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.
Sound Transit's approach to fares continues to evolve. Earlier this month, agency staff provided a review of the relatively nascent fare ambassador program and a preview of potential changes to fare policies. In that review, staff shared mixed performance of the fare ambassador program. Staffing remains a serious challenge...
Sound Transit has additional Future Ready maintenance and repair projects teed up for this year and next. In a briefing, agency staff outlined planned works and lessons learned from previous ones.
Julie Timm, the new Sound Transit CEO, essentially issued a mea culpa for the agency on the Columbia...
Puget Sound transit agencies are moving ahead with modest service changes this month. Those changes cut both ways with some additions and some reductions, depending on the transit agency. King County Metro and Sound Transit's service changes will begin as soon as Saturday, March 18th with other agencies start...
Sound Transit's ad-hoc Technical Advisory Group (TAG) has delivered sobering and wide-ranging recommendations on how to improve agency processes and reduce capital costs. The agency needs to arrive at better decisions earlier in the process or its expansion plans could be in serious jeopardy, according to six key recommendations...
Gold standard 'Stem-and-Leaf' visuals clearly convey frequency and provide accountability.
In Puget Sound, transit riders live by schedules. They have places to go and their time is precious. Posted schedules help them make decisions about which options might suit them best and sets their expectations. Local transit agencies understand this...
Sound Transit Expansion Committee votes today with momentum building for unvetted North of CID station concept.
Riders across the region are set to see longer travel times for common transfers if a new Link station is not centered on the Union Station Hub at S Jackson Street. That affects many...
Rainier Valley has seen more than its due share of collisions over the years. Martin Luther King Jr. Way S is a particularly problematic spot where serious injuries and fatalities are common. Intersections are massive. The street has may wide lanes separated by light rail tracks running down the...
This is a second installment examining the Everett Link Extension alternatives currently undergoing scoping. The first piece focused on station and station area alignment alternatives. This second piece focuses on potential Operations and Maintenance Facility (OMF) North locations and the non-station alignment from SR 526 to Everett Station as...