Staff Biography

Stephen Fesler

Senior Reporter

Stephen is a professional urban planner in Puget Sound with a passion for sustainable, livable, and diverse cities. He is especially interested in how policies, regulations, and programs can promote positive outcomes for communities. With stints in great cities like Bellingham and Cork, Stephen currently lives in Seattle. He primarily covers land use and transportation issues and has been with The Urbanist since 2014.

Recent Articles

Sunday Video: An Extremely Cynical Anti-Bike Lane Law Just Passed in Canada

The right-wing populist provincial government in Ontario, Canada has voted to remove bike lanes and make it difficult to install them in the future in Toronto, the largest city in the Maple Leaf country....

Sunday Video: The Worst Downtown Interchanges

Ray Delahanty of CityNerd runs through a shame list for the worst downtown interchanges. Seattle doesn’t make the list, but the unfortunate prevalence of highway interchanges in North American cities does offer ample competition...

Holiday Video: The Problem with Public Hearings

All too often, public hearings increase costs and consume time without meaningfully impacting decisions. Uytae Lee of About Here digs into the history of the public hearing and its utility, and whether another paradigm is worth pursuing.

Holiday Video: Ghent Is Making Streets Safer For Kids To Bike and Walk

Streetfilms highlights how Ghent (Gent), a city in the Flemish north of Belgium, is making streets safe so that kids can walk and bike to school. The city has rolled out bicycle streets and...

Sunday Video: Autonomous Vehicles Deserve Heavy Skepticism

Urbanist circles differ in how they see autonomous vehicles, particularly as they move toward wider adoption. Some see them being a tool that builds up urban communities and improves safety while others worry that...