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.
Tech giant Amazon is partnering with King County to fund completion of the Wilburton and Wilburton Trestle trail segments in Bellevue, contributing $7.5 million to the projects. The trail segments stretch from the NE 8th Street Eastrail overcrossing to the I-405 Eastrail crossing. Collectively, the trail segments are a...
Rebranding SEPTA: Philadelphia's transit agency has developed a new package of signage, maps, and wayfinding.
Overselling, under delivering: WSDOT is trying to vastly oversell a highway expansion project in Spokane and local residents are setting the record straight.
Pandemic commutes: What happened to Seattle area commutes during the pandemic ($)?
Tragedy: During...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8F5hXqS-Ac
Not Just Bikes showcases an urban cycling game with Canadian counterpart from Shifter. The duo of vloggers show what their bike rides look like from city center to suburban hardware store in Amsterdam and Calgary. Good bike infrastructure gets plus one point and bad bike infrastructure gets minus two...
https://youtu.be/z7X3jF0Ydp8
Seattle City Council candidate Nikkita Oliver joined The Urbanist for the September monthly meetup. During the meeting, Oliver discussed wide-ranging priorities that they would pursue if they win Position No. 9 on the city council — a seat that M. Lorena González is vacating for her mayoral run. Oliver...
Author's Note: Some information in this article has been updated based upon new information from King County Metro. Several pieces of information are still subject to change since some route-level information remains incomplete on the online open house.
In 2023, light rail will reach the Eastside with Sound Transit's newest...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9u1e3ikQ6c
Progress on the Lynnwood Link light rail extension is going well. This video offers an aerial view of light rail construction and new developments lining the corridor from just north of Mountlake Terrace to just south of Northgate.
A new on-demand microtransit service launched in the Kent area today. Known as Pingo, King County Metro is piloting the service throughout much of the Kent Valley, East Hill, and Panther Lake areas. The service runs similarly to Seattle's Via to Transit, which recently was expanded -- including to...
What you need to know about transit service and special events for the Northgate extension opening on October 2nd.
It's a mere two and a half weeks to the opening of the 4.3-mile Northgate Link extension, which will add three more stations to Seattle's light rail line. Riders will be...