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Resident group urges rotating bicycle weekends, says Southeast Seattle is bearing the burden
Summary
Joyce Modi of Coexist Lake Washington told the committee that city-wide bicycle weekend closures have disproportionately affected Southeast Seattle and asked that events rotate across the city; she cited the 2024 transportation levy and criticized gateway installations and traffic-calming changes.
Joyce Modi of Coexist Lake Washington addressed the Parks & City Light Committee during public comment on Aug. 5 to oppose a summer-long closure of Lake Washington Boulevard for bicycle weekends. "This is discriminatory and punitive to the residents of Southeast Seattle," she said, urging the city to rotate bicycle weekend closures so that southeast neighborhoods do not shoulder repeated closures.
Modi described decades of bicycle Sundays and weekends on the Olmsted Legacy Boulevard and criticized what she called aggressive street modifications, from gates to speed bumps and excess signage, that she said change the character of the boulevard and reduce vehicle access for seniors and residents with mobility needs. She noted the 2024 transportation levy provided $133,000,000 for protected bike lanes and said those funds should be used to broaden bike infrastructure across the city rather than concentrate closures in Southeast Seattle.
Chair Juarez and committee members thanked Modi for her testimony; Modi asked the committee to consider rotating events to distribute impacts more broadly across neighborhoods.
