Precinct-level results maps show that Seattle Mayor-Elect Katie Wilson’s path to victory ran through Capitol Hill, the Central District, and the Rainier Valley, where she ran up her vote share.
Friday’s ballot count was very friendly to Seattle progressives, with mayoral challenger Katie Wilson exceeding the 50% mark with the boost. The election dynamics favor a progressive wave. Here’s why.
Redmond’s 1993 Downtown Plan led to an urban transformation that saw the construction of over 5,000 new units between 2000 and 2020. This Saturday, light rail arrives to support that urban growth.
Nat Henry maps out Mayor Harrell’s growth plan and finds his transit corridor plan would would upzone fewer than 1 in 10 parcels within a five-minute walk of transit stops. That forces renters onto dangerous, polluted arterial roads, where apartments would be narrowly focused.
Greater Tacoma used to have an enormously expansive streetcar network. With just one line, Tacoma’s modern streetcar network has a long way to go to catch up to that rapid transit standard.
Dave Amos of City Beautiful talks about hexagon blocks and explains how they could offer a better urban form than the traditional gridiron. They almost got their moment in planning cities at scale, but their existence today is relatively rare.
Seattle’s new long-range plan for high capacity transit echoes vision maps created by Seattle Subway and advanced by The Urbanist. Seattle’s long-range rail transit vision took a big step forward with the release of the Seattle Transportation Plan on Thursday. Before that, Seattle had not updated its high
When what is now downtown Bellingham was initially platted in the mid-1800s, it is likely that little consideration was given to parking. Mostly because cars did not exist in the mid-1800s. As automobiles became quintessential components of the American way of life by the 1920s when it killed off Bellingham’
Three maps comparing light rail station areas create a portrait of a complex region. Columbia City…Mount Baker….Beacon Hill…SoDo… When I first arrived in Seattle, the light rail stops — and the green map showing them neatly in a line — became my foundation for understanding a new city. From
But development outside of Washington State’s urban growth areas continues to place pressure on an ecologically rich, but fragile ecosystem. Congress has passed a funding bill for fiscal year 2023 that provides a $19 million boost for Puget Sound Action Agenda, the long-term recovery plan developed by the Puget
Fall calls for nighttime things, Halloween doubly so. Therefore, a pre-holiday trip to the Georgetown Morgue fit the bill. Terrifying in all the best ways, it’s one of the city’s best autumn attractions. A colonic of terror for a tightly clenched Northwest. Getting home is not nearly as
On Monday the Seattle Redistricting Commission heeded the calls of city-wide community coalitions, moving on to the final phases of establishing the Seattle City Council district boundaries for the next decade. Despite some fierce local pushback from Magnolia residents who lobbied to be unified in District 6, the plan keeps
Seattle City Council district boundaries must be adjusted to rebalance population levels ahead of 2023 elections, and just how to accomplish that is proving quite controversial. The Seattle Redistricting Commission first joint map proposed to send part of Magnolia to District 6 — a move intended to bring down the population
Tacomans contend with their streets and roads This is the last of three vignettes depicting possible conversations between imaginary people in Tacoma as the city grapples with growth, densification, and other forms of change. A common topic across all of these stories will be Home in Tacoma, an ambitious plan
On Thursday, Sound Transit shared future Link system map and station wayfinding sign concepts with members of the Sounding Board. The system maps and station wayfinding signs are a significant departure from the past with the introduction of station numbering. This strongly suggests that the agency is considering adding specific
Buried behind a storm of mammoth projects are yet more potential development proposals in Downtown Bellevue. While these projects don’t possess the scale of the mega-projects addressed in the previous article, they do jockey for their potential place in the city’s skyline and will impact the look and
Among the many projects up for consideration in Downtown Bellevue, a significant faction stands out for the sheer scale of its developments. These projects are defined by being constructed in multiple phases, consisting of multiple mid-rises to skyscrapers, including hundreds of dwelling units, and adding millions of square feet of
Since 2018, a deluge of construction projects in Downtown Bellevue has been completed and begun to form Bellevue’s adolescent skyline. This spree has been in part due to the highly constricted zoning that the city has imposed elsewhere in its jurisdiction. Aside from small pockets in BelRed and Factoria,
