Seattle reformed SEPA land use appeals, but more work remains to clear obstacles at the project level. Patrick Taylor lays out some further reforms for state legislators to pursue.
The interim ordinance was adopted just one day before Bainbridge Island would have been required to permit development of any size that met certain affordability requirements. Now the Council will turn its attention to permanent regulations that will likely scale back these capacity increases.
In the first six months of 2026, Bellevue saw at least 1,585 new multifamily units enter the pipeline, compared to just 1,137 housing units in Seattle. The numbers illustrate Bellevue's success in spurring development... and Seattle's continued slump.
Democrats could grow their 59-seat majority in the state House to 64 if their leads in races hold this fall. Primary results indicate Democrats will likely flip seats in the 17th, 18th, and 26th Legislative Districts, while holding their current seats.
Ballard Link faces a multi-billion-dollar budget shortfall, but one revenue tool could help get the project back on track: a value capture strategy using tax-increment financing. Here's how that would work.
RVs have been a safety valve for people experiencing homelessness, but Councilmember Dan Strauss is proposing to add a RV safe lot and phase out street parking for them across Seattle.
The August 1st train derailment was a one-off incident, not likely to be repeated, Sound Transit said, noting "additional testing and inspections across the entire system" to check track switches for issues. Boardmember Claudia Balducci is pushing for tighter protocols during unplanned outages.
An ordinance from Rod Dembowski would have thrown a wrench into King County Metro's next service change, set for August 29, by restoring Route 372 without any funding to do so. Ultimately, the move seemed to be symbolic to show support for impacted riders.
Advocates and Seattle officials want to enact regional strategies that eliminate climate pollution while building resilience and promoting healthy people, communities, and ecosystems.
The five-part order directs changes across multiple City departments intended to improve safety outcomes. Most notably, SDOT will speed up work on a slate of Vision Zero projects, and start to include intersection daylighting in routine work moving forward.
On Thursday afternoon, Mayor Katie Wilson and Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck made the trip up to Denny Way to put the final touches on a Route 8 bus lane being installed this weekend at a major bottleneck near I-5.
A new Seattle task force was born Wednesday. Mayor Katie Wilson chartered the group to advise her housing agenda, looking for ways to streamline permitting and boost housing production over the long term.
As a city of 70,000 residents, Sammamish has a dearth of commercial space, and its long-planned Town Center remains half-finished. This fall, the council will decide whether to fully pivot away from that plan and distribute housing capacity to other areas.
SDOT is weighing a plan that would fully reopen Pike Place to cars Monday through Thursday from October to March. Here why that approach is wrong and how the Market will thrive with year-round pedestrianization.
The university’s planned campus design overhaul includes more community-focused green space, space for 5,000 more students, and a residence hall at the heart of campus in downtown Tacoma.
Thru traffic would be diverted off Pike Place only on weekend days from October to March, under SDOT's latest proposal for the pedestrian pilot's next phase. The recommendation came from vendor surveys conducted by UW's Urban Freight Lab, and appears to be based more on anecdote than actual data.
The 1970s oil crisis nudged the Netherlands to prioritize bike, pedestrian, and transit investments over cars. Likewise, Canada responded by planning and investing transit projects. With the latest global oil crisis, how will cities and countries respond now?
With Sound Transit's failure to deliver light rail to Ballard by 2035 as originally promised, now is the moment for Sound Transit and Seattle to build a no-frills, quick-build station near the Ballard Locks to connect people to Sounder commuter rail service that’s already up and running.
While a tabled effort to reform Mandatory Housing Affordability fees has stolen the limelight lately, reforming utility fees to ease the burden on builders would have the larger stimulus on homebuilding. Parker Dawson lays out why.
Sound Transit's expected opening date for West Seattle light rail has slipped three years to 2035, agency top brass confirmed Thursday. The board is set to allocate $765 million later this month to advance property acquisitions along the route.
Just months after touting the idea of building 40 affordable units in downtown North Bend, City officials quietly pulled the plug. While a lack of financing is being blamed for the project's collapse, opposition to density and parking worries clearly played a major role as well.
After the state's Commerce Department signaled it won't give the city any more leeway, the Bainbridge Council voted 6-1 to advance interim development regulations that will modestly upzone Winslow with the aim of getting into compliance with the Growth Management Act.
The Seattle City Council has taken up a trailblazing ordinance aiming to encourage fair pricing for groceries by banning surveillance pricing. It’s another piece of Mayor Katie Wilson’s affordability agenda with strong support from Council’s progressive wing.
In a 8-0 vote Tuesday, the Seattle City Council approved a ban on rental junk fees like pet rent. Mayor Katie Wilson celebrated passage as part of her affordability agenda.
While Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat claims progressives “fizzled” in Washington state because a few primary challengers trailed, Kamau Chege argues that analysis is flawed, ignoring other wins that show the left is wresting control of the party.
