Ghost bike ceremony memorializes cyclist killed in Porter Square crash

A “ghost bike” is being parked in Porter Square to memorialize a bicyclist killed there in an accident last week.

“We gather so we do not grieve alone,” stated aFacebook page, announcing an event Tuesday to honor the memory of Bernard Levi. “We gather to dedicate a ghost bike, a visible sign of an invisible reality — that we are fragile humans, only here for a little while.”

Ghost bikes are white bicycles left as memorials at sites of fatal vehicle-cyclist accidents. There are at least nine other ghost bikes in the Boston area, according to ghostbikes.org.

Lavins, who went by Joe, was killed Oct. 5 in a collision with an 18-wheeler truck on Massachusetts Avenue during his morning commute.

Lavins, 60, lived in Lexington and would bike to his job at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc., a biotech company in Kendall Square, according to the Boston Globe.

On the night of the crash, cyclists who witnessed or wanted to talk about the incident gathered atBourbon Coffee in Porter Square.The bicycling community often leans on one another following the loss of a cyclist.

“We gather to make visible sign of a dawning awareness — that we must peacefully coexist on these shared roads for all of us to stay alive,” the event page says.

The ceremony was to be held at the site of the incident onMassachusetts Avenue, across from the Porter Square T station. As of early Tuesday afternoon, more than 80 people said they were attending and another159 that they were interested in the event.

The organizers acknowledge in the post that a “wide circle of people” have been affected by the tragedy.

“We gather to honor Joe’s life, to pray for all who grieve his death, to rededicate ourselves to the day when there are zero fatalities on our city’s roads …” the post says.