‘Ghost bike' memorial for Seattle teacher rallies grieving cyclists
More than 100 cyclists heaped flowers on a ghost bike" memorial at the intersection of East Yesler Way and 12th Avenue South on Saturday afternoon to memorialize a Seattle teacher who was struck and killed while biking near the intersection.
The gathering to remember Christian Salyer, 30, was solemn, with whispered condolences and quiet weeping, as members of Critical Mass Seattle diverted traffic from the intersection for nearly two hours to "create space for the family," said Chris Bartlett, who helped organize the memorial.
As more people and bikes congregated at the busy intersection, Salyer's friends and family kept to the side, hugging and still clearly feeling the loss of just days before, on June 1.
Around 1:20 p.m. Saturday, about 20 cyclists fanned out to the four intersections leading to 12th and Yesler and began redirecting drivers, an unofficial roadblock that was largely adhered to by drivers.
Soon, Bartlett, along with some of Salyer's family, carried the white-painted ghost bike to the northeast corner of the intersection, hoisted it about 6 feet in the air and chained it to a street pole, a roadside reminder that a bicyclist had been killed there.
For the next hour-and-a-half, scores of people dwelled in the intersection as, one by one, they approached the ghost bike and threaded flowers through its spokes, or scrawled messages on the pole: "Ride in Power," "We Love You Chi Chi" and "Christian Salyer Forever Missed."
"Thank you so much Seattle," a relative of Salyer's who did not wish to be identified said to the crowd in a booming voice. "God bless you all."
Salyer was biking near the intersection at about 4:30 p.m. on a Monday when a Recology waste collection truck struck him. He was taken to Harborview Medical Center and died later that day from his injuries, according to Seattle police and the King County medical examiner's office.
Salyer, a reading and math support teacher at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, was about a mile-and-a-half from the Atlantic neighborhood school when he was struck.
At Saturday's memorial, Seattle's cycling community turned out, even though many didn't know Salyer.
"It's important for us to come out and honor our cycling brethren who get hurt or killed," said Cody Billingsley. "We realize the danger posed by motor vehicles. That is what unites us."
An online fundraiser for Salyer's family had raised more than $87,000 by Saturday afternoon. Another focused on helping Salyer's partner, Hana, had brought in $13,000.
Bartlett, the memorial's organizer, rides through this intersection every day, and said they hoped the ghost bike would serve as a reminder of Salyer's death - and a lesson - for people passing by in cars.
"They get to go home," Bartlett said. "Christian cannot."
Salyer's death is the second time a cyclist in Seattle has been hit and killed in recent months. Allie Rodriguez was killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding a bike in Beacon Hill in December.
Rodriguez's death marked the first death of a cyclist in Seattle since 2023, one of the most dangerous years on Washington's roads, and a grim statistic that's now been repeated months later.
Cycling advocates have identified the site of this month's fatal collision as an unsafe intersection for years, said Kyle Jacobson with Central Seattle Streets for All. Cascade Bicycle Club, in a social media post, said the spot has been "long flagged as dangerous for people biking."
The city's 2017 Bicycle Master Plan said a protected bike lane would be built on 12th Avenue by 2021, but that project was scrapped in the 2019 update.
Jacobson described the intersection as particularly complicated, with Rainier Avenue South and Boren Avenue converging nearby as well. All of the roads see heavy vehicle traffic.
"Most of our arterial drivers drive well over the speed limit, and speed is the most dangerous thing we face here," Jacobson said.
"We know with great specificity what our most dangerous streets are and what the most dangerous intersections are," Jacobson said. "We know that this intersection in particular is a danger to cyclists and children walking to school.
In 2024, Seattle City Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth convinced her colleagues to add a 12th Avenue bikeway project - from East Madison Street to the Jose Rizal Bridge - to that year's $1.55 billion transportation levy proposal, which was later approved by voters.
This year, the Seattle Department of Transportation will begin that work with plans to improve a stretch of 12th Avenue, south of Yesler. Construction, however, isn't scheduled until next year.
Building a bike lane on 12th Avenue will be a particularly difficult engineering feat due to the number of on-street parking spots that need to be moved or removed, concerns about affecting the Seattle Streetcar's operations and the difficult intersection at Yesler, the site of Salyer's death.
At Saturday's memorial, cyclists piled their bikes in the road, on top of spray paint scrawled on the road by city workers plotting out where green paint would soon be laid, a sign the city was moving to make the intersection safer for people on bikes.
Just a few minutes before 3 p.m., the last bicyclists gathered up, hugged and made plans to meet later. With the road clear of mourners, traffic flowed again and Salyer's ghost bike hung, heavy with flowers.
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