"iS tHeRe a tEcHnoLoGY tHe leFt Is eXcItEd aBoUt" yeah, renewable energy, mRNA vaccines. Lots of cool stuff like that! Probably not the one whose main promise was cutting payrolls

15-Minute Cities are the best-branded idea in the history of urbanism. There is no mainstream critique. The only opposition comes from a cadre of conspiracy theorists so unhinged, they equate convenient grocery shopping with totalitarian government.

Someone has sure already made this observation but the fact they can convert all those empty warehouses into prison camps means they could have converted them into housing, community centers, job training centers or, hell, libraries or schools all along. It’s always a matter of will not resources.

It’s February and there is still no seating at Pike Place on the street, and the nearby seating along the waterfront overlook walk is packed! Big potential to invite locals and tourists to eat and linger IN the market. Keep customers longer = more sales

🚨ALERT🚨 The Pike Place Market Historical Commission is meeting next Wednesday, February 11th at 4:30pm to discuss the pedestrianization pilot. Sign up to speak and tell them you like fewer cars. (The motoring enthusiasts are expected to turn out.) www.seattle.gov/documents/De...

I visited the far off lands of “The Seattle Center” today to see these fabled “retractable bollards.” 🛫🌎🌍🛬 A worker named Ralph who has been there for 25 years said they work great 👍. You can get through with a keycard or call box. Perhaps someday we’ll import this exotic solution to Pike Place 💡

Barely 24 hours later and the Pine & 4th temporary bike safety barrier is already nearly a foot out of position. This is unsustainable. @seattledot.bsky.social can we get another work order to restore it before it becomes a significant mobility obstruction and safety hazard?

If it's not for cars, Seattle seems inclined to have a community group or BIA do the maintenance. But public plazas are public goods, so the city should provide a basic set of services.

December Pedestrianized Pike Place Pilot numbers are in, and drum roll please… 🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁 Sales are up again! (7.1%). Sales at the market have beat expectations every month of the pilot so far. Take a moment of zen and join me this video stroll down the festive street last month.

Home Zones with real traffic diversion

tip for parent management: my parents were asking me about chatGPT, and have some friends who love it, and none of my attempts to caution them were as successful as just sending them the Wikipedia page for AI hallucinations

The “prosecute the former regime at every level” candidate has my vote in 2028.

More good news: Sales at Pike Place Market were up 7.2% in October! Or to quote the PDA's own words the market has had "exceptional sales performance of our tenants." (pikeplacemarket.community.highbond.com/document/fd1...) 📈 So far every month of the pedestrianization pilot sales have been up!

Also, when reporters start talking about the chatbots this way, it is imperative to remind them they are basically asking a toaster for comment. They should be a lot more embarrassed about this than they currently are. “Grok told CNN…” no it didn’t. You typed stuff into an unreliable calculator.

The chicane on 37th Ave S looks great! I’m looking forward to SDOT adding more features like this around Seattle to slow down cars and discourage cut-through traffic.

Every time the legacy media tries to whip up some suburb-coded bullshit about Mayor Wilson she should pedestrianize another block. Whenever they get really over-the-top: whoops here's a superblock

It’s December 30th. Pike Place Market is packed with people awkwardly standing or sitting on the curb to eat treats from vendors. Removing the street seating for the winter was a mistake. Seattle has a mild climate with days where people want to sit and linger year round

what a shocking turn of events who could’ve seen this coming

I know I'm going out on a limb, but we shouldn't Delridge Way-ify First Avenue in Belltown

It’s interesting to compare this to Seattle’s Pike Place pedestrianization pilot where there has been zero, and I mean zero, promotion of the benefits of not having to dodge lost tourists in SUVs while going about your shopping

My hot take of the day: cars should *not be able* to go over 15-20 mph in urban settings. Safer infrastructure, speed limiters, speed cameras, removal of licenses — whatever it takes. This take sponsored by driving through the “zesty jumble” of Seattle’s Capitol Hill today.

People seem to like pedestrianized spaces, even in the winter. Sure would be nice if Seattle had more of them.

