Hundreds of people biked with Mayor Katie Wilson to the opening celebration for the first Bicycle Weekend of 2026 Saturday. It was the mayor’s first bike ride as mayor, she said, and she rode with her daughter on the back of a cargo bike. After Wilson, her daughter, and former City Councilmember Tammy Morales cut the ribbon, Wilson’s daughter took the ceremonial first ride on her balance bike.
“Before my daughter was born, biking was actually my main way of getting around this city for transportation, and it was also usually the fastest and most convenient way to get around,” Mayor Wilson said during a short speech to the crowd gathered at the start. “It kept me active and outside in the fresh air and it helped me to feel connected to the city and to my communities. So it feels really really good to be back on a bike and here with all of you today.”
The opening ride started at Judkins Park Station, went through the bike tunnel and down the Colman curves to Mount Baker Beach Park at the northern start of the car-free event. Seattle has been holding car-free days on this stretch of Lake Washington Boulevard since 1968, but Mayor Wilson expanded the number of events to cover every weekend from Memorial Day to Labor Day (except during SeaFair, which closes the road for its own purposes).
“Expanding Bicycle Weekends was very important to me coming into office,” Mayor Wilson said. “We heard from so many people that this event could be more consistent and reliable. So expanding to every weekend this summer means that more people can enjoy greater access to this beautiful park. People from all over Seattle can come here all summer long, people of all ages, to walk, bike, roll, push strollers, and let their kids run freely around without the fear of getting hit by a car.”
She also addressed the protesters, saying, “I’m someone who has very often been on the protesting side of things. So I just want to say to you, your experiences matter, your voices matter. I will continue to hear from you. And I just want to acknowledge that when we make decisions like this about how we’re using our right of way and our public space, these are hard decisions, right? Because we can’t use our space for everything all the time. And so just want to acknowledge that and we’re going to be monitoring how this works over the course of this year and we will continue to talk to you, talk with you in the months ahead.” She also said that “I think there’s been some misunderstanding out there” and clarified that access is still available for residents to access driveways and for emergency services, and every parking space and ADA accessible parking spot is still available.
Anna Zivarts, a Rainier Valley resident and author of the 2024 book When Driving Is Not an Option (our review), also spoke at the rally. Zivarts has a vision disability that prevents her from getting a driver’s license, and she is an advocate for the large and often overlooked percentage of the population that cannot drive a car. She spoke about how the car-free street is more accessible than every other day when it is full of cars.
“I was so thrilled to be out here this morning enjoying this beautiful lakefront in a way that I can’t do most of the year,” she said. “I also then took advantage and took my bike over to Mercer Island to go see my optometrist and go do some grocery shopping this morning because for me as someone who can’t drive this is one of the few of not so hilly routes to get north of where I live in Rainier Valley.” Zivarts also mentioned the need for permanent biking and walking routes. “So it’s time to start having that conversation. How can we connect southeast Seattle to the rest of the city? How can we make it possible for all of us to get where we need to go? Not just a few weekends a year but all year every day.”
The mayor and Zivarts were speaking at a rally on the beach in which people with bikes sat amphitheater-style on the hillside while a couple dozen protesters waved signs and yelled. One person kept using a megaphone airhorn sound. It was a dynamic scene that reminded me a lot of a 1971 hike-in organized to support building the Burke-Gilman Trail. Hundreds walked on the tracks to a rally at Matthews Beach, where they were met with a smaller group of protesters who were against the trail. It’s wild today to see photos of a time when some people opposed something as universally loved as the Burke-Gilman Trail. Saturday’s event felt similarly momentous, a snapshot of an inflection point in the city’s culture. Only time will tell if this feeling proves true.
For the most part, the tension between protesters and the large group of happy bike riders felt like the stuff of a healthy, dynamic democracy. Many of the protesters simply expressed opposition to increasing the number of car-free days, wanting it to go back to the way it was. Some people took it further. One person’s sign said, “No Queens,” which was sort of funny but also completely ridiculous. The mayor expanding a 58-year-old tradition to cover more days has absolutely nothing in common with Donald Trump’s attempts to become the authoritarian ruler of the nation.
But the worst sign was not funny at all. One man’s sign said, “Bikes Will Not Replace Us,” a riff on the longtime white supremacist, antisemitic slogan “Jews will not replace us” that was popular during the 2017 neo-Nazi Unite the Right rally in Charleston, an event where a neo-Nazi murdered one person and injured 35 others by driving his car through a crowd of protesters. The slogan has been used to justify calls for genocide (it’s part of the racist “great replacement” theory, which is also at the heart of anti-immigrant violence) and is tied to an event that ended with mass violence by car. As seen in a photo by Brett Hamil, another sign written with the same handwriting said, “Coexist Not Replace!” The man was apparently shamed into flipping his sign around where it said, “Drivers Are People Too.”
The Coexist Lake Washington organization, a pro-car advocacy group fighting safety projects and car-free days on Lake Washington Boulevard, needs to do some major self-assessment to figure out how such a person has found a home in their group and how they have allowed such ugly ideas to spread among themselves. All this “replacement” thinking is toxic and dangerous. You are not defined by your car, and the existence of people on bikes is not a threat to you. People on bikes are not a separate people from your “us,” they are your neighbors. You are welcome to walk, bike and roll along Lake Washington Boulevard during Bicycle Weekends together with everyone else (well, not the neo-Nazis, they can fuck off).