Bollard-top beverage tables are my niche brand of urbanism.

Naples Chiaia Monte di Dio metro station.

Seattle World Cup idea: Just mounting televisions on a wall along the sidewalk.

Dawn v. Dusk (after a long day of Vespa emissions) over the Gulf of Naples

Today Sound Transit builds upon its proud legacy of TOIL (transit oriented indoor lumberyard).

Four Neapolitan bollards.

This is the way. 😎

Pedestrian commercial streets are wildly popular in every corner of the globe.

Low-traffic neighborhoods reduce the nuisance of rat-running motorists and create safe space for walking and biking.

Well-shaded bench in Stoke Newington.

It’s not Holland but the tulip bollards on Goods Way through Kings Cross are a nice touch.

My neighborhood of Hampstead’s commitment to benches is unparalleled. This one is on a particularly steep street.

A trove of documents show work is proceeding gradually but steadily inside the Seattle Department of Transportation to take advantage of Washington's new Shared Streets Law. Pedestrianizing a number of streets could be around the corner. Story: www.theurbanist.org/2025/12/04/a...

POV: You turned your stadium car park into a dense, amenity-rich neighborhood.

Reminder to my Seattle peeps that now is the time to download a copy of the SDOT org chart to see how it changes under the new administration.

We have to stop justifying and explaining why our city doesn't have things other cities have. Big or small, it's arbitrary, and we can change it.

You can invent every plausible explanation why road markings read bottom to top in your city. And every plausible explanation why they read top to bottom. But I invite you to consider that there may be no explanation at all.

We choose to build a bus lane. We choose to build a bus lane in this decade (or next) and do the other things, not because they are easy (tho they should be), but because they are hard...

Unleash the engineers at SDOT who drew up this plan for diversion for "Home Zones 2.0". Every home zone, healthy street, and greenway needs diversion implemented like this.

Two bus routes in a trench coat?

It’s weird.

What’s the worst bus in London and why is it #46?

…in case you’re wondering what’s going on behind the scenes with shared streets…

“A trove of documents and emails obtained from SDOT through public disclosure requests shows work is proceeding inside the department to take advantage of the Shared Streets Law.”

I have a standing public disclosure request on SDOT to see what they're planning for the new Shared Streets Law SB 5595. I've basically been reading their emails for the last six months and I'm excited to share what I've learned in a 2700-word Urbanist article that is going to drop any day now.

London’s Low-Traffic Neighborhoods provide a model other cities should emulate.

Side streets provide ample space to rebuild our urban tree canopy.

You see that bike shelter? We should have those every couple blocks in Seattle's more densely populated neighborhoods.

Cars have proven to be a nuisance but they can be tamed.

pints, chit-chat, and good people

(What’s the Story)

Could you imagine Pike Place Market sending an email with this headline?

London is fast becoming a cycling city. As each new piece in the network appears—which has more than quadrupled from 90 to 431 km since 2016—so do new cyclists. Its infrastructure now sees a stunning 1.5 million daily users—a 43% spike since 2019—moving nearly half as many people as the Tube below.🧵

Seven Dials Market speaking my language.

There’s no such thing as a perfect intersec—

I’ve been searching London for examples (left) to serve as inspiration for future Crockett Plaza (right).

“There’s a public health imperative to quickly expand the adoption of autonomous vehicles.” Would the author say the same about building bike lanes? Installing automatic traffic cameras? Requiring Intelligent Speed Assist? All of those are proven to save lives — and at a fraction of AVs' cost.

A live look at the skies over a busy high speed rail terminal. Compare to your local airport.

High speed rail is a non-trivial effort with massive construction impacts and steep costs but it's never going to be cheaper, so governments should really start a semi-permanent program of building the most obvious corridors...or are we just going to keep flying from Seattle to Portland forever?

Was this article written by…petroleum?

yeah ben!

Oxford Street cannot be pedestrianized soon enough. It is so packed with pedestrians some days that there isn’t room on the sidewalk.

My dream, which I’ve been working on for a few years, is for Seattle to have a pedestrian plaza in the heart of every neighborhood.

My phone reminding me I’ve been out of the U.S. for the last week.

Moody weather in the city today.

Proposal to add these markings to the MUTCD.

Massive contingent of Met Police escorting Southampton (away) supporters to the stadium for their match in south London.

This is the way. 😎

Fun Fact. The State of Washington has laws governing “personal delivery devices” and they are generally treated like pedestrians.

The Leicester Square Christmas village is great (and, unlike Seattle’s, doesn’t charge an entry fee).