Ryan Packer
Ryan Packer has been writing for The Urbanist since 2015, and currently reports full-time as Contributing Editor. Their beats are transportation, land use, public space, traffic safety, and obscure community meetings. Packer has also reported for other regional outlets including Capitol Hill Seattle, BikePortland, Seattle Met, and PubliCola. They live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.
Seattle's center city neighborhoods are adding jobs at an astounding rate but Seattle's streets downtown aren't getting wider. Something has to change, and the data released by Commute Seattle from their annual commute trip survey shows an even faster continuation of the trends from the past few years: in...
A massive overhaul to one of West Seattle's main arterials that had been planned since 2012 and long envisioned by the neighborhood was suddenly put on hold by the Seattle Department of Transportation, months before construction was set to begin, we learned in late January thanks to reporting by...
After losing the election for mayor of Seattle to Jenny Durkan last November, Cary Moon took a long break. The time she spent campaigning over most of 2017 was something very different for Moon, who had never run for office before, and she spent the months after reflecting on...
With the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) working to implement safety improvements on NE 65th St between Ravenna Boulevard and 20th Ave NE in 2018, the department has modified some of the designs revealed last year to respond to issues raised by advocates. In an email sent Wednesday to...
The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) is barrelling ahead with its planned highway expansion of SR-167 and SR-509 where I-5 meets Fife. The project would add five miles of new highways, four new interchanges, reconstruct local roads, and improve a regional trail as part of the nearly $3 billion...
Seattle's annual traffic report includes a map of the locations where pedestrian collisions occurred, with the number increasing with the size of the blue dot.
Looking at 2016's map, the data is much like previous years: it shows that pedestrians are most frequently involved in collisions in the downtown area,...
Tomorrow night, the city is holding a pivotal meeting on the future of property adjacent to Discovery Park in Magnolia: will the possibility of much-needed affordable housing at the former home of Fort Lawton finally be realized? Or will concerns around impacts to the neighborhood cause the site to...
Seattle's Participatory Budgeting program for parks and street projects, Your Voice, Your Choice, is back for its second year, with a funding increase for projects of 50%, and no time is being wasted bringing the projects to fruition this year. If you have an idea for a small street...