Doug Trumm
Doug Trumm is The Urbanist's Executive Director. An Urbanist writer since 2015, he dreams of pedestrianizing streets, blanketing the city in bus lanes, and unleashing a mass timber building spree to end the affordable housing shortage and avert our coming climate catastrophe. He graduated from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington. He lives in East Fremont and loves to explore the city on his bike.
Update: Pronto is saved! The bill allocating $1.4 million to buy out Pronto passed 7 - 2 , with Councilmembers Tim Burgess and Lisa Herbold being the only votes against. Notably, the bill was amended to prevent the expansion of the bike share network until certain protected bike lanes...
Janette Sadik-Khan is coming to town to plug her new book, Street-Fight: Handbook for a Urban Revolution, and interview Mayor Ed Murray at an event at Townhall 7:30 p.m. Monday March 21st. Sadik-Khan became a hero to the multi-modal activist community after she shepherded through unprecedented bicycle and pedestrian...
Update: At the March 1 transportation meeting, Lisa Herbold's anti-Pronto amendment was defeated in a 1-5 vote, but Mike O'Brien's amendment to buy out Pronto ended in a 3-3 tie with Debora Juarez and Tim Burgess joining Herbold in opposition. This means that the bill will go to the...
This is the second in a two-part series on cross-laminated timber; read the first here.
I've proposed creating a cross-laminated timber (CLT) bonus by adding 35 feet to allowable height and 1.0 to FAR. The goal of this bonus is to speed the adoption of CLT as a building technique and...
The Urbanist has covered how 85- and 125-foot zones are not very effective. Since 65 feet is the sweet spot for Type V construction (also known as 5-over-1) which is up to five light wood-framed floors over a one or two story concrete podium. Adding just 20 feet in height...
In a recent article, I wrote about homelessness and mentioned that the building boom of new (mostly luxury) apartments hasn't positively affected One Night Count numbers yet. Apparently, this is contentious. Urbanists are supposed to only celebrate the primal economic forces of supply and demand; critiquing the market is...
Wallingford could become a flashpoint for backlash against the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) judging by recent events. Last month, the Wallingford Community Council held a public gripe session and wouldn't allow newly elected Councilmember Rob Johnson join their panel due to his support for HALA. The Wallingford contingent...
Seattle got some bad news from the January 29th One Night Count of the homeless population. The Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness reported:
At least 4,505 men, women, and children were without shelter during the three hour street count. This number is an increase of 19% over those found without...