John Tallmadge, executive director of transit equity nonprofit Bike Durham, tends to stay even keeled when presenting to large audiences or in front of the city council even on subjects as emotionally charged as roadway deaths. But on Wednesday evening, Tallmadge fought back tears as he addressed the pack of cyclists amassing at CCB Plaza.
“This is meaningful for me, because I’ve gotten to know family members of people who have been killed,” Tallmadge said to the crowd. “Hearing their stories and about the losses that they’ve suffered, it’s really heartbreaking, and it is also motivating.”
Dozens of bike safety advocates gathered in downtown Durham on Wednesday to participate in the annual Ride of Silence, a national event held each year to memorialize victims of traffic violence who were killed or seriously injured while biking or walking. Communities across the country host local memorial rides to bring awareness to the issue.
Bike Durham has led the ride in Durham for the last several years. They provided reflective vests, water, and black and red armbands signifying a connection to someone who was injured or killed on the road. Advocacy Campaign Organizer Gregory Williams opened the event by reading a list of people who lost their lives due to traffic violence in the last few years, including 15-year-old Jack O’Shea who was killed last month while riding his e-bike on Cole Mill Road after being struck by an alleged drunk driver.
Riders left CCB Plaza on a six-mile trek around the greater downtown Durham area. The group of cyclists—riding on commuter bikes, e-bikes, and e-trikes—ranged from age 7 to 70. City councilors Javiera Caballero, Carl Rist, Nate Baker, and Matt Kopac, as well as Transportation Director Sean Egan, also joined the ride. Chris Perelstein, known for his “Reckless Roxboro” project documenting speeders on Roxboro Street, constructed a wooden frame mounted to the front of his e-bike to hang a Ride of Silence banner large enough for passing cars to read.
Renèe Bannister is a cycle instructor with Bike Durham, teaching adult and teen classes. She is also a member of Black Girls Do Bike and Major Taylor Cycling Club of North Carolina. Bannister describes herself as a “re-cycler” because she became reacquainted with biking during the COVID-19 pandemic after years of being off two wheels.
“We need to educate adults who are already driving,” Bannister said.. “We need to educate teenagers who go through driver’s ed… and we also need to educate cyclists to cycle smartly, to cycle safely, because one bad apple does spoil the whole bunch. Before I became a cyclist, cyclists got on my nerves. Now that I’m a cyclist, the first thing I notice is visibility.”
The route swept down Main Street through Brightleaf Square and Duke East Campus, along Ninth Street and Trinity Avenue, finally looping around Mangum and Roxboro Street, where a small handful of drivers made excessive use of their horns while waiting impatiently for the horde of cyclists to move through the streets. The riders were mostly undisturbed.
Roxboro Street and Mangum Street flow north-south through downtown Durham and are notorious for speeding and crashes; between 2018 and 2023, Roxboro Street saw 748 crashes and Mangum Street saw 434. Both are part of Durham’s High Injury Network (HIN), roads identified by the city’s Vision Zero plan as boasting a higher-than-normal rate of traffic incidents. Bike safety advocates say redesigning Durham’s HIN is critical to reach Vision Zero, a multinational movement to reduce traffic deaths and serious injuries. The City of Durham adopted a Vision Zero Action Plan in April 2025, committing to a 50% reduction in traffic deaths by 2035. While traffic fatalities in Durham dropped from 37 in 2024 to 23 in 2025, serious injuries spiked 26 percent last year.
The Roxboro-Mangum corridor has been a high priority for Durham’s transportation advocates. A plan to convert the road pair back to two-way streets was approved in 2020. At the end of last year, residents were able to catch a glimpse of what two-way conversion could look like at an open house held by Durham Transportation Department and the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT), as well as Stantec Consulting Services, the firm who produced the early designs.
At Monday’s city council work session, advocates got a welcome update: Egan announced that the Roxboro Street and Mangum Street corridor project received the rest of the necessary funding—a little over a million dollars—from the city to continue contracting with Stantec to develop a full redesign of the street pairing. NCDOT, which owns both roads, also signed off on moving forward with the redesign, a key component of the process. The final design process is scheduled to be completed January 2028.
“We appreciate the steps that have been taken by our elected officials in Durham,” Tallmadge said during the Ride of Silence pre-ride ceremony. “We appreciate the work of the staff to move these projects. It’s not enough, and we’re going to continue coming out until all the streets are safe for everybody in Durham, whether you’re biking, walking, on scooters. The streets belong to us, and they need to be safe.”
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