Stephen Fesler
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.
Two new daily roundtrips on Amtrak Cascades between Seattle and Portland will start on Monday, December 11. The extra trips will help fill out the schedule with a mix of morning and evening trips, allowing for some earlier and later travel options. That will give riders more choices and...
The Washington State Department of Commerce has released draft guidance and model codes to implement the state's a new middle housing law. The new law will apply to most cities with a population of at least 25,000 residents (and some smaller cities), requiring them to broadly legalize middle housing...
With another "Future Ready" maintenance project coming down the pike in January, it raises a big question for the future: What should riders expect when Sound Transit needs to do planned or emergency maintenance work in the downtown tunnel and elsewhere in the Link system?
Starting in late 2025 or...
A lot of North American cities have made big strides to relegalize “middle housing” types. But the number of projects breaking ground in recent years mostly remains very small. In this video, Uytae Lee of About Here tries to shine a light on some reasons for why the housing...
An agency report obtained by The Urbanist lays out three key scenarios to implement fare gates with the goal of driving up fare compliance and revenue.
Fare policy has a been a hotly contested issue at Sound Transit for the past few years, due in large part to concerns with...
Sound Transit is moving ahead on purchase of 10 more Link cars to buy back some system capacity being stretched and thinned out by Sound Transit 2 expansions. Agency staff say that the extra vehicles will help ensure more trips have four-car trains on East Link (the 2 Line)...
Agency leaders argued simple fares are better, even if it meant much steeper fares for short trips.
Sound Transit is queuing up a major fare hike for most of its light rail riders, hitting those taking shorter trips particularly hard. Staff are recommending that flat fares replace distance-based fares on...
'Future Ready' repairs will disrupt light rail service from January 13 to February 4, but Sound Transit is trying a new strategy to reduce impacts.
Sound Transit plans to move ahead with needed maintenance work in the downtown tunnel early next year. It's one of the last phases of "Future...