This is the first of three vignettes depicting possible conversations between imaginary people in Tacoma as the city grapples with growth, densification, and other forms of change. A common topic across all of these stories will be Home in Tacoma, an ambitious plan to overhaul Tacoma’s zoning laws to
Today the Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) unveiled its rezoning concepts for the 2024 Comprehensive Plan Update, which will guide growth for decades to come. OPCD’s thinking revolves around four broad concepts, plus a “no action” alternative, which Washington State mandates as a study baseline. The agency
Though incorporated as a city after the Civil War, Seattle has a North-South divide. The North is wealthier, whiter, and healthier than the South. North of the Ship Canal, there’s more groceries, more resources at the schools, and fewer pollutants in the air. That division is well discussed and
Paris is already home to its famed Métro, which holds the honor of being the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow. But an ambitious expansion project called the Grand Paris Express will double both the reach and ridership of the Parisian Métro within the next decade. After its
Apartment-heavy areas continue to see lower turnout rates, but enough voted to eke out a win for Sawant. Earlier this month, Councilmember Kshama Sawant survived a recall election by 310 votes. Like her previous elections, Sawant’s strength was overwhelmingly in Capitol Hill and the Central District — formerly redlined areas
Single family zones overwhelmingly swung for Mayor-Elect Bruce Harrell, Councilmember-Elect Sara Nelson, and Seattle City Attorney-Elect Ann Davison, as new precinct-level final results map verify. Harrell’s 17-point victory over Council President Lorena González was the most resounding, while Davison (the first Republican elected in Seattle in decades) won by
Late Monday night, the Washington State Redistricting Commission failed to approve new maps for Congressional and legislative districts before the constitutional deadline, while holding private deliberations in apparent violation of state open meeting law. As a result of the commission’s failure to meet the deadline, the Washington Supreme Court
The four members of the Washington State Redistricting Committee submitted their first draft of maps this week. At this stage the four maps — two Democrat and two Republican appointees — differ a lot, but it does appear like some districts will become more favorable for Democrats. This is a product of
Ahead of the Northgate Link extension opening, King County Metro has quietly unveiled new area maps that will be located within light rail stations and at bus bays. The maps share some similarities to existing frequency area maps found in Downtown Seattle, but provide enhanced and streamlined details for riders.
Since 2012, Seattle Subway has been envisioning a world class rapid transit system for the Seattle region and advocating for that vision. Each year Subway has updated their vision map to reflect new realities and ideas. This year, their new map includes some interesting tweaks, such as a new line
Los Angeles’ Skid Row was not an inevitability, it was a policy. Johnny Harris explains how this district of tragic poverty came to be.
New York City now has a dynamic digital version of the subway map that blends the best of the classic Massimo Vignelli design with the contemporary version used. It updates as the subway network is rerouted for construction, emergencies, and alternative service and shows where trains are currently calling it
Davos Amos ask how big cities can get. Many megacities, largely defined as over 10 million people, are rapidly growing in industrialized countries. But cities over 100 million–gigacities–could be possible this century as megacities grow and merge. Happy Thanksgiving Day to you and your family from all of
Johnny Harris steps back in time to find out why New York City became so successful and huge even in the age of burgeoning global megacities.
During last week’s discussion of subdivisions and the problem of slicing the city into tiny parcels, we asked for your help to find the strangest lot lines and parcels in Seattle and around Puget Sound. Some of you have a deep affinity for the non-linear parcel. Goodness, you found
The story of Dr. John Snow and the London Cholera 1854 Outbreak transformed epidemiology and our use of maps to track deadly outbreaks of disease.
Seattle has too many urban highways, but it could have had so many more if state leaders had realized all their dreams of highway expansion–including four cross-sound toll bridges. In 1965, the Washington Toll Bridge Authority floated the plan to cross Puget Sound with floating bridges connecting Seattle to
Seattle Subway isn’t an organization to rest on its laurels. Fresh off Sound Transit 3 (ST3) success–with voters greenlighting 62 miles of light rail and two bus rapid transit corridors–Seattle Subway continues to keep an eye on the next transit measure. This is a yearly ritual for
Long before satellite was invented, Leonardo da Vinci made highly accurate maps mimicking the above view plan commonly found in satellite-based maps.
