On July 9, while on her way to work at City Hall, Boston cycling advocate and transportation planner Louisa Gag was struck and killed by a person driving a truck on Tremont Street near Roxbury Crossing. She was 36 years old.

Gag dedicated her career to ensuring that the city was safer and more accessible. Her tragic death has sparked renewed calls for the city to make Boston streets safer. To better understand Boston’s bike safety concerns, GBH’s Morning Edition guest Host Tori Bedford spoke with Galen Mook, executive director of statewide bicycling coalition MassBike.

Tori Bedford: You knew Louisa. You worked with her for over a decade. Can you tell me a little bit about who she was?

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Galen Mook: I worked with her in a capacity when she was at LivableStreets Alliance, a similarly sized advocacy organization in Greater Boston dedicated toward transportation justice and Louisa was there. And then she moved on to the City of Boston to work in the transportation department and Boston Bikes team. So, we collaborated on many projects, many celebrations, many hard conversations. I think one thing that we’ll always have with us is Louisa was approaching this hard work always with a smile, always with optimism. It’s very challenging work. It’s very serious work. But her dedication and perseverance really was infectious for the rest of us out there. And so, I think what we’re taking away is the passion and joy that Louisa brought to all of this.

Bedford: Why do you think that she was so deeply dedicated to this?

Mook: I think she saw the beauty of the community that she was able to help build with what she was working on. In the city of Boston, she was in charge of expanding the Bluebikes program, for instance. One of her roles was to lead Bluebikes rides, which is the bike share here, for new riders. So, getting new riders out on two wheels to explore the city. She was able to introduce that joy to a lot of city residents and I think that’s just one element of how she brought herself into her work.

Bedford: Yeah, I imagine some of this work can be defeating. And so, having somebody who approaches it with joy of saying, “Hey, you are going to love being out on a bike and I am going to work to make it safer for you.” It’s such a blessing.

Mook: And it’s really hard work. At LivableStreets, she was also in charge of what we refer to as the World Day of Remembrance [for Road Traffic Victims], which is every November when we pause to remember those who have been lost to traffic crashes and traffic violence across the state. Louisa’s role was to gather flowers, to remember names, to cut silhouettes of cutouts of folks that we could pause and remember. I think as a coworker and a colleague, it was so lovely to have her and her presence in that really tough, heartbreaking work.

Bedford: Yeah, she did so much. We found this clip of her talking about Go Boston 2030, which is a transportation plan to improve safety and access in Boston. This is from a meeting filmed by The Forum Network in 2019:

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“The system is not working for people. People’s buses and subways are not showing up on time. They feel unsafe while they’re walking and biking and it’s really hard to get around. And their frustration was really clear and something that we heard a lot. And these issues absolutely echo the priorities that are featured in Go Boston 2030.”

Bedford: So, that clip is from about seven years ago and now 2030 is just a few years away. Obviously, there are so many people like Louisa Gag who have done so much work, but what kind of progress has been made?

Mook: That’s a tough conversation to have because I think progress has been fits and starts depending on where you are and what kind of progress you’re talking about. I think specifically with Go Boston 2030, that’s a great example because that was something that was pushed forward under the Marty Walsh administration. And I think that what happens in the city is that administrations get to set the priorities, set the funding, set the staffing as it moves forward. And with that mayor’s administration, what Marty was able to do was really create a progressive plan that was arguably surprising to some of the advocates because he did not come into office as a progressive transportation candidate. But yet he was overseeing some of the toughest projects like the protected bike lane on Commonwealth Avenue by Boston University, for instance. He personally made sure that that went forward. Go Boston 2030 is a citywide plan, which we have not had an update on since, for instance. So, I think that it really is incumbent on a mayor to make decisions about the direction of the city and then allow their staff the authority and the direction to really implement that. And what we’re seeing now, for instance, is a lot of Marty’s programs were put out in Mayor [Michelle] Wu’s first administration. And I think what we’re seeing is that we haven’t necessarily had a recommitment to some of that same passion and vision as we’re going into the second term.

Bedford: In her first administration, back in 2023, Boston launched the Mission Hill Transportation Planning Project. I think they dedicated $300,000 to that initiative. They held meetings and at those meetings, city officials identified the intersection, a number of intersections, but the intersection where Louisa Gag was killed as one of the most hazardous areas in the project study area. StreetsblogMASS reported that the plan was to move forward with plans to improve visibility, build curb extensions, reduce pedestrian crossing distances. They were going to put in a crosswalk. That was all supposed to be put together by 2024, but at the end of that year, that hadn’t happened. The city had used less than half of its budget for the project. Then in 2025, Mayor Michelle Wu initiated a review of the city’s transit and safety improvement projects, and after that review, the city ripped out protective bollards on bike lanes. They halted work on dozens of transit and safety plans around the city, including that Mission Hill safety project. And then in the city’s 2027 fiscal budget, that Mission Hill project was removed entirely.

What happened between the first and second Wu administrations?

Mook: That’s a really good question and something that we’ve been struggling with as advocate professionals for the past 18 months. We have not been able to really get a clear answer from the city as to what the direction and leadership is. And this is not just the story of one project. The advocates have been tracking about 17 core projects throughout the city that are stalled or paused or canceled that have been touted as road safety projects. Now, we have no idea if or when they might be restarted. So, it’s not just Mission Hill that is impacted by this. And I think it’s hard because we just don’t know. And we know that budgets are tight. We know that layoffs are happening at City Hall. We know that funding from federal projects is being cut as well. And a big question, actually, that we’re having with this administration is how can we help them from our perspective to make sure that at least something goes down that is geared toward making our streets safer for everyone out here?

Bedford: And I want to mention that GBH did reach out to the Wu administration to see if someone could be made available. They couldn’t make someone immediately available, but we do welcome their feedback and we would like to continue this conversation with them. Very quickly, how can we move forward as individuals? How can we better protect each other on Boston streets?

Mook: Yeah, I mean, this is a really tough one because dealing with the grief is the moment right now. I should say that there is a vigil [on the evening of July 16] at City Hall Plaza, if folks want to come after work just to gather as a community. I think that the first step is to pause and remember Louisa and the personhood and that is the work that we do with the World Day of Remembrance and holding space for that. The next is to really redouble our efforts in contacting your local officials, your city councilors, everybody who has influence to say this is not a cycling issue. This is people who walk, take transit, drive. This is everybody who uses our streets. So, I think it’s just making commitments and asks to those who can, just do whatever you can to make sure that we are not slowing down and stopping the road safety.