The accidental death of cyclist Lance David on Wednesday at a dangerous intersection on East Marginal Way prompted the creation of a memorial at the site and a gathering of friends, family and co-workers on Friday May 3.

Approximately 70 people came to honor the memory of David with many in tears as they shared their grief over his death. The gathering was the idea of Marty Sparks who worked with David at Expeditors. Dozens of fellow Expeditors workers showed up on bikes for the memorial event.

"When we first met we hit it off right away and we talked about how we both rode our bikes in the Alps in France and other adventures. He was an amazingly adventurous guy." Sparks was hit by a car himself in December (he's healed now) and this is only the second time he has ridden his bike since then. "This is the exact route I ride to work and it's horrible. There's no safe place to get across the street. They have to figure out how to make the bike so when you come across the West Seattle Bridge you don't have to go across all the lanes of traffic. The only safe way is to wait for the cross walk but when you are riding your bike you're impatient and you don't want to wait. I've had my fair share of close calls on this road and it's really frustrating to see this happen. You ride down the street here and they call this a bike friendly city and you look at this. All they did was paint a stripe and some symbols. They didn't fix the road. I broke a wheel down here in the fall because I hit a pot hole and you couldn't see it."

While the exact circumstances of David's accident are not clear, the road is shared by a nearly constant stream of large trucks and cars during most of the daylight hours. The road surface on East Marginal Way and South Hanford is cracked and a rail line runs just adjacent to the bicycle share row.

The city of Seattle's traffic engineers have been to the site and have discussed putting in a concrete bike track that would separate the road bed for cyclists, but nothing thus far has been decided.

"Hopefully this will at least be an eye-opener and they will wake up and do what's right."