Imagine if PROTEC17 came out and said that SDCI planners were only going to be processing the type of permits that the union considers important until they got a better contract.

I know Americans overly romanticize Europe but I still think moving to a little house on a canal in the Netherlands could solve like 82% of my problems

Now that Bruce is out of the way, Seattle when?

This is one of those things that I think is quietly important – when these people are talking shit about cities, Portland or Minneapolis or New York or Charlotte or wherever, you have to loudly say, “no, fuck you, you’re lying, that town and its people whip ass and you’re the asshole”

If you go to a suburban mall, you will probably have to park outside and walk in. You don’t expect to drive in to your store. But for some reason in urban areas it’s considered an injustice if you can’t park directly in front of the store you want to go to.

"I'm going to tax the everloving shit out of the rich people who made your life miserable and put every masked thug who broke the law or traitor who wrecked the government for their own profit in prison" I admit is too long for a sign, but at the very least this should be the spirit of the thing.

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.

The assessed value of Broadmoor & Sandpoint Golf Courses has been <$1/sq ft since 1983 even while Seattle property has increased 2000-2400%. KCAssessor claimed value of private courses was transferred to the CC homes. It's not. We need to eminent domain the courses @councilmember-amr.bsky.social

one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.

Look at this rectangular dog

2. enable an office of urbanism with a budget and the ability to find creative repurposing of public spaces and existing publicly owned buildings. modeled on the 'soft power' of brussels' bouwmeester maitre architecte, kristiaan borret short talk on what they do here: youtu.be/3tHNMcSGJbg

Something I wish every city would do: District-level public realm improvement plans. This is the London Borough of Camden's "Bloomsbury Vision" project map. Greening, placemaking, pedestrianization, bike lanes.

Seattle has what they call "temporary" and "permanent" school street designs. The designs are...awful...nearly identical to Healthy Streets or Neighborhood Greenways, which target speeds of 20 mph and volumes below 1,000 cars per day.

People care less about labels than results. I was elected on the promise that all Seattle citizens should have access to a dignified life, regardless of their background or income. #thisisyourcity youtu.be/TNvmWV78ZlM

We took on a powerful incumbent who was expected to coast to reelection. We faced more corporate PAC money than has ever been spent attacking a candidate in a Seattle election. We built a people-powered movement rooted in hope for our city’s future. And we won. This is YOUR city!

Really feels like some folks locked in a nostalgia mindset for Seattle of the 80s-90s and because car culture was unquestioned then, it must remain that way forever

It’s pretty depressing that the only reference many Americans have to a pedestrianized market street is Disneyland. You don't even need to look to other countries — we have examples of thriving pedestrian markets here in the USA, who happily shared their advice with us when we reached out to them

When Covid caused NYC offices to hollow out what they found was that yeah the core business districts suffered but the neighborhoods where people actually live, thrived. All WFH means is rethinking business districts, not cities.

Following up on my short thread yesterday, another reason I’m excited is because I think it will be transformative to have a renter, car-free transit-rider, and mom of a younger kiddo as our next mayor. It’s got to be historic in many ways.

Wow. While we wait for the few remaining ballots to be counted, we feel like we have won this race. The recent drop put us nearly 1,400 votes ahead, just under the .5 percent threshold for a mandatory recount.

I’m going to put in an inquiry on this. I have a lot of questions about how enforcement is currently being conducted.

As a pedestrian, I gotta say the amount of cars that drive at me while I'm in a crosswalk is a way bigger problem than a bike or scooter on the sidewalk. Way more frequent too. They don't stop or some will start accelerating right at you. Just stop for 10 more seconds.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that a big piece of Mamdani’s campaign was simply “cities are cool and lots of people enjoy living in them” which in and of itself dismantles alot of rightwing talking points

URGENT BOLLARD ALERT. SDOT is going to the Pike Place Market Historical Commission next Wednesday to get initial guidance on the "physical protective barriers" planned ahead of the FIFA World Cup. The board is getting its temperature taken on a "hybrid approach" of bollards and vehicle barricades.