For Maridee Bonadea, biking meant ‘everything’
Published 5:30 pm Tuesday, June 16, 2026
Maridee Bonadea — a beloved islander, lifelong cyclist and Vashon community member — was fatally struck while riding her bike off a ferry Monday morning in West Seattle, on a commute her wife said she had made hundreds of times.
Bonadea, 76, was headed to an anti-ICE protest that started at the downtown waterfront, her wife, Laura Belt, said Tuesday morning.
Biking meant “everything” to Bonadea, Belt said.“It was her escape, it was her exercise, it was what filled her soul.”
Bonadea took long bike trips in her 20s, Belt said, and later commuted by bike from Vashon to downtown Seattle for work as an accountant. She was known to friends as a careful, experienced rider.
“Extremely safety conscious,” Belt said.
The crash happened at about 7:59 a.m. Monday, June 15, near 47th Avenue Southwest and Southwest Wildwood Place, just up the hill from the Fauntleroy dock, according to Seattle police.
Bonadea was likely on the 7:40 a.m. sailing from Vashon, which docked at Fauntleroy at approximately 7:54 a.m., according to Callie Meleedy, a Washington State Ferries communications representative. She was riding eastbound on Southwest Wildwood Place after leaving the dock.
At the same time, a large Vashon Trucking box truck was also traveling east on Southwest Wildwood Place, according to Seattle Police Department public information officer Detective Brian Pritchard.
According to police, as the box truck approached Bonadea, the driver moved into the oncoming lane, which was clear of traffic, to give Bonadea room while passing. A witness told police the truck was almost past Bonadea when she appeared to wobble or lose her balance and struck the mirror of a parked car, causing her to fall into the path of the rear wheels of the truck.
Seattle Fire Department crews pronounced Bonadea dead at the scene, according to police.
Police said a Drug Recognition Expert evaluated the truck driver and found no impairment. Commercial vehicle enforcement also responded, and no violations were identified with the truck, according to police. The Traffic Collision Investigation Squad is investigating the crash.
But Emilia Barnecut, a West Seattle resident who said she was the first person to call 911 from the scene, said Tuesday that police had not yet interviewed her before the first public account of the crash was released.
Her account differs from the initial police narrative.
Asked whether Barnecut’s accounts would change the department’s initial description of the crash, police said the investigation remains open and active and encouraged anyone with additional information to contact investigators.
Barnecut said she was driving north on 47th Avenue Southwest and preparing to turn left onto Southwest Wildwood Place when she saw the white Vashon Trucking vehicle traveling eastbound toward her, beginning to pass Bonadea who was wearing a helmet and fluorescent safety vest.
She lingered at the stop sign because the pass looked too close, she said.
“It looked far too tight,” Barnecut said. “He was passing her on a very narrow street. There were cars going in the opposite direction, and she was trapped in between the parked cars and the oncoming oversized box truck.”
Barnecut said the truck did not appear to move fully into the oncoming lane, and that Bonadea was not given the 3 feet of space Washington law generally requires drivers to give bicyclists when passing.
Bonadea wavered as the truck passed close beside her, glanced off a parked car and then fell left into the roadway, beneath the rear wheels of the truck, Barnecut said.
“I started honking as she glanced off that parked car and was wavering, because I was hoping the truck would stop and she wouldn’t be run over,” Barnecut said.
Barnecut said she ran to Bonadea and found there was no way to provide lifesaving aid because of the extent of Bonadea’s injuries. She called 911 at 7:59 a.m., she said.
She repeatedly tried to reach police after the crash, frustrated that the early public account of the collision did not include what she said she saw, she said.
“Victims who can’t tell their stories,” Barnecut said, deserve to be better represented in crash investigations.
On Tuesday afternoon, the crash site had become a memorial.
A group of Bonadea’s cycling friends from the Rainbow Riders bicycling group — women who had ridden together about once a month for more than 20 years, all around Washington — gathered near the busy bend in the road.
That morning, they had bought a bike from Goodwill and painted it white, creating what is commonly known as a ghost bike — a white bicycle placed near the site where a cyclist was killed, both as a memorial and as a warning about the dangers cyclists face on the road.
By afternoon, it stood at the crash site in Bonadea’s honor.
Nearby, bouquets of roses, daisies, hydrangeas and other flowers lay in a growing pile. One sign on the ground read: “for the cyclist I never knew.”
