BUILDING CODE NERD ALERT! WA's scissor stair bill just dropped, HB 2228: app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?... You know all those elegant skinny towers in Vancouver, BC? Part of why they're common is that scissor stairs make small floor plates more feasible. Why not here? Why not everywhere?

Nice words of support for elevator code reform from WA's House D majority leader. Watch for the return of SB 5156 when session starts next week. komonews.com/news/local/p...

We can’t have people speculating on land during a housing crisis — we need that land for housing, and investment in these parcels is beneficial to our economy. Let’s get this (psuedo) land value tax going! www.spokesman.com/stories/2026...

Would you look at that, no studies, no surveys, no outreach, no process; just stuff getting done when it needs to. Oh, but only when it benefits cars. Everything else requires years of molasses planning and permitting processes to built trains, RapidRide buses, or anything that might help bicyclists

e-bikes displace billions of gallons of gas. massive wins for public health, personal finance, climate, local communities, local businesses we should be giving them away. bsky.app/profile/holz...

Just an annoying reminder that the unquenchable American thirst for oil, and the conquest and subjugation of other nations in futile attempts to satiate it, is brought to you in large part by our land-use patterns

Remember: it’s New Year’s EVE, not New Year’s Steve. Sapphic smooches ONLY when the clock strikes 12!

Making US Roads as safe as Canadian, Australian, or European roads would save more American lives (30,000 per year) than eliminating murder from the US (24,000 per year). Image with alt text:

1 Riding car-free Washington Pass in the North Cascades 2 Riding the car-free Logan Pass in Glacier National Park 3 Leading a infrastructure project tour for @rangemedia.co 4 Moving to a new house within a block of the Centennial Trail

Exactly why I've introduced HB 2095, to adopt Canada and Europe's framework of "presumed liability" for drivers who injure or kill vulnerable road users. Let's take what's working in other places and make our roads safer here for everyone. #waleg

💔💔💔💔💔 RIP bug bench, you were the best of us. (Kidding, she’s not dead. we’ll get her fixed up.)

Who needs a village when you can have parking lots?

This is 404 Media's @jasonkoebler.bsky.social waving at himself through a Flock camera; one of 60 we learned was left exposed to the open internet. Not only could anyone with a link livestream it, but some admin portals were open with no login credentials required. www.404media.co/flock-expose...

Rail $395 million Public transit $753 million Debt $1.7 billion Highway upgrades $5.3 billion someone who is good at transportation planning please help me budget this. my state is dying

Crazy trick for being able to park right in front of any store downtown. If my wife had driven down, she’d have had to pay to park in the garage and walk down. This is the ideal city vehicle

Tire Runoff Delicious, ‘But I Know It’s Bad For Me,’ Says Local Salmon: tinyurl.com/3znnjbp2

Holy poop riding in this wind is brutal

….so supposedly the Sheriff is auditing his officers’ searches monthly to make sure the searches are legit With searches like this I’m not sure the auditing is working

When mad drivers tell you that you, a cyclist, don't belong on roads because you don't pay registration and the gas tax, show them the Road Damage Calculator. Compare, for example, the damage made by a small SUV and a longtail cargo e-bike. Very different orders of magnitude roaddamagecalculator.com

I don’t think it is progressive to force urban homeowners like me who live in fire-safe areas to pay higher home insurance premiums to subsidize people who choose to live in McMansions in places with very high fire risk.

Just give me a world where we can walk/roll to most things. That’s it.

A bill from Senators Ron Muzzall (R) and John Lovick (D) would expand the definition of reckless driving in Washington to anyone found travelling more than 30 mph over the speed limit. This would expand the number of instances where automatic speed governors could be installed under the BEAM act.

35% service hour increase since 2016. Super impressive for our small city’s transit agency led by @pedestrianman.bsky.social

It’s been really interesting seeing so many folks in Peaceful Valley advocating against STA cutting service. (Most stops had 0-1 boardings per day.) Really hope if the service *doesn’t* get cut that these folks come out and use it.

Perfect opportunity for my favorite saying CAN’T PARK THERE MATE

Interesting single stair report from MN coming out - where they did a whole lot of data analysis and comparative life safety modeling. In short, it adds substance to what we’ve been arguing: Single stair is a lot safer than two stair buildings with long hallways, and much safer than single fam

Consultants contracted by Minnesota found that an eight-story single-stair building with 6,000 sq. ft. per floor (building 4) has dramatically lower fire risk than a same-height code-compliant two-stair building with a larger floor plate (building 1) www.dli.mn.gov/sites/defaul...

Oh hey we just did this We traded our big 2700 sqft suburban home for a 1400 sqft townhome in a walkable and bikeable area (for roughly the same price). We're more active, happier, and have no yard work! PS the old house is on the urban wildland interface so our fire risk is waaaaay lower now

Everyone look at these tiny bar mitts I bought for my wife’s handlebar on our cargo bike They’re perfect for a no-brake-no-shifter situation

I'll say it again: High-speed rail from Spokane to Seattle with an international airport at Moses Lake.

Stroad parking lot with single story restaurant transforms into ➡️ 213 new homes and 4 new ground floor businesses in Ottawa, Canada

What a lede on this story: Man who complained about narrowing a road in order to protect pedestrians, so much that the city eventually reversed the change, then kills a woman on that very road with his car www.washingtonpost.com/business/int...

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

a reminder that electric scooters have speed limiters and everyone is getting press crying about e-bikes

In a civilized society, this would be illegal. Disgustingly selfish.

Congratulations to San Francisco, which just re-legalized 4+ story buildings on 60% of its land. Inner Eastside for All is our plan to do something similar here in PDX. Join us! www.axios.com/local/san-fr...

I was walking on the centennial trail today and a prominent Spokane politician ran by me listening to a podcast *with no headphones*. I want to shame them for this behavior but politely

wtf

it is kinda wild that you can OD on something you can buy at a convenience store

Downzoning was used by cities around the world to preserve neighborhood aesthetics & protect property values. New evidence from Chicago in @findingspress.org ⏬ shows downzoning's effects over several decades: —Massive drop in housing construction —Higher home prices —Increased racial segregation

"When Charlie Liban rides his e-bike through Kirkland, he doesn't avoid the hazards of leaf-covered bike lanes. He rides right through them, picking up slippery leaves as he goes. Liban presses a button on his handlebars and whir-whir-whir: a circular, horizontal brush starts spinning behind him."

Black Friday reminder: You can support independent bookstores and get great deals without lining the pockets of billionaires 😌

Happy Thanksgiving

In October, statewide news reported that a sheriff's deputy in Texas searched thousands of Flock cameras in Washington for 'Had an abortion, search for female.’ New documents obtained by RANGE show Spokane County Sheriff's Office cameras were accessed in that search:

Also, if you take another option for your date, you can both drink! (I’m probably kidding myself about the numbers of people who drink and drive though.)

How to take alt transport to downtown if you don't know how: - use the different mode options in Google maps to see real time bus routes and bike routes - try your new transport mode on a low stakes and fun trip (ie brunch on a Saturday) - start leveling up from there (ie using the bus for appts)

Ok, here's one big item of the night! The parking tax! For a preview, check out our urbanism columnist @lpangborn.bsky.social 's piece on that here: rangemedia.co/spokane-city...

Wow this is bad.

Covent Garden deploying advanced pedestrianization technology: flower cart and bollards.

Heads up, Spokane drivers! Red light cameras are now active at Mission & Greene - one of our busiest intersections with 18 crashes since 2023.