Doug Trumm
Doug Trumm is the Publication Director at The Urbanist. He joined the exodus to Seattle in 2014, leaving behind his home state of Minnesota. Volunteering with the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition and serving as an alternate on his local neighborhood association ignited his interest in urbanism. Reading urban planning greats like Jane Jacobs stoked that fledgling fire to an inferno. Living on disputed land between Wallingford and Fremont, he is doing his best to improve both neighborhoods.
Seattle’s dockless bikeshare program--with three privately-run operators so far--recently celebrated its first anniversary. One year in, Lime is clearly leading the pack. With buzz building and largely rave reviews, users had taken 1.4 million bikeshare rides across the three companies by July 1st. One million were on Lime Bikes...
The Urbanist has been inquiring about 2018 bikeshare ridership figures for months. As the deadline approaches for a permanent bikeshare permit to be approved by city council, information on how often bikes were getting used recently was hard to come by. On Wednesday, Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) finally...
Snohomish County is kicking off planning for Sound Transit 3 light rail stations planned at Ash Way Park-and-Ride, Mariner Park-and-Ride, and (provisionally) at the intersection of SR-99 and Airport Road. The Airport Road station would only be built if funds were available after the other stations were complete. Despite...
The Seattle Times Editorial Board weighed in on pending reform to increase backyard cottage and garage apartments in single family zones and it was as you would expect: completely out of touch with reality. The editorial board opposed the proposed changes, which are expected to increase accessory dwelling unit...
Mayor Jenny Durkan’s outside budget review of the Center City Connector streetcar project is ten days past due.
The consultant KMPG delivered a draft of the report on June 7th, ahead of the June 19th deadline, David Gutman reported in The Seattle Times. Mayor Durkan, however, asked for more information, specifically about other...
The news on One Center City has not been very uplifting. The effort to keep Seattle moving during coming transit logjams got a re-brand to "Imagine Seattle," but it appears to still be lacking for bold imagination and timeliness.
The problem, dubbed the "Period of Maximum Constraint," stems from convergence...
Seattle's elite got their way when it came to repealing the head tax, but at what cost? They certainly outed themselves as callously opportunistic with no real plan to address the affordable housing crisis and little care for the homeless people suffering most from it.
Here's one example: Land use...
Yesterday the Seattle City Council voted 7-2 to repeal the Employee Hours Tax (aka "head tax") less than one month after they passed it unanimously. The $275 per full-time employee tax on businesses grossing more than $20 million would have raised about $47 million per year for affordable housing...
