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.
Ray Delahanty of CityNerd ranks principal train stations across the United States and Canada for population catchment in proximity to them. Seattle makes the list as one the better-situated stations with King Street Station.
Riding the rails from New York City to Toronto and then eventually onward to London, Ontario, Jason Slaughter of Not Just Bikes details his journey, highlighting the good and bad of Amtrak and Via Rail service and amenities. One big takeaway from Slaughter is just how slow the trains...
San Francisco has an extravagant transit center delivered just before the pandemic. Right now, it mostly serves a handful of bus routes, but could eventually become a major hub with the arrival of high-speed rail. Dave Amos of City Beautiful dives into what's good and bad about the facility.
Shibuya, Tokyo is world famous for it's massive at-grade pedestrian scramble crossing. In a way, it's a self-popularlized space. But there's a lot more to it with the history of the neighborhood and its train stations, and it represents something much more in terms of planning, land use, housing,...
Sound Transit may be headed for another round of light rail project delays due to poor decision-making, and it needs to be open to overhauling the ST3 program.
Last year, Uytae Lee of About Here discussed why point access block (single-stair) residential buildings are so good. But a common reaction to the idea was concern about fire safety by only having one means of emergency ingress and egress. In this video, Lee examines those concerns, fields the...
Puget Sound bus networks are getting fall updates, with a major overhaul in store near Lynnwood Link stations and the new RapidRide G Line. King County Metro, Community Transit, and Sound Transit are rolling out changes on September 14.
Dave Amos of City Beautiful discusses non-motorized paths in the suburbs. Could these facilities provide more than just a recreational amenity to suburban neighborhoods? And how can they work best to offer suburban communities a sustainable and safe way to get around without a car? Amos discusses this and...