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

This is no parking after 11. One of our few pedestrian plazas. The fact that there’s a Seahawks game is more reason to keep this open to people not free parking. No half-assed sandwich board today. I really hope the @wilsonforseattle.bsky.social admin commits to giving this back to people.

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?

All super rich guys sound the same now. It’s all “I sleep four hours a night and spend the other twenty hours a day developing a product that’s going to bring us the best widespread poverty anyone’s ever seen.”

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.

Looking forward to learning all about how the right should move left to win elections tomorrow. They should maybe dye their hair pink, learn to love pronouns.

Once more, for old times’ sake

(3) Pollsters like to test messages with captured audiences who are being paid to pay attention. That isn’t reality. It’s pretend. No such circumstances exist outside of their experimental settings. The fight over attention is the central fulcrum point of contemporary politics.

Best I can do is a walkway next to parked cars.

so lower the fuckin' barriers to access, Rob. this city is almost fuckin' *uniquely* hostile to street food in a way that impoverishes our culture and destroys possibilities, Rob. this city seethingly hates visible culture on a policy level, maybe you could aim to fuckin' fix that, Rob.

If Bruce Harrell squeaks out a win in two weeks, I for one will never forget the contempt that he readily showed for wide swaths of the city in service of doing it.

It has been a, uh, difficult week but I have not laughed louder and harder at something in a very long time than at this.

Katie Wilson, like many of us (including me) has struggled to pay the bills IN THIS CENTURY. I think people find it relatable that she has actually experienced Seattle's affordability challenges, which Harrell, as someone who has been very wealthy for decades, has not.

I was deeply involved in the development of the People Streets & Public Spaces element and its vision of a pedestrian plaza at the heart of every neighborhood. If a handful of business interests take the entire PSPS budget, I will be livid.

One concern was that perhaps the food/beverage vendors would do well, but the "heart" of the market - the farmers - wouldn't. Let's check in on that: "Farm revenue is over budget by $115,207" 📈 Guess people have figured out how to pick up produce without driving through the middle of the market 🤷🏻‍♂️

I know this is a wild idea but what if you could call more than one elevator at Beacon Hill Station at one time

Can the Manhattan Project avoid building the nuclear bomb?

With 22 full time employees devoted to graffiti abatement in Bruce Harrell's 2026 budget, that team would officially be twice as large as SDOT's Vision Zero team (11 people).

The Dem establishment is going to back Mills over the absolute phenom outsider Platner in Maine, which tells you everything you need to know about how well they understand the current moment & how prepared they are to meet it.

As far as I can tell, Seattle's design review program employs 13 people. Can they be redeployed to functions that expedite permitting, rather than slowing it to a crawl?

It's fascinating how every trial run of a government-run "give money to people whose problems can be solved by simply giving them money" scheme turns out to have a tremendous return on investment on TOP of benefiting the recipients, and still it's like "ohhhh we don't know about this!! scary!!!"