic was moving pretty quickly,” Kerr said. “So I called the police, and they said they’d received multiple calls.”
Kerr posted a picture on Reddit, got hundreds of comments, along with a video from someone else who passed the biker.
“I don’t know if she was commuting, exploring, or lost,” Kerr said.
The Department of Transportation has cameras in the busy tunnel and provided 7News with video.
it shows the cyclist pedaling in the left lane of 93 North in the direction of travel before going out of the sight of the camera for about 20 seconds.
She apparently made a U-turn because, after disappearing, the biker turns back up in the left lane, this time moving against traffic.
“In the picture I took, she’s in a little bit of the shoulder, but right before that and after that there’s absolutely no shoulder to ride in and she’s going against traffic,” Kerr said. “She could have easily been killed.”
Highway operations says the cyclist made it out of the tunnel without harm. By the time the state police showed up, she was gone. But it’s certainly left Kerr with one more reason to buckle up and keep his eyes on the road ahead.
“She made it out OK, but it could have been easily a severe accident,” Kerr said.
Back in March, someone else was caught on camera biking through the O’Neill Tunnel.
State leaders say this is not only illegal but dangerous.
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