(Photo by BeyondDC)

A 19-year-old cyclist was killed on Saturday night on the H Street corridor after his tire got stuck in a streetcar rail and he fell into the path of charter bus, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.

Malik Habib, of Northeast, was riding in the eastbound streetcar lane around 9:35 p.m. when he fell in the 300 block of H Street NE. He was struck by a charter bus that was traveling in the same direction.

Habib was taken to a hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries. He was the first cyclist killed in the District of Columbia in 2018. MPD is investigating the incident.

Bicycle crashes related to the streetcar rails are an “ongoing problem,” says Washington Area Bicycle Association communications director Colin Browne. “It is something that we hear about often.”

Browne says that the available data likely underrepresents the extent of the problem, since such incidents often only involves the rider. “There are often not police reports because no one is dealing with insurance.”

The District Department of Transportation proposed a ban on biking within the streetcar guideway in 2014 after several years of reports that cyclists were getting injured. The idea was that contraflow bike lanes on G and I streets served as a safer alternative to pass through the corridor. After receiving comment from cyclists, however, DDOT decided against the ban.

“We have talked about bicycle safety on H street for sometime now—before the streetcar system went into service,” said DDOT spokesperson Terry Owens, pointing to a video outlining safety tips for cycling along the corridor. “We’ll continue to do that kind of education. Certainly there is signage out on the route.”

He was unable to immediately say if DDOT was considering any changes to regulations around bicycling around the streetcar.

Mayor Muriel Bowser launched Vision Zero, an ambitious effort to eliminate traffic-related fatalities by 2024, in 2016. After a year, the city saw an increase in both traffic deaths and injuries.

In addition to Habib, eight pedestrians, three motorcyclists, two drivers, one passenger, and an ATV operator have been killed so far in traffic accidents in 2018, according to data from the Metropolitan Police Department and the U.S. Park Police collected by DDOT.

This post has been updated with comment from DDOT.