I’m proud of the work our team of volunteer writers produced in 2018. We covered Seattle urbanism and politics with nuance and depth, offering commentaries, interviews, and policy deep dives. On occasion we delivered biting critiques when the Seattle Times Editorial Board really went overboard, such as when they
India’s capital of Delhi is a booming metropolis of 25 million people known for its heavy pollution and congested, chaotic streets. However, in the last few decades, the city began rapidly implementing a rail transit network and soon its citizens had a low-cost, low-pollution transportation option. And the option
In my Sightline piece from May, I described how homeowners in Wallingford have worked for decades to block housing via downzones, increasing development burdens, and dominating the inequitable and anti-tenant neighborhood planning process. Just last year, the Wallingford Community Council (WCC) proposed a comprehensive plan amendment that would have removed
Seattle Subway released a new light rail system expansion map yesterday and hopes to use it to inspire Sound Transit and the general public to select Sound Transit 3 (ST3) alignments that allow for logical line extensions and follow a strategic long-term vision. “The key concept for ST3 planning,” Seattle
On Tuesday night, Sound Transit presented its first crack at alternative corridor alignments for the West Seattle and Ballard light rail extensions. The Stakeholder Advisory Group was briefed on the comprehensive evaluation of Level 1 Alternatives, which suggested that Sound Transit is open to alternatives that could consequentially deviate from
After the megalopolises of New York and Mexico City, the next highest ridership Metro system in North America may surprise you. It’s not Chicago or DC or Toronto, but rather Canada’s second most populous city: Montréal. In a metropolitan area of about four million residents, the Montréal Metro
Last week, Sound Transit formally kicked off its scoping process or the West Seattle and Ballard light rail extensions. The process is important because it will set the stage for actual alignments, construction methods, and future service. The transit agency held two open houses sharing detailed rolled maps depicting what
On Monday, a new advocacy organization called Cascadia Rail announced itself to the world, piquing interest with their spiffy map by maestro cartographer Oran Viriyincy. Cascadia Rail’s vision is to connect every major city in Cascadia, which is a colloquial term for the states and provinces along the Cacade
Sightline’s Margaret Morales published a great piece yesterday using housing data to show that multi-family housing helps make Seattle neighborhoods more affordable. Detached single-family zoning, on the other hand, leads to a more expensive housing getting built or remodeled. Proponents of detached single-family zoning sometimes point to anecdotal data
Sound Transit upgraded its old ST3 map with a cleaner new map and website. The old map helped sell the package to the regional electorate that voted 54% in favor of the 25-year investment last year. The new map is more elegant and legible. The interactive map also includes slightly
Seattle Subway’s Vision Map generated a great deal of attention and that’s great for growing the transit-advocacy movement as we seek to build our success in passing ST3. That said, some neighborhoods were conspicuously missing from the vision, such as First Hill and Belltown. Generally, the principle in
Seattle Subway, a local grassroots transit advocacy group, has a new regional vision map out that charts where they think future light rail lines and extensions should go after Sound Transit 3. The map emphasizes new light rail lines and extensions between Downtown Redmond and Woodinville, Ballard and Kirkland (via
Every life is precious, and over the course of a year, thousands of lives in Seattle are impacted by traffic violence. In just the past few months in Seattle, two young parents were hit and killed by people driving, people young and old were maimed for life crossing the street,
Sam Hooper, a researcher at Oregon state University, has produced a short video that highlights how natural and human-caused impacts can change forested landscapes in the Pacific Northwest swiftly.