Cars roared past the memorial, around the corner from the ferry dock and up from the blind curve. As friends spoke over the noise of the road, several repeated the same thing: Bonadea was experienced. This was not a new route. This was not a ride she did not understand.
Many of her friends said the location itself is dangerous. The road narrows as it climbs away from the water, they said, with parked cars taking up space on the right side of the road — the side Bonadea was riding on — leaving little room for vehicles to pass cyclists unless there is no oncoming traffic.
Several called for parking to be removed from the road and for a bike lane to be prioritized.
“I hope this tragedy will bring attention to this very dangerous road,” Kristin Kinnamon said, wearing a T-shirt with a rainbow square and bikes on it — a shirt Bonadea had designed. “We hope that something will be changed.”
According to the Seattle Department of Transportation’s Crash Analysis dashboard, there were eight crashes on Southwest Wildwood Place between 47th Avenue Southwest and Fauntleroy Way Southwest between June 11, 2023, and June 10, 2026. None were fatal.
On Tuesday, as friends stood at the memorial, a pedestrian stopped to talk with the group and said she lives in the area and completely avoids driving on that road.
“This needs to change,” Eddie Westerman said. “It’s an accident that could have been prevented.”
“When I heard there was an accident yesterday I knew exactly where it was,” Westerman said.
Bonadea’s friends also pushed back on any suggestion that she caused the crash.
“People have a tendency to defend their right to drive a car,” her friend Kristi Knodell said. “The blame the victim thing is something that car drivers like to do.”
Another cycling friend, Cheryl Hartlen, said Bonadea was “ an experienced bicyclist, very intentional, very smart,” she said.
Jeremy Cole, a volunteer with Critical Mass, also visited the memorial Tuesday. Critical Mass is a monthly bike ride and advocacy movement that began in San Francisco in the 1990s to protest a lack of safe bicycle infrastructure, Cole said. In Seattle, rides are held on the last Friday of each month.
Cole said part of his work includes visiting sites where cyclists have been killed, meeting with grieving community members, documenting road conditions and helping plan rides or protests to call attention to cyclist safety. An upcoming ride will likely be dedicated to Bonadea, he said.
Vashon Trucking did not respond to an initial request for comment.
In a statement sent by email Thursday, Vashon Trucking extended condolences to Bonadea’s family and friends.
“All of us at Vashon Trucking would like to extend our heartfelt condolences to Maridee Bonadea’s wife Laura, their daughter, and her many friends following the tragic accident on Monday morning,” the statement said. “The VT family and community are devastated by the loss of her life.”
The company also described Bonadea as “well-known and respected on Vashon,” adding that “her advocacy for human rights and commitment to improving the lives of others will be cherished and remembered.”
On Vashon, Bonadea is known for far more than the crash that killed her.
She and Belt moved to Vashon on New Year’s Eve 1998. They met in Seattle in 1995 and married in 2015. Bonadea had an adult child, Lani Bonadea, Belt said.
Bonadea worked as an accountant, most recently for King County in the licensing division, before retiring about 10 years ago, Belt said. She was also a writer, cyclist, adventurer, activist, quilter and sailor. She served in the Peace Corps in Mali, West Africa, from 2008 to 2010.
“I think that it reinforces a lot of the other stuff about wanting to give to other people and have an adventure while she’s doing it,” Belt said of Bonadea’s Peace Corps service.
Bonadea was born Feb. 17, 1950, in Aberdeen, South Dakota, and grew up in an Air Force family that moved often, Belt said.
She also fought for LGBTQ rights for decades, Belt said, including the rights of lesbian mothers. Years ago, Belt said, Bonadea rode her bike to California to raise money for the Lesbian Mothers National Defense Fund.
“She was a force to be reckoned with,” Belt said.
On Vashon, Bonadea made music with the Vashon Bucket Brigade, was a member of Indivisible Vashon and the Vashon-Maury Island Garden Club, and helped organize the LGBTQ Film Series at the Vashon Heritage Museum, according to Belt and Bonadea’s LinkedIn profile.
Just last week, Belt and Bonadea completed a longtime goal of traveling to all 50 states, taking a ferry to Alaska — their final state.
Belt said she hopes people will remember Bonadea outside the horror of the crash.
“I want people to know how much she cared about other people and protecting the rights of other people,” Belt said. “She was an avid feminist since forever. She wanted women to be able to believe in themselves. She wanted people to be treated fairly.”
A fuller news obituary is to come.
Police ask that anyone with additional information about the incident call SPD’s Traffic Collision Investigation Squad at 206-684-8923.
