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.
Public input requested on the slim pickings for regional light rail station sites.
Sound Transit has an open scoping period for the Everett Link Extension, the initial phase in developing a federally-required Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The project is slated to be completed in two phases and extend light rail...
King County Metro will start rolling out a new on-demand microtransit service, Metro Flex, on March 6th. Riders will be able to request pickup and drop-off within defined service areas via a mobile app, which is similar to several other microtransit services that the agency has been piloting for...
Washington's missing middle housing bill, HB 1110, continues to move through the state legislative process. On Friday, it passed out of the House Appropriations Committee and onto the House Rules Committee with a slate of substantive changes paring it back. It has until 5:00pm on March 8th to pass...
The Washington State Legislature is hotly debating where and how to allow multiplexes in more areas via HB 1110 and its companion SB 5190. The missing middle housing legislation is tailored to only apply in cities planning under the Growth Management Act and meeting specific locational or size criteria....
Seattle faces complex questions on how the Ballard Link extension should be delivered. Should a second tunnel be built through downtown? Should stations be deep or shallow? How should surface transit connections interface with stations? And how can construction impacts be addressed? But one question isn't complex: should the...
Kiosks, brick and mortar shops, and pop-ups are all possible retail approaches
Sound Transit quietly completed a retail integration strategy report. The strategy outlines four general approaches to retail integration with stations and it offers a look into how three key stations might see retail built right into them. The...
Elected officials have approved another 1,500 car parking stalls at select stations along the Sounder S Line. This capital investment is astronomically expensive for the meager ridership gains that the projects might facilitate. That's why it's worth reconsidering recent project approvals and redirecting funding into higher performing Sounder investments.
We...
Community Transit has released a final proposal to broadly restructure bus service in response to the Lynnwood Link light rail extension and boost service hours by about 32%. Unlike King County Metro's latest bus restructure effort, Community Transit's proposal would lift all boats due to additional resources from its...