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.
The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has been on a marketing blitz lately promoting Vision Zero. There have been Facebook ads, web videos, and radio spots encouraging drivers to put their cell phone out of reach while on the road to reduce distracted driving collisions. And this week they...
Last week, the Sound Transit board unanimously voted to proceed with sending the full Sound Transit 3 project list to voters in November. This project list no longer includes at-grade light rail to Ballard. Instead, this has been replaced with an elevated alignment along 15th Ave W in Interbay. This is...
At its special board meeting Thursday, the Sound Transit board voted unanimously to move forward with the full set of ST3 projects, with the new expedited timelines, that were proposed at their last board meeting and which we wrote about last week.
These projects were approved now in order to allow...
At Thursday's board meeting, Sound Transit responded to the large amount of public comment that was received on the Sound Transit 3 (ST3) package draft proposal, most significantly by announcing that the timelines for most projects have now been moved up, shortening their time to completion by two to...
Former Mayor Mike McGinn is an urbanist who is deeply informed by his sense of place, drawing inspiration from his home neighborhood of Greenwood. Formed by being on the periphery of the city limits, Greenwood still bears the structures that define a modern urban neighborhood and those that show...
After months of seeking feedback, King County Metro has finalized a proposal—with the King County Council's transportation committee—to reconfigure the entire bus network in Southeast Seattle in order to provide a direct connection between Martin Luther King Blvd S and the International District. The constituency that has mobilized to pressure...
When the City Council approved the purchase of the assets of the Pronto bikeshare system in March, an amendment was introduced by Councilmember Mike O’Brien to hinge the expansion of the system in 2017 on the moving forward of five segments of protected bike lanes that are currently planned...
On Saturday morning, residents of northeast and central Seattle woke up to find dozens of bus routes reoriented. These changes were negotiated, advocated for, protested against, and screamed about for the past 18 months. With the introduction of two light rail stations that have drastically cut travel times in...