So many great ideas! One of the reasons many people drive in Seattle is to access outdoor recreation. Then they have a car so they start using it for a lot more trips. Let’s increase access to our natural beauty and serve rural transit riders at the same time!

NEW OP-ED// Op-Ed: Trailhead Direct Transit Is Great. It Can Be Even Better. By Kimberly Huntress-Inskeep via @theurbanist.org

My preferred AI metaphor is actually Asbestos. - Seemingly magical properties - Developed and experimented with to make endless products - Poisoned countless communities in it's creation - Everything it was used for eventually becomes a toxic hazard to mitigate & it's in the fucking walls now

Okay Version 1 (AKA The One Line) is complete! CHOO-CHOO!

NEW: ChatGPT advised the FSU shooter that a mass shooting would get more attention from media if it involved several children, according to a new lawsuit against OpenAI www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

This Mother's Day, please remember that 1 in 5 Black women will be evicted during her lifetime and 1 in 5 children born to a Black mom will be evicted during their childhood. Mass eviction is as destructive and evil as mass incarceration. We just don't talk about it.

NOTICE: Do you have an elderly or disabled neighbor in NYC? Be a good neighbor and let them know about the free air conditioner program. If they earn $3473 or less a month, NYC will cover the costs of an A/C. Remember…last summer we had 95 degree weather. Look out for them

About time for the return of tiffins, reusable bento boxes, and glass containers that have long been around, well before single-use plastics' ubiquity and pollution.

70% top marginal tax rates

It would be so easy to just have a couple vending machines tbh. Even just starting there lol

Critical Mass folks what's your route this month?

The people living next to this data center also just got disenfranchised through redistricting.

NEW OP-ED// Op-Ed: Urging Transit Officials to Join the 2026 Week Without Driving By Anna Zivarts via @theurbanist.org

my fav part is how the artist they commissioned for the piece was also like"what the fuck are you on?

"F&ck the planet" by the New York Times

Seattle times, WaPo, NYT all unhinged

Fun fact: my very first piece in the Urbanist was about the first (didn't end up passing) version of this drug ordinance. And now here we are two and a half years later admitting it doesn't work very well.

On top of everything, I’m honestly so confused by this. Why would an org or person who is adamantly and famously against growth and more new housing be invited to a meeting where pro housing experts are supposed to provide advice on how Seattle can build taller and denser faster?

Pretty wildly offensive for the Seattle Times’ editorial board to call The Urbanist a “builders’ mouthpiece.” The uncollegial tone of the opinion desk undermines the newspaper’s hard-working and talented professional journalists, whom some in management appear intent on replacing with generative AI.

Donate to @theurbanist.org here.

This is a great example of "blame inversion" (coined by @ashtonindc.bsky.social) where danger very clearly caused by cars is blamed on anything else: parents letting their kids play outside, kids riding bikes, etc.

Excellent thread by @jrock08.bsky.social. Also here’s what really happened (subjective/unhinged personal opinion): OPCD sr leadership really cares about being liked and not being called racist or bad. They really want urbanists to like them and stop flaming them. So they convinced Mayor Wilson to

SCL doesn’t ask the public if we want safe transmission lines. SPU doesn’t ask the public if we want safe watermains. Boeing Field doesn’t ask the public if we want a safe runway. WSDOT doesn’t ask the public if we want safe bridges. Why does SDOT put safe streets up for debate?

Anyway, get to ground. It's always my *advice* [when I offer any]. Get hyper local. Find your people and fight where you are. This is where you can make the most impact and a real difference. Do this as much as you can, take care of yourself, and take care of your people.

It’s depressing how things that were seen as KKK-level racism when I was in college are mundane government policies and Supreme Court decisions today.

70% of people in jails are awaiting trial.

"For the first time, New York City has a mayor who has made riding a bike a seemingly genuine part of his political identity." Yes, however, I think it's more that Mamdani has made *not driving* part of his political identity. This is a man who gets around like most New Yorkers do.

