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.
A pedestrian network is really one of the most basic systems that allows a city to function—so basic that it's often taken for granted. But it obviously takes an enormous amount of resources to maintain our sidewalk network of 45,000 city blocks that pedestrians can currently navigate, setting aside...
The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has implemented a change on Pine Street this week that we first wrote about back in October. The northern, right-hand lane of the one-way westbound Pine Street from 9th Avenue to 3rd Avenue is now stenciled bus only, and large signs indicate that...
The Puget Sound Regional Council has identified the projects for 2016 to be the recipients of federal dollars for transportation improvements. Many of these projects are well known to most of our readers; the awarding of federal grant dollars could assist in moving up the delivery schedules on these...
Tactical Urbanism's biggest holiday in Seattle, PARK(ing) Day, expands into a weekend day this year for the first time. This is huge news as it opens the experience up to an entire group of people who might not have been able to experience it before, if they work business...
In this week's installment of City Ticker, we are taking a look at a number of recent studies that have come across our desks that might have a big impact on a number of issues currently facing Seattle and other large cities.
A study recently completed by Oxford and Southern...
On Wednesday, the Seattle City Council's Gender Equity, Safe Communities, and New Americans Committee heard from Seattle Police Department (SPD) and staff from other departments involved in the planning process for the North Precinct's new building at N 130th St and Aurora Ave N.
Councilmember Mike O'Brien, not a member...
This summer both Portland and Vancouver, B.C. follow on Seattle's heels in launching a citywide bikeshare program. Oddly enough, they both ended up rolling out during the same week, with Portland's system having been turned on this past Tuesday and Vancouver the following day. Vancouver, however, is currently in...
During this week last year, the entire city was talking about the leaked proposal from the HALA committee that proposed eliminating all single family zoned areas: this year, the summer steam directed at the Mayor's office centers around the disbanding of the neighborhood district councils.
As the August primary ticks...