On top of concerns about lack of city resources, officials in Lynnwood have cited a relatively low number of road fatalities compared to other cities and an inability to make a difference in impaired and distracted driving as reasons to shy away from a Vision Zero action plan.
The City of Seattle has long hoped to implement a more effective gun violence prevention strategy, though progress has been slow. The Wilson Administration has pledged a proposal to get the ball rolling, amid pressure from councilmembers.
Another environmental analysis of the longstanding Fort Lawton housing plan tees up another public hearing at the end of this month. Some worry that the State Environmental Policy Act is leading to an endless loop of study on projects like this one.
In this video, Ray Delahanty ranks the country’s most and least safest metropolitan transportation systems in the country, and breaks out the data between road and transit fatalities. Seattle is in the Top 10 safest.
Much more work needs to be done to keep Washingtonians safe from forest fires. State Rep. Shaun Scott shares his plan, building on his recently passed Wildfire Alleviation Support Act.
The proposal would spend $6 million planning and designing fare gates at 14 Link stations, with a future Sound Transit board vote expected to allocate the full $87 million construction cost. The agency expects this targeted gate program to pay for itself within two to three years.
Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes wasn’t a martyr; he embodied the status quo, and Mayor Katie Wilson was right to oust him and push for true police accountability, argues Cliff Cawthon, a longtime community advocate in Seattle.
Bus routes across North, South, and East King County will see adjustments starting August 29, with most intended to improve connectivity with light rail. The biggest changes are set to happen in South King County, where weekend service levels will dramatically increase.
Get your ticket to our September 15th Town Hall Seattle talk featuring CityNerd's Ray Delahanty and The Urbanist’s Ryan Packer. Attendees will get a sneak peek at a CityNerd video before a deep dive into light rail plans.
Seattle and Sno-Isle library levies are both cruising to victory based on election night returns. Urbanists appear likely to flip a Seattle Council seat, but several centrist lawmakers fended off challenges from the left.
The deadline to get a ballot to a drop box in Washington draws near, with voter turnout lagging even where it was four years ago. Ballots are due tonight at 8pm.
Sound Transit recently revealed light rail won't reach Ballard until "around 2060" without further intervention. Seattle Subway lays out a path to greatly accelerate this delivery date, which they call “wildly unacceptable.”
Getting to the point of construction on 154 units next door to Issaquah Transit Center involved numerous hurdles city officials had to surmount since 2016. But now the saga is seen as a wake-up call within Issaquah when it comes to barriers to actually building housing near transit.
Seattle voters have an opportunity to reform one of the state's most powerful and dysfunctional courts: Seattle Municipal Court. Voters should seize this opportunity and elect Gabe Rothstein, a career public defender with significant judicial experience.
America Walks is urging Congress to block federal transportation funding reauthorization until the Whitehouse can prove that it is following the law and disbursing funding Congress has allocated to transit, bike, and pedestrian projects.
Despite having the largest network of train tracks in the world, the United States has a serious lack of passenger rail services. That’s not by accident, as Rollie Williams of Climate Town explains in this video.
On Friday, Mayor Katie Wilson defended her decision to ask for Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes’ resignation, which he proffered Thursday. Several councilmembers have lambasted the move.
The new 2060 timeline for light rail stations in Interbay and Ballard assumes Sound Transit isn't able to unearth any major cost savings or unlock additional financial tools. But the agency painted an optimistic picture about being able to make inroads in those areas, pushing the opening to 2042.
Without a state extension, Bainbridge Island is on track to be required to permit any housing project that meets certain affordability requirements, regardless of existing zoning, starting August 22. This accountability tool, known as the Builder's Remedy, has not yet been deployed in Washington.
Mayor Katie Wilson ousted Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes on Wednesday, according to numerous reports, but allies are fighting to save his job. Barnes' missteps and frequent absences have worn thin his welcome in the Wilson administration.
King County Metro's new bus network in North Seattle and the North Shore communities is intended to improve access to light rail and bring increased frequencies throughout the day. But a plan to retire Route 372 between Lake Forest Park and UW has raised concerns among city officials.
Public schools, early learning, and child care have suffered deep cuts in recent sessions, and Washington State continues to face a major budget shortfall. A new coalition lays out the case for a pro-kids majority that will protect the programs families rely on.
State Representative Shaun Scott and Seattle Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck explain why they're voting for Hannah Sabio-Howell for state Senate.
Some have suggested that King County Best Starts for Kids grants are too easy to obtain, which overlooks the bureaucratic burden the process already places on small nonprofits, which is only getting worse with new stipulations.
The 5-4 vote means city-level appeals that have delayed significant citywide zoning changes in the past will instead be directed to Superior Court of a state growth hearings board. The proposal had prompted significant push back from density opponents across Seattle.