More than 50 blocks are slated new sidewalks in Seattle this year. The plan is related to the updated Pedestrian Master Plan (PMP), which is headed for City Council approval. $22 million would be dedicated to funding installation for this year alone with dollars coming from the Move Seattle Levy
The number may shock you, but Washington state has identified over 12,300 toxic sites. Many of these are likely right in your backyard. While half of these sites have been remediated over the years, thousands more are likely unknown to the state. The Department of Ecology (DOE), however, has
A new research product from the Sightline Institute, a local sustainability think-tank, reveals the rich variety of housing that already exists in Seattle’s restrictive single-family residential zones. The map comes amid neighborhood opposition to rezones that will unlock new affordable housing and calls for preserving the “character” of single-family
The Seattle Parks and Recreation (SPR) is in the process of forming their 2017 Parks Development Plan. One of the key aspects of the plan is to determine what types of improvements and new facilities SPR should construct over the next six years. To inform that process, SPR is conducting
In an announcement yesterday, BMW’s Reachnow carsharing service is expanding its service area to cover all of Seattle and adding 180 new vehicles to their fleet. The move puts the company on equal footing with its major incumbent competitor car2go, which expanded its reach to all of Seattle last
The Seattle Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) has launched an interactive map to see where each draft Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) rezone is proposed. The MHA rezones would increase development capacity across commercial, mixed-use, multi-family residential, and some single-family residential areas in the city by allowing additional building
The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has published their 2016-2017 Winter Weather Response Map, which shows corridors that will plow during snow and ice storms. Corridors are grouped into two categories: Gold and Emerald. Gold corridors are treated within 12 hours of a lull in the storm with all lanes
I was going to include a SeaTac zoning map in my story on the Angle Lake Station—which opens later this month. Unfortunately, the SeaTac website was down that Sunday night—so no zoning map. Belated as it might be, here’s the map and it shows that SeaTac has
At this point, Google Maps has positioned itself as the most widely used map engine for everyday searching and sharing of information. To keep up with consumer wants and needs, every so often, Google will push out minor updates to their map product like adding area-specific event notifications, taxi hailing,
The Ballard Historical Society has completed their crowd sourced, street inventory of Ballard buildings built before 1965. The survey area extends from 8th Ave NW to the Bluff, 58th St, and 85th St. All told, some 7,200 building were photographed with smart phones by over 100 volunteers who gave
It’s been a long haul since the November kick-off, but wait until you see what over a hundred volunteers mapped over 1,000+ hours and what it reveals. There’s an extraordinary amount of historic buildings in Greater Ballard. The maps created from all the data (7,300+ structures,
Storefront establishments form the bedrock upon which successful urban, walkable communities are built. Seattle happens to be one American city well known for its tightly-knit and vibrant neighborhood business districts. But the larger Puget Sound metropolitan region has far fewer examples of walkable neighborhood business districts beyond other old peer
Have you ever walked around a single-family residential area in Seattle and come across a duplex, triplex, or apartment building that seemed just a little out of place? If you have, it’s probably because the structure was built prior to the adoption of single-family zoning—and not because it’
When the Seattle City Council passed new rules on microhousing in 2014, opponents had hoped to put an end to the small apartments, while advocates warned that the Council would be killing off one of the few sources of affordable new construction. Over a year after the new rules came
Navigating around the City of Seattle can be very difficult for those who care for or live with mobility limitations. Many of our streets are still missing curb ramps, or even sidewalks. Add to this, our city’s topography, which can change from block to block on the same street,
Have you ever wanted to see where new transit investments are planned or underway in North America? Well now you can. With the help of Steven Vance, Jonah Freemark over at The Transport Politic has hobbled together a comprehensive map called Transit Explorer. The map depicts where new alignments and
The Cascadian Region is formed from its very active, and occasionally violent, natural environment. It’s seismically active, floods, has land slides, and sometimes large waves inundate coastal areas. The past month has served a reminder of this fact. Rivers across the Puget Sound experienced major flooding in early December.
