OPINION | A Bad Cycle for South Seattle: The Inequity of Expanded Closure of Lake Washington Boulevard

Every time I take a wonder-filled jaunt along Lake Washington Boulevard these days, I think of my beloved, late mother-in-law, Ligia Currea, a proud immigrant from Colombia. I used to take her on occasion to doctor's appointments on First Hill. She'd always request traversing the "scenic route," which, from our homes in South Seattle, meant driving along the lakeside boulevard.

All Ligia's worries — and there were many, in good health and bad — melted away during that 5-mile stretch. She'd look intently out the window and coo occasionally at the duckling, great blue heron, or feeding flocks of visiting waterfowl. Once in a while, she'd erupt in joy: "Look, an eagle!"

"We are so lucky to have this," Ligia would say, a contented smile on her face.

Good thing she's not witnessing the start of our luck running out.

Last month, Mayor Katie Wilson announced an expansion of "Bicycle Weekends," a closure to motorized vehicles on Lake Washington Boulevard, from Seward Park to Mount Baker Beach, from 10 weekends to 15. Also expanded are the hours, mostly from 7 p.m. on Friday to 6 a.m. on Monday. The program will begin with the first of three-day-weekend closures this Memorial Day weekend.

The memorial this year will be the erosion of one of the very few simple pleasures enjoyed by the BIPOC and other marginalized communities that have been push-broomed into South Seattle. It feels a little like a precursor to the much-discussed permanent shutdown of motorized vehicle traffic on Lake Washington Boulevard.

You know the old saying: Give a gentrifier an inch and they'll take your whole neighborhood.

After all, this is the very same city that allows the bacchanal of wastefulness, debauchery, and noise and jet fuel pollution called Seafair to be held right in our front yard every year. Question for the Great White North: Have you ever had your street blocked off for a week and been forced to show ID at checkpoints just to return home? I have, not in North Korea but in South Seattle during Seafair.

The rest of the year, much of South Seattle is the land that time and the city forgot. The part of the city you're about to bike, walk, and roll every summer weekend is the lakeside domain of the rich and famous. Beyond the gentrifying outer crust is a different world, where power lines, cable, and even the light rail all are aboveground.

We also don't have traffic gates at intersections along the aboveground light-rail route, we don't have a lot of trees to shield us from heat and pollution, and, farther south, we don't have much investment from developers and the city. That lack of development contributes to safety concerns in our neighborhood. The absence of retail and housing density and accompanying foot traffic tends to create an environment in which two students from Rainier Beach High School can be shot to death in broad daylight.

I once described these circumstances to the Friends of Waterfront Park board on which I once served. It was hard for my fellow board members to believe; they said, "you" got the first light rail station, as if that was some magic elixir. I told them that the station sparked no development whatsoever. So the board president and a couple of city bureaucrats met me in my neighborhood. Turns out, the truth was a complete surprise to them.

The drive along Lake Washington Boulevard is an occasional respite from our hardships, which include the slow roll on Rainier Avenue South. On weekends, the boulevard is a thoroughfare for gardeners, nannies, and housekeepers, both coming and going. For many South Seattle workers, the boulevard provides the only infrequent exposure to nature and other jewels that make living in this city a treat (to those who have access).

No doubt, the billowing boulevard blockades are at least partly a flex of the outsize influence of biking advocates, to whom Wilson has been closely aligned. Before becoming mayor, she was the co-founder of the Transit Riders Union, which often partnered with cycling advocacy groups to push for reduced reliance on cars. These groups are the force behind the half-billion-dollar labyrinth of bike lanes in one of the hilliest cities in the U.S.

Spotting a cyclist in one of those expensively customized lanes, at least where I live in South Seattle, is tantamount to spotting a Black person nowadays in the Central District, the erstwhile "historically Black" part of the city.

I've been an environmental justice journalist and advocate for years, so I understand the urgency behind changing human behavior to pump the brakes on the human destruction of our planet. I also believe in it. But I also know that environmentalism historically has been the purview of white elites and therefore requires resources and money those elites are not sharing equitably with BIPOC communities.

As the cycling infrastructure grows in this city of seven hills, so does my awareness of being one of the many slaves to a regressive tax system that helps build it. Part of me also wonders how much "community" (e.g., affordable housing, education, and social services) a half-billion dollars could buy. Wilson and her pedaling allies might not like the zero-sum inference, but the same argument is wielded by the mayor's significant activist supporters over surveillance, which is not nearly as costly as bicycle lanes.

I've long believed that cyclists should have to be tested and purchase licenses. It would be a symbolic gesture of supporting the infrastructure that serves them. Even more so, it would force cyclists to actually learn traffic laws. I was an avid cyclist for many years, with the boulevard as my main route, but I eventually bailed on that activity because I thought too many law-ignoring, car-banging, middle-finger-baring cyclists created an environment too dangerous for me.

Just as environmental calamities hit BIPOC communities first and disproportionately, solutions — including, most certainly, a transportation mode shift away from cars — is more onerous for people of color and other marginalized groups. For many of us, an aspirational purchase is not a lakefront mansion but something more practical and within reach, like a car. We tend to be pushed farther away from the workplace and other amenities that people living in the gentrified core of previously redlined neighborhoods take for granted.

I'm not advocating that certain people be exempted from environmental measures — though it's difficult not to point out that the rich and powerful make that argument for themselves. There needs to be support, time for adjustment, and mitigation. Maybe some of that mitigation should be allowing us to keep some of our simple pleasures.

We also should be partners in change. We were not consulted about this expansion of Bicycle Weekends, not even through our proxies on the City Council. It was just decreed without regard to impact, which, incidentally, feels a lot like the rest of U.S. history.

When Wilson says in the Bicycle Weekends release, "This is your city, and it should be easy to get out and enjoy our sunny days," we shouldn't have to wonder which part of the city she is speaking to.

This past weekend was my dog's monthly vet appointment. Santana Banana is 14 years old and gets a shot to help ease an issue in her hip. It was the last free Saturday before the closure of Lake Washington Boulevard, our usual route. I know Santana doesn't really care which way we go, but she also loved Ligia who did care. It was — and is — a trip that eases their pain. It might be a small thing, but it's what we had.

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Glenn Nelson is a Japanese American journalist and lifetime South Seattle resident who founded The Trail Posse and has won numerous national and regional awards, including for the Emerald, for his writings about race.