The R Line is set to replace the Route 7 by 2032, with County Executive Girmay Zahilay promising to "fast track" the RapidRide project last year. But amid the bleak federal transit funding landscape, Metro won't count on those dollars any longer.
Days before a July 31 deadline, Mercer Island City Council adopted a framework responding to a 2025 ruling declaring its housing plans out of line with state law. The City has faced pushback over new provisions that will lower barriers to emergency and supportive housing in Mercer Island.
Jason Slaughter of Not Just Bikes highlights Amsterdam's ambitious plan to expand car-lite streets, which included removing more than 10,000 parking spaces.
Multiuse paths can provide safe bike and pedestrian access to the broad areas of our cities lacking basic sidewalks. Travis Merrigan lays out their advantages, which includes being quicker and cheaper to deploy.
After public outcry following their vote to delay a universal school meal program, Seattle councilmembers had a change of heart and proposed to start the program this fall after all using unspecified general fund dollars.
The Eastside city is the first to take advantage of a 2025 state law allowing cities to create a pathway for licensed architects to sign off on their own building plans. The program is intended to cut timelines to getting accessory dwelling units into construction.
Sound Transit is weighing a cut to light rail service spans to allow larger maintenance windows and is proposing to drop the Seattle-tail of Route 560 to boost frequency on the remainder of the route. The agency’s survey on its service proposal is open through July 26.
Two well-funded challengers are vying to unseat incumbent Rep. Gerry Pollet in LD46. Urbanist-backed Ron Davis has raised the most money in state, but Dreher has a big fundraising advantage built from out-of-state donors.
The number of weekday round trips between Bremerton and Seattle will drop from 20 to 13, with a major gap created between mid-morning and afternoon. The end of supplemental state funding coincides with a pivot at the legislature away from fast ferries.
Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson wisely put a stake in the ground for using World Cup hosting success as a springboard for further cityscape improvements, such as pedestrian zones and transit investments. Policymakers should heed the call and make it happen.
If approved in November, the 0.3% sales tax measure will ramp up city-funded Metro bus service on 10 to 15 additional routes on top of maintaining extra service that exists today. Signing the measure would mark a full-circle moment for Mayor Katie Wilson.
Long-awaited upgrades to one of the city's busiest bus corridors are just a few days away, with SDOT set to permanently close the often-clogged slip lane onto Yale Avenue on August 1. A full eastbound bus lane will be installed by the end of August.
Join the SAFE Bellevue Coalition in sending a letter to city leaders to show your support for a future-focused Bellevue budget that is committed to reducing the high rate of serious injuries on our streets.
Canvass on July 26th, volunteer for good local candidates, and support our election committee’s work at our Endorsement Party on Thursday.
Two public restrooms near 1st Avenue S and Charles Street will be relocated by early August after SDOT settled with a nearby property owner who filed an appeal. Cederstrand Rentals called the use "incompatible" with the standards of the Pioneer Square historic district.
Many years in the making, Pierce County’s coordinated approach to homelessness still faces challenges after being approved by county council in June. With King County partially dismantling its troubled regional authority, Pierce County hopes to avoid the same mistakes.
Seattle City Council is weighing an amendment that would delay Mayor Katie Wilson’s proposal for universal free school meals in favor of a more cautious expansion and a voucher food assistance program.
Seattle’s D5 Council frontrunners Nilu Jenks and Julie Kang diverged around the issues of surveillance cameras, Aurora “stay out” orders, and relative enthusiasm for the mayor’s Taller Denser Faster housing proposal.
While amendments from the Council did make a mark on the Seattle Transit Measure renewal, it still largely resembles Wilson's initial proposal. Amendments that would have scaled it back in scope and duration were both defeated Thursday.
The Urbanist Elections Committee is excited to announce our 2026 primary election endorsements. Check out our great slate of leaders. Be sure to vote by August 4.
The City's hearing examiner granted the Port of Seattle intervenor status in a newly filed appeal seeking to keep the door open to housing in North SoDo, just as the two sides are poised to go head-to-head in the hearing room.
A 3-0 Land Use Committee vote sends Eddie Lin's proposal to close a commonly used avenue of growth plan appeals to a full Seattle City Council vote next week. The proposal has sparked opposition from many of the same groups that have used appeals to delay zoning changes in the past.
Councilmember Bob Kettle's proposal to slash the Seattle Transit Measure renewal by one-third drew significant pushback this week at a public hearing on potential amendments. Among those strongly advocating against the move was the Seattle Transit Advisory Board and the Amalgamated Transit Union.
The 0.3% sales tax bump going onto the November ballot would increase service by around 40% by the mid-2030s, the biggest expansion of transit service in Pierce County in decades. Since May, the proposal has been tweaked to include free rides for seniors.
While other cities struggled to handle World Cup 2026 crowds, Seattle thrived, with pedestrians happily exploring and transit records being broken. Good planning and an urban stadium location was key to Seattle outperforming its American peers.