For everyone watching at home who wants to ride the D, the opening is 12:30 p.m. today. Parties at all 3 new stations plus Wilshire/Western until 4pm. Free rides across the system all weekend long! I popped into the Western station earlier and was happy to see some signage changed but not all

Now let’s shame them about blocking affordable housing for nurses at the Talaris site that’s between Children’s and Laurelhurst! @affordabletalaris.org @sharethecities.bsky.social

“Seattle’s pedestrian protection program got off to a flying start when Mrs. Helen Rose bit the traffic officer who gave her a ticket for jaywalking.” From Traffic Institute Review v.1 no.1, 1944.

This is honestly the whole ball game. We have reached a point where missing middle is legal across most major cities in Canada but it's still considered fine to consign most renters in new builds to high levels of car traffic and noise pollution. Renters deserve access to quiet streets!

vancouver's west end healed me as an entire district of medium + high density housing on a network of low-car streets (with some car-free treatments!) pleasant, quiet, but convenient to walk, bike and take transit. perfect. and illegal to recreate across most canadian cities 💔

I support this idea but also, hear me out: mixed-used commercial/residential on quiet low-car streets why can't I live on a cute little neighborhood street with 2-4-story buildings, cafes and little shops, and absolutely no through traffic.

Can we stop limiting higher-density (mixed use) housing to just the worst possible stroads? Please and thank you.

My favorite block in the city. 4-7 story apartments line the whole block while the street itself is fairly quiet and low stress

Hear me out: apartment buildings on quiet low-car streets

The first Wilshire/La Cienega-bound @metrolosangeles.bsky.social D Line train arriving at Wilshire/Fairfax!! Woohoo!! 🚇🎉💜

Congratulations to LA Metro for opening a 4-mile, 3-station expansion today! With 2 more phases coming, the D line extension is one of LA Metro's most important projects, adding heavy rail to some of the city's densest areas and boosting a system struggling to grow ridership

remember when joy hollingsworth tried to lower the minimum wage lol

Problem: Drivers keep driving their heavy vehicles into the barrier protecting the people in the bike lane. SDOT solution: Remove the barrier protecting the people. Heaven forbid we actually make this safer by removing a lane to create enough space. #VisionZero

this is basically every blue city - despite crime being at generational lows - leaving no ability to fund needed programs

Actually we should just give citizenship to every undocumented person in the United States who wants it. Walking over an imaginary line isn't some great moral atrocity. Making people live in the shadows as a permanent underclass absolutely IS.

Lots of talk about audits recently. How about we focus on this! Fixed-income seniors and working families should not be subsidizing wealthy private golf courses.

popular or unpopular has nothing to do with scientific integrity, and "engaging in dialogue" with the medical equivalent of flat earthers is actually harmful because it makes uninformed people think their arguments may be legitimate. this is why we now have measles outbreaks.

you can pretty much get liberals here to agree to any local right wing news or nextdoor style reactionary opinion if you pitch it wonkily enough

Something we're working on... @rvgreenways.bsky.social

Seattle City Councilmembers Joy Hollingsworth and Maritza Rivera want to ban new tiny house villages from areas within 750 feet of playgrounds, parks, child cares, and schools. Guess no one told them that there are homeless children, and that some of them will be living in these shelters.

It says: inclusive communal all-ages planning include: 5-min walk: preschools, playgrounds, parklets, elder care, groceries, convenience stores 10-min walk: primary schools, community park 15-min walk: community clinics, junior highs, civic equipment, municipal services, supermarkets 90% coverage

buying tech in 2026 pick two

Restoring fish passage to spawning habitat is one of the most cost-effective ways to recover salmon runs. The Tulalip Tribes are leading the way in the Snohomish watershed. 🐟 🎥 This new film shows how that works—and why it's important to all of us. nwtreatytribes.org/passage/