Yeah this isn't over. It's barely even started yet.

Of course the trip where I finally win an upgrade to business class on Amtrak Cascades is the one where my train ends up getting fully cancelled and switched to a bus.

While you wait for the 4pm ballot drop in the Seattle mayor's race...catch up on all of the other local elections around the region, including a big crew of urbanist candidates making gains in cities large and small. www.theurbanist.org/2025/11/06/p...

SR 7 at 205th St, pedestrian killed by driver. This section between 204th and 208th has got to be one of th highest crash areas in the state, certainly in the county. WSDOT won't pay for the safe crossing improvements needed for the new transit center.

The stop is open again. I have whiplash.

It's 14 votes now.

It looks like the only incumbent in Sammamish who is on track to win re-election (Amy Lam) will only win because of a write-in campaign that was started because her opponent wasn't anti-growth enough. The irony.

There should be an Internet Archive but just for campaign websites.

Still thinking about how one of Bruce Harrell's closing arguments was, "Of course we can't use some of the money in this HOUSING LEVY to help people living on the streets, are you crazy?"

My latest about contingency plans (or lack of them) for increased ICE enforcement and/or National Guard deployment in Seattle. If you've been hoping SPD might intervene on behalf of Seattle residents, you might want to read until the end.

Debbie Treen, the NIMBY ex-mayor of Bothell, got elected to the Sammamish city council last night. Where her husband already has a seat!

So much hand-wringing about how those two special state legislative races could swing to Republicans when they aren't even going to be close.

Bainbridge Island is set to elect two new councilmembers who explicitly campaigned against the idea of building affordable housing directly near the Winslow ferry terminal.

It's so funny that we will add station signage months before it's accurate, but we won't just call a station "Federal Way" because we'll eventually add a second one in that city sometime in the 2030s.

Even more than the fact that the trains don't go to these places yet, the new signage is confusing to visitors in that it might lead them to believe Federal Way has a downtown.

We should do all the election parties on Friday night.

Going to be a confusing few months again for visitors

Downtown is so back

New permitting documents filed with the city link Barnes & Noble to the former North Face location in downtown Seattle (520 Pike St). services.seattle.gov/Portal/custo...

Another one that is too close to call: the Lynnwood mayor's race, with current councilmember George Hurst fewer than 200 votes ahead of incumbent Christine Frizzell. Frizzell is a member of the Sound Transit board.

Over $100,000 in outside money was spent in support of electing John Hines Mayor of Tacoma, but it looks like voters are set to elect (Urbanist endorsed) Anders Ibsen instead.

In Lake Forest Park, just six votes currently separate urbanist candidate Josh Rosenau from his opponent John Lebo.

Another city where progressives did well tonight: Newcastle.

Progressives are poised to flip the balance of power in Burien, with Sam Méndez poised to win the open seat, Rocco DeVito on track to beat incumbent Stephanie Mora, and the council's two left-leaning incumbents - Sarah Moore and Hugo Garcia - likely to retain their seats.

How do we get this man to go the fuck away

Definitely a full-on NIMBY backlash in Bainbridge Island and Sammamish tonight. Sammamish mayor Karen Howe is on the ropes, along with CM Sid Gupta. In Bainbridge, CM Joe Deets is also behind and anti growth candidate Mike Nelson is ahead.

The Seattle Mayor's race is too close to call. Lots of ballots remain to be counted. But there is plenty of good news for progressive candidates all around the region from tonight's results.

Huge turnout for Katie Wilson's election night party in Beacon Hill. She's the frontrunner hoping to take down incumbent Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell.

But at least the Mayor's parking spot was clearly blocked off for him.

There are some other states over here

Feels like a sea change moment.

Friends, you have three hours to get those ballots to a ballot box. Make it so.

A whole year off from elections? Put that in the Kentucky resident recruitment ads.

Every winter in Seattle I wonder why our business leaders work so hard to kill any option to sit outside

Big salute to whoever put these up at U District station.

Don't forget to release some of that election anxiety with a little walk of some kind today.

Shug's Ice Cream moving from First Ave into the former Confectionary space on Pike Place itself feels like a direct response to the Market being pedestrianized.

A group called "Lake Washington Working Families" is appealing a determination of non-significance for a planned Winco Foods grocery store at Aurora Ave N and N 137th Street due to "various environmental impacts"...despite the fact that the building had been home to a Sam's Club that closed in 2018.

Indirectly on the ballot today: Sound Transit. As many as seven board seats could change hands as the result of local races today, with a bare minimum of two new members joining the board ahead of the most impactful set of board decisions in twenty years.

Less than 24 hours from now, we'll have our first batch of election results.

Actually listening to a Federal Way's Community Development Director admit in a public meeting that the city once shook down a developer to get them to pay for 70% of the cost of a traffic signal in order to get their project advanced through a development moratorium. This is seen as normal.

"They're going to have to park somewhere," is something that a Federal Way councilmember just said in a public meeting about a downtown street being closed for pedestrian events, thirty three days before Federal Way's light rail station (steps away!) opens to the public.

Bothell's public works dept says that it can't lower speed limits on all of the city's neighborhood streets from 25 to 20 mph because it will create a "false sense of security for users" on some of those streets. We'll see if the city council agrees tomorrow.

Can I add "experts are surprised about the fact that Seattleites are concerned about traffic violence after the deadliest year on city roads since 2006" to the list of prime examples of motonormativity?

We are just one day out from the Seattle local elections! Only 17.6% of King County voters and just under 20% of Seattle voters have returned their ballots. So far, only 1 in 17 young gen Z voters have voted, compared to more than 1 in 3 boomers. Don't forget to vote if you are eligible and want to.

8-term Bellevue CM Conrad Lee, who just lost the Seattle Times endorsement, posted a mailer to his Facebook page today that asserts that "Outside interests are trying to turn Bellevue into Seattle" & that single family zoning is "under attack". "We can't afford anymore of what they have planned."

Ghost buses have been rampant, so Fix the L8 Ghost Bus-ters set out Thursday night to track them down while asking riders to email to local leaders and remind them to vote! Make sure you vote by Tuesday, ideally via a ballot drop box! 📹: @juanjpg.bsky.social 📷: @melodysummerfield.bsky.social

I was an ORCA card reader for Halloween

In light of a race for County Executive that looks to be going down to the wire, I'm compelled to circulate THE Claudia Balducci video. The Bellevue City Council meeting in 2010 where CB made it clear she doesn't ever shirk away from a fight. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuB5...

Imagine going back to using this space for parking.