Ryan Packer
Ryan Packer has been writing for The Urbanist since 2015, and currently reports full-time as Contributing Editor. Their beats are transportation, land use, public space, traffic safety, and obscure community meetings. Packer has also reported for other regional outlets including BikePortland, Seattle Met, and PubliCola. They live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.
Recent initiatives at both Sound Transit and the City of Seattle have put the issue of safety along the at-grade segment of light rail tracks in the Rainier Valley back in the spotlight.
The federal programs are aimed at repairing past harms from transportation infrastructure, but the two long-planned Stride stations leave much unrepaired.
Sound Transit has...
The Seattle Planning Commission has given the proposed One Seattle Comprehensive Plan a once-over. The reviews are not good.
Small but mighty Port Townsend appears to be the first city in Washington State to have fully ditched its off-street parking requirements.
In the first chance to discuss the Harrell administration's planned growth strategy, Morales was leagues ahead of her colleagues in articulating changes she wanted to see made, such as higher growth targets and more multifamily zoning, before earning her vote of approval.
Even after plans for a new Alki Elementary were redesigned to add parking, the project is caught in another appeal alleging there still isn't enough proposed parking. The delays triggered by the appeals have cost the school district at least $3 million so far.
The state's 60-day legislative session wrapped on March 7 with only a few housing bills headed to Governor Inslee's desk. Rent stabilization, transit-oriented development, lot-splitting, and a builder's remedy all failed to pass.
The Washington legislature just approved a broad set of changes expanding the authority of cities and counties to use automatic cameras.