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.
In Chinatown-International District, policymakers face big decisions on how and where to locate Ballard and West Seattle light rail expansion. Community members highlight, in this video, the long history of impacts to a community targeted for xenophobia and exclusion. Some of those impacts persist with noise and pollution from...
In this week's Transpo Notes roundup, we highlight slight service reductions on King County Metro, transit operator staffing challenges at Metro and Community Transit, improvements on the Route 44 corridor, new federal railway grants, more ORCA Recovery Cards, fare-free transit for youth, and the Seattle Transportation Plan.
King County Metro...
On Tuesday, Sound Transit made a surprise announcement that the agency would be embarking on months of maintenance work on the Link 1 Line in a project dubbed "Future Ready." Riders, however, may dub the disruption "tile-mageddon," as relatively mundane maintenance work, like replacing tile pavers, leads to major...
Boosters of the Boring Company’s Las Vegas Loop tout high capacity of individual Teslas operating through the single lane tunnels. Is this really the future of transportation or just a gimmick? Ray Delahanty of CityNerd takes an inside look at the system and runs the numbers.
No gym membership required. Not Just Bikes extolls the virtues of “the gym of life” and how it works through the vantage point of Dutch living. A big reason that the gym of life works so well in The Netherlands is how communities are designed and the policies that...
This week's Transpo Notes roundup touches on Seattle Monorail fare increases, a new Eastrail bridge, transit funding car lanes in Kirkland, new U District bus lanes, updates to Sound Transit Title VI policies, Washington State Ferries restoring service, and Kitsap Transit planning a new ferry landing site in Seattle.
Seattle...
Community Transit has unveiled a full proposal to restructure bus service when Lynnwood Link light rail and the Swift Orange Line bus rapid transit open in 2024. The proposal generally means better local service across the county and would end the bulk of commuter bus routes operating into King...
City Beautiful explores the wonky planning topic of urban growth boundaries primarily through the lens of Oregon, but Washington does make it into the video thanks to the state’s Growth Management Act. The video walks through what these are, how they work, and how effective they are.