Boston officials will soon make changes to the intersection where three months ago city transportation planner Louisa Gag was fatally struck by a truck while riding a bicycle.
City leaders announced Friday that the intersection of Tremont and Parker Streets in the city’s Mission Hill neighborhood will see a “number of street upgrades,” including a bike lane that will be separated from traffic by parked cars. It will run from Parker to Terrace Street. The city will also paint new white lines there and at nearby intersections to increase the visibility of cyclists.
Construction is expected to begin Tuesday and will take about a week to complete, weather-permitting, according to interim Chief of Streets Chris Osgood. Once finished, the project will be the city’s first attempt at reducing crashes in that area in the wake of Gag’s death.
He said the area was “designed around improving safety at that intersection and along that corridor, focused on reducing the likelihood of crashes and severity of crashes in that stretch.”
Osgood said the changes were “informed by past planning,” including reviews by the transportation department of various studies and street projects focused on the area and its traffic challenges, as well as public feedback from before Gag’s death.
“ As part of this, certainly there’s been conversations with a set of transportation experts and advocates, as well as Louisa’s family,” Osgood said.
Gag was fatally struck in July. The driver was not charged in the crash. A fierce advocate for cyclists’ safety, the 36-year-old’s death set off a firestorm of criticism, with many advocates demanding the city take swift action to make the intersection where she died safer.
In a statement to WBUR about the city’s plans, Gag’s mother, Laura Gang, father, Steve Gag and sister, Emily Gag, said, “We are glad that the City of Boston is implementing meaningful street improvements that will make the intersection where Louisa lost her life safer for every person who walks, bikes, takes transit or drives on that section of Tremont Street.”
“While we are heartened by these positive and tangible first steps,” the family wrote, “the City of Boston must act with more urgency moving forward — both in their rapid response to serious and fatal crashes and in their commitment to advance projects designed to make streets safer to prevent crashes from happening.”
A crash involving a scooter operator and a car occurred in mid-September near the site of Gag’s death. The scooter operator was transported to a nearby hospital.
In late August, road safety advocates placed unsanctioned markings down to create a guerilla bike lane at the intersection. That tape will be peeled off as part of the city’s work to implement its new design plans, which Osgood said is an initial move to change the corridor.
An unofficial bike lane created months after Louisa Gag’s death using green and white tape on the corner of Tremont Street and Parker Street in Boston, Mass. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)
Osgood told WBUR that city officials “always want to be able to move with urgency,” and that “with this first phase, we wanted to put in place a set of interventions that can deliver on safety now and really connect with some of the longer term opportunities in this corridor.”
Transit advocates like the executive director of Transportation for Massachusetts Reggie Ramos said the project is a “good step” toward making Boston streets safer for residents.
“ But I also want to look at this as, you know, a demonstration of what the city can do when it puts its mind to it, when there is political will,” Ramos said. “And we should then challenge the city to extend positive safety measures across the city.”
But Ramos said it’s not just the city that needs to take action. As several traffic fatalities over the years involve box trucks, she said she and fellow advocates want the state to pass legislation demanding “side guards” for trucks. They’re barriers appended to the truck’s sides that prevent people from being pulled underneath in a crash.
Next year, Osgood said the city aims to enter a second phase of street planning that could include “repaving of the intersection and the corridor” and “a likely inclusion of a new crosswalk at the eastern edge of the Parker and Tremont intersection.”
He added the city may also extend some of the area’s bike infrastructure, but design details are still being finalized.
Correction: This story was updated to correct the spelling of Laura Gang’s last name. We regret the error.
This article was originally published on October 09, 2026.