The I-5 Interstate Bridge Replacement project has completed its federal environmental review and the first phase of work is marching toward construction. Does that mean internal strife over major elements of the program is in the rearview mirror? Far from it.
The Downtown Seattle Association recently released a “report” that was meant to convince us that taxes on high earners are smothering the Seattle economy. Here’s why their analysis is flat wrong.
Josh Kline of YouTube channel Build Core recently took a look at the $3 billion plan to improve I-405 in Seattle's Eastside suburbs and deliver a new bus rapid transit network.
A surge of World Cup fans for the U.S. vs. Belgium match pushed Sound Transit to new heights on July 6, with a whopping 309,000 light rail boardings. The agency also beat its monthly ridership record in June.
Join transit advocates rallying to defend the Seattle Transit Measure proposal from cuts at a public hearing on Monday, July 13. Attend the rally or send in a letter ahead of the big vote to send the package to voters.
Kirkland's Sheila Stanton Place opened earlier this year with 101 units of permanent supportive housing. It marks King County's 15th Health Through Housing facility funded via a 2020 sales tax measure.
As the region's homeless population increases, Executive Girmay Zahilay and Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson are moving to downsize the troubled King County Regional Homelessness Authority, while pledging continued regional collaboration and tighter oversight of contracts.
The ruling is the latest legal hurdle tripping up a proposal to close a 1.4-mile gap in the Burke-Gilman Trail, which a group of Ballard businesses has been fighting since 2008. Delays have heightened scrutiny of state environmental laws more broadly.
A bill scaling back building requirements for upper-level "stepbacks" and outdoor balconies was approved last week, but with two dissenting votes. In voting against, Councilmembers Kevin Nichols and Tola Marts cited the need to look at the full range of options for potential housing reforms.
Clyde Hill voters are set to be asked to approve a 69% city property tax hike this November, to avoid municipal bankruptcy looming as soon as 2030. Without such a move, city officials say, Clyde Hill could cease to exist.
SDOT recently released 60% designs for a two-way protected bike lane along Leary Way NW and invited feedback in a survey open through July 15. Dan Strauss has touted the connection as a way to finally fill the Missing Link, but not everyone is on board with the idea.
Spokane County voters have an opportunity to fund transit service with a 0.2% sales tax renewal on their August 4th ballot. Here's how you can help put the measure over the top.
CityNerd's Ray Delahanty put Vancouver, B.C. first and Seattle second, well ahead of other host cities, in his ranking of World Cup 2026 stadiums. Check out the video to see what sets them apart from more unfortunate sites.
After some nonprofit builders objected, the Housing Development Consortium pulled their support for Seattle's "Housing Accelerator" pilot program built on temporarily reducing builder fees. This eroding of support led Mayor Katie Wilson to table the idea for now, pending more stakeholder work.
By far the most impactful amendment set to be considered to Katie Wilson's proposed transit measure renewal, Kettle's proposal would lead to more than 1 million fewer service hours over the course of 10 years.
A public hearing on a proposal to remove an avenue to appeal land use changes that has significantly delayed past Seattle zoning updates drew around 75 people to City Hall Wednesday. Opponents are raising a cloud of misleading claims around the proposal.
Seattle added 6,800 residents, growing to 823,400, while Tacoma added 2,600, hitting the 231,000 mark. Those jumps make them the two biggest gainers in state April 1, 2026 population estimates, as statewide growth slowed to 0.75%.
Join The Urbanist for our July events, including a soccer social with Sounder at Heart on July 19 and our Endorsements Rollout Party on July 23.
National publications have ranked Seattle at the top of the list among World Cup 2026 host cities, commending the city's centrally located, well-integrated stadium next door to a bounty of urban attractions.
Legislation approved this month shows a County Council ready to give deference to Girmay Zahilay, the first new executive elected to steer King County in 16 years. The votes greenlit a controversial return-to-office plan and a structural overhaul of the Executive's Office.
Here is what is working well and not so well as Washington State's Growth Management Act celebrates 35 years. Travis Merrigan suggests some reforms to keep suburban sprawl at bay.
Transit Riders Union's survey of nearly 500 people showed the importance of investing in transit and can help guide investments to maximize benefits from the expanded Seattle Transit Measure going to voters in the fall.
The state passed a shared streets law in 2025, and it's time for Seattle to seize the opportunity and reclaim streets for people. Half measures aren't cutting it.
A $406 million budget amendment approved Thursday is intended to get West Seattle Link ready for construction, a key promise in the wake of a Sound Transit board vote last month to rebalance the ST3 plan. Another $16 million advances design work on Ballard Link.
The tragic death of elementary school teacher Christian Salyer underscores that the City has neglected the safe bike network in South Seattle too long. It’s time to change that.