We are a carbon-based society. Our daily lives are built around our ability to acquire and consume goods, produce things, move freely from one place to another, and maintain comfortable environments. And for the most part, these daily activities require energy, often carbon-intensive, to make them happen. But just how
Scientists tells us that global temperatures are likely to rise somewhere between 2.7°F to 8.6°F by the end of the century. It’s a bit of a spread to be sure, but the increase in global temperatures will be not equal. As a recent report suggests,
For many parents, getting their children to and from school safely is an issue of deep concern. Now parents have a new tool at their disposal. With over 80 new maps, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has developed a comprehensive map series showing safe walking and biking routes to
Article Note: This is the second installment in a series on observations of people in Pike Place. See Part 1 for a brief background of public life studies, and observations of the existing design features and transitory activity at Pike Place. This part focuses on stationary activity. As discussed in
Some places in Seattle are wetter than others, according to new data from Seattle Public Utilities. SPU recently released a map showing variations in annual rainfall using data from rain gauges throughout the city. The rainiest neighborhood? Rainier Beach in southern Seattle, averaging 38 inches of rain per year. The
Article Note: This is the first installment of a series on observations of people in Pike Place. Part 1 focuses on existing design features and transitory activity. “…please look closely at real cities. While you are looking, you might as well also listen, linger and think about what you see”
Releasing data captured by government agencies in an accessible way to the public, has the potential to produce interesting insights about city life. Ben Wellington highlights how open data can empower citizens and help to make places better.
The good folks at Slate introduced a creative mapping tool, dubbed the Equal Population Mapper. This interactive graphic allows users to pick a population center (e.g., New York City, Wyoming, the Coasts) and compare its relative density to any area of the United States by selecting a County and
Most long-time Seattleites know that sidewalks are a highly charged and controversial discussion point in many neighborhoods. But that’s not because people don’t like them. Quite the contrary. Residents like them so much that they are infuriated that they still don’t have access to walking facilities in
An 1884 cartograph details a growing Seattle as it was at the time. One presenter takes viewers through the map features and history contained within it.
Have you ever wanted to know the racial diversity of your neighborhood, how your local schools rank, or where development permits have been recently issued? Localscape offers these features and more in one interactive map. The King County Assessor’s Office released the interactive mapping tool this week, which is
Jobs, jobs, jobs. It’s all about the jobs. But where exactly are they? Robert Manduca, a PhD student at Harvard University who specializes in sociology, data, and cartography, may have an approximate answer to that question. Compiling job data from the Center for Economic Studies, a division of the
Human settlements are built on the bedrock of food access. Without adequate sustenance, urban environments cannot flourish. People will travel long distances to ensure that they are adequately fed, and so it’s no surprise that rural and suburban dwellers will often traverse many miles to the nearest food source.
Seattle isn’t known as a beachfront city, but we’re home to over 200 miles of shoreline along Lake Union, Puget Sound, and Lake Washington. We enjoy popular spots like Alki, Madison Park, and Golden Gardens for a dip in the water or a cozy bonfire. But few know
The Seattle City Clerk’s website keeps an expansive online repository of historic zoning maps. I seem to always find myself perusing the 1923 maps in particular. The 1923 zoning ordinance was essentially a snapshot of how Seattle had been developed up to that point. There seems to have been
Who says transit can’t be fun? Every once and while, mapheads put together some creative, nerdy maps like the Game of Thrones world à la Google Maps and neon tubes of the London Underground (aka The Tube). Transit App is jumping into the fun with a fantasy schedule of
Between 2012 and 2013, Seattle was the nation’s fastest growing big city ($). Headline after headline since cheered this revelation, and it may very well still be true. For most long-time Seattle residents and even many newcomers, that narrative isn’t particularly fresh at this point. Why? Because they’re
Quick! Don’t miss out on another fun Google Maps feature. This year, in honor of April Fools’ Day, Google has created a Pac-Man version of Google Maps. You can chomp your way across any the globe one street at a time. Locally, the Downtown Seattle blocks around Pike Place
Who knew you could make beauty out of tweets? Data and map guru Eric Fischer recently released a series of maps via Mapbox called “Locals & Tourists“. The interactive map allow users to search for their favorite places around the globe to see what areas are popular with the locals
If you’re into maps and data as much as we are, you’ll probably love this new series of maps made by the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTfHP). NTfHP has an excellent series of maps relating to historic preservation called Older, Smaller, Better which range in themes like
Strava Labs is an online community of athletes that is collecting data about activities one person at a time. You can sign up for free, create a profile and then track your running or riding. Admittedly, that has very little to do with urbanism though. What they’ve done that