Visited Old Bellevue today to get a closer look at the facades that the city council is set to try and preserve through an emergency zoning ordinance on Tuesday.

Continuing to run the 550 for six months after the full 2 Line opens is very silly and shouldn't happen, in my opinion.

My takeaway from a few days in SF is that Seattle is getting off very very easy when it comes to how many tech ads we're bombarded with every day.

Bothell ascendant www.theurbanist.org/2026/02/07/b...

One station wasn't mentioned 👀

Turns out Sara Nelson was mad at the wrong city's housing department.

Great question, Councilmember! It's a signpost to indicate to a Link operator operating a two-car train where to stop along the platform. Looks like Sound Transit is planning to bring back two and three-car trains.

It's back! The House transportation committee just approved the Mosquito Fleet Act, again. www.theurbanist.org/2025/03/10/w...

Seattle is preparing for the renewal of its city-specific transit funding measure this year before it expires next spring. But transit advocates are also pushing for King County to explore going to the voters for supplemental transit funding as well. www.theurbanist.org/2026/02/06/k...

Saka gave a very long speech yesterday from the dais in favor of Complete Streets and road dieting 35th Ave SW to improve safety specifically. The pivot is real.

Just after 6am this morning, Seattle Fire responded to a driver hitting someone walking at 15th Ave NE and NE 120th Street. The person who was hit, a 20 year old man, was transported to the the hospital.

Catching up on today's Seattle council transportation committee, since I was on the Sound Transit beat earlier. Alexis Mercedes Rinck: "What can we expect to see in terms of pedestrianization in time for FIFA?" SDOT: [bunch of things that are not pedestrianization]

We're officially going into a day five for a hearing that is contesting a zoning ordinance that would allow some additional floor area for affordable housing in Bainbridge Island, for a period of nine months.

Dawn Janow, who is appealing Bainbridge's zoning change that would allow a small amount of affordable housing, doesn't understand why Bainbridge's city manager would meet with councilmembers one-on-one about a potential affordable housing project rather than in a big public meeting. Gee, who knows.

So, this hearing is STILL HAPPENING

Claudia Balducci is moving to add restroom access to the work plan for the Sound Transit board's rider experience and operations workplan for the year. Katie Wilson brought this issue up specifically as well earlier at Exec Committee.

Sound Transit is currently "assessing" the idea of ramping up fare inspections within the fare paid zones at stations, rather than just on trains. As trains get increasingly crowded, checking fares at platforms instead is more feasible for the ambassador crews.

Sound Transit staff casually dropping in a board meeting that the agency will be "foraying" into using Microsoft's copilot AI software later this year and has secured licenses to do so.

Seattle City Hall right now, where students from around the city have gathered after a mass walk-out to protest ICE:

Well, that's a first. The City of Seattle is refusing to give me ridership information for the Seattle Streetcar for 2025, saying the data won't be available for another four months.

Today's the day the Sound Transit board really starts talking about how to get the ST3 planning back into alignment. This AM's Executive Committee, and this PM's Rider Experience Committee, both feature discussions about the "building blocks" that will ultimately lead to significant recalibration.

Good evening from tonight's emergency meeting of the Wallingford Community Council, scheduled to respond to the new zoning maps for the neighborhood that OPCD released last week.

Walking across the I-5 overpass at NE 45th Street and thinking about Alex Pedersen's four year quest to get walking and biking improvements done here that led to absolutely nothing.

Shout out to this "minor, infrequent" bus for getting me where I need to go quickly and efficiently.

Causing Jeff Bezos to flee our state should be a point of pride for Washington.

What's more powerful, the ability for a migrating animal to find its way back to its original habitat...or the ability for a TV news station to find one business owner who might be negatively impacted by potential traffic safety improvements. www.king5.com/article/news...

And The Urbanist was first on this story.

I was late, so I turned on tonight's Bainbridge Island Council meeting in time to hear deputy mayor Kirsten Hytopoulos giving a speech about how "density is a gift to development" and that the city is already "drowning in people of a certain income level" and doesn't need more market rate housing.

