‘Ghost bike’ placed at 12th and Yesler as community awaits answers in deadly collision

Riders, walkers, loved ones, and community members gathered at 12th and Yesler Saturday to remember Christian Salyer and mark the Seattle street where he died.

The crowd temporarily closed the intersection to traffic to place a white “Ghost Bike” and lay flowers in the young school teacher’s honor. Family members were in attendance for the ceremony and expressed their appreciation for the large turnout.

A community fundraiser has raised thousands to help his family and commemorate his life.

Salyer, 30, was killed when he was hit by a recycling truck driver during a late afternoon Monday bike commute on E Yesler.

At Thurgood Marshall Elementary, families have left flowers near the school’s S Irving campus entrance where Salyer, known affectionately as “Mr. S,” regularly helped direct traffic and greeted students.

The Seattle Police Department’s Traffic Collision Investigation Squad continues to lead the investigation into the collision. A spokesperson for city recycling contractor Recology has said the company is cooperating fully with authorities to determine the exact circumstances involving their driver and the 2019 collection truck.

Few official details of the deadly June 1st collision have been released.

SPD has referred CHS to the city’s public disclosure request process for access to the preliminary “Police Traffic Collision Report” when it is available. In February’s deadly pedestrian collision that took the life of 27-year-old Lilliana Moreno on Pine at Bellevue, it took the city about two weeks to release the report.

Investigators have evidence collected in the aftermath at the 12th and Yesler crash scene and nearby businesses have reported making security video that captured the crash available to police.

Despite efforts to address safety on the city’s streets, pedestrian deaths have climbed in recent years with 18 recorded in 2025 — nearly doubling from the previous year. However, the year brought only one bicycling death in Seattle — 38-year-old Allie Rodriguez who was hit and killed on Beacon Ave S.

Advocates, meanwhile, are asking that more be done to make the streets safer.

While a proposal for a stretch of protected bike lane along 12th Ave in the area never came to pass, last Monday’s fatal collision happened where the city’s overhaul of E Yesler included bike lanes for both eastbound and westbound riders. The truck the struck Salyer could be seen for hours after the tragedy still in place along the cement barriers recently added along the westbound bike lane between Boren and 12th.

Kyle Jacobson of Central Seattle Streets For All says the area is known to be dangerous.

“12th and Yesler and Boren are all major arterials that converge here,” Jacobson said. “We know people go fast on arterials.”

Size is also a factor — “There are a lot of vehicles that are too big,” the safety advocate said.

A 2019 plan scrapped designs for protected bike lanes on 12th but the city has continued to chisel away at issues resulting in the patchwork of solutions now visible around the busy stretch including new cement barriers placed along the bike lanes and the Kermit-green warning lane to protect riders crossing the corner development’s driveway. “No Turn on Red” signs have been added.

The stretch includes tracks for the First Hill Streetcar — still dangerous for riders after a decade of service on the line.

The result is one of the most complicated mix of Seattle Department of Transportation paint, signage, and infrastructure in the city where Yesler, Boren, and Broadway converge just west of where Jacobson was hit and killed.

It is possible none of that mattered. SPD’s report, once it is finally released, is hoped to clear up some of the questions around what exactly went wrong.

Jacobson and the Central Streets group say safety work here — and across the city — must continue and grow.

“We believe future crashes are preventable,” Jacobson said.

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