Seattle freeways: Citizen brigades for cleanup

Every day when I make the drive into my office in Seattle’s Lower Queen Anne neighborhood, I’m heartbroken and enraged by the graffiti and trash that have taken over Interstate 90 and Interstate 5. I imagine the Washington State Department of Transportation doesn’t have the people power or budget to take care of this, so I’d like to offer an alternative.

If the state would provide equipment, supplies and traffic control, don’t you imagine that citizen brigades would enthusiastically take this job on? That happened in the cleanup of downtown after the riots inspired by George Floyd’s murder and it can happen again.

The depressing, off-putting welcome mat to Seattle that our freeways have become can’t be good for an enthusiastic return-to-the-office movement, investment in our downtown or citizens’ sense of public safety. The freeways are a mess. Let’s band together and clean them up.

Larry Asher, Mercer Island