Good news: this bill (SB 5609) was significantly scaled back before advancing out of the environment committee today. Now it simply requires cities to adopt ordinances protecting archaeological and cultural resources by 2029 in order to continue exempting infill housing from SEPA.

Sam Steele, current head of SDCI's Inspections group, will take over as interim department head on February 11, per a rare direct email from Mayor Katie Wilson to SDCI staff sent today.

I don't think it's too late btw, I think BIRT is dead. No one has any money to build that spaghetti interchange even if they wanted to.

I need you to know that Bainbridge Island has a version of "find it fix it" and that anyone can look at the submissions people send in. I also need you to see this:

As @typewriteralley.bsky.social has reported recently, various faux-conservation NIMBY groups are trying to re-re-reappeal the Seattle housing growth plan right now under "environmental" guises. What are those pretenses, and why are they horrifically wrong? @shirleyswirley.bsky.social explains:

Kenmore Planning Commission is discussing neighborhood commercial this year. I am excited about the vibrancy and walkability awaiting the future of our neighborhoods with the (re)legalization of this land use. And look, @typewriteralley.bsky.social made it into our agenda packet!

Federal Way's land use committee just held a hearing on this. The reasons to deny the application included: -Apartment buildings look bad -Apartments would be close to existing homes -Nearby property values would decline -Nearby rents would go up -4.5% of units in the city are already vacant

There are simply too many things happening this week, I can't cover them all. But I'm really stubborn so I'm going to try.

Today the WA House's housing committee rejected an amendment to a bill reducing barriers to emergency shelter and supportive housing that would have allowed cities to keep banning those facilities w/in 1,000 feet of a school or daycare center. Rep. Brianna Thomas (D-West Seattle) had some thoughts.

The bill establishing a millionaire's tax in Washington has finally been filed. The four Democratic Senators who are not currently co-sponsoring the bill? Marko Liias, Adrian Cortes, Drew Hansen, and Deborah Krishnadasan. app.leg.wa.gov/BillSummary/...

The state Senate's local government committee just approved SB 6309, which includes significant reforms to Sound Transit's permitting authority. app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/...

Good afternoon from the THIRD DAY of a hearing taking place over an ordinance allowing more affordable housing in a very small slice of Bainbridge Island. So far over 120 exhibits have been entered into the record to determine whether the city correctly checked all of its boxes under SEPA.

After adopting housing reforms that included eliminating parking mandates and increased density limits throughout the city, Bothell has seen a major jump in pre-applications for residential projects. Average number of units entering pre-application over the past 5 years: 580 In 2025: 1000+

SEPA also does nothing to require us to revisit mistakes of the past even if they are causing enormous ongoing environmental impacts. To the contrary, SEPA is a serious impediment to changing course, even if that course is heading to climate catastrophe.

Thinking about how often Jay Inslee showed up for Sound Transit groundbreakings and ribbon cuttings, treating the expansion of the high capacity transit system in Puget Sound like the statewide issue that it is...and the fact that Bob Ferguson doesn't seem to hold the same view.

The Wallingford Community Council isn't happy with the new zoning maps OPCD released last week. "The City has largely ignored the extensive community feedback to develop a zoning plan that is compatible with lower scale neighborhoods like Wallingford and Tangletown"

It's hard not to leave Sunset Dunes Park / the former Upper Great Highway without being inspired to think about what's actually possible when it comes to how we use our legacy vehicle infrastructure into the future.

This is who runs this account

I guess this is how we're all learning that the 2026 levy delivery plan is out.

"[T]he city continues to push a high-density project where rushed decision‑making increases the risk of expensive mistakes that taxpayers may ultimately bear." Incredible to write this about a project that has been in the works since 2023. www.bainbridgereview.com/letters/lett...

Was building Olive Way through Capitol Hill a mistake

If our "environmental protection" frameworks can stop an affordable housing project but can't stop a detention center or a highway expansion we really need to start talk about ripping things up root and branch.