It actually happened.
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Ryan Packer
@typewriteralley
Pedestrian.
Writing at The Urbanist as Senior Editor.
Transportation advocate.
Covering a public meeting you might not have known was happening.
(they-them)
Ryan Packer’s Tweets
E-bikes flatten the city, rapid transit shrinks the city, and pedestrian space shows you the city you had all along.
Just sitting quietly for a minute after learning an Amtrak trip between Seattle and Denver takes...56 hours.
This is what peak multifamily building performance looks like.
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A day in the life of an urban pedestrian.
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A hotel spelling out the name of our police chief using *empty rooms* while the police department ramps up its violence on people sleeping outside when they have no alternative is too much for me.
EXCLUSIVE: Seattle has adopted a new policy that makes a prohibition on right turns on red the default whenever traffic signals are added or modified anywhere in the city.
It's not a mystery which vehicle in this photo has been prioritized over the other in the rebuilding of the Seattle waterfront.
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Buses are 0.86% of the traffic on this highway but they move 20% of the people using this highway.
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If Pike Street can be closed to everyone but pedestrians for a few months...it can be closed to everyone but pedestrians for a decade.
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People really act like aiming a 5,500 pound vehicle at a soft body in a crosswalk isn't aggressive but getting angry about it is.
Don't forget, every intersection is a legal crosswalk.
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Some news here: sources at the city confirm that the Mayor will be announcing a continued closure of Pike Street between First and Second Ave to pilot how the street functions without through traffic allowed on the block.
I love this little inexpensive treatment to improve turning angles on this street in downtown Portland.
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Stopped by this brand new "raised" crosswalk and recreated slip lane in the middle of Georgetown.
Definitely seems like a central piece of Seattle's snow response is the assumption that snow and ice will melt in a couple of days.
Portland bioswale appreciation post.
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A Friday in our Vision Zero city.
7:03am: person walking hit by driver on Capitol Hill
8:24am: person biking hit by driver near Expedia
3:25pm: person biking hit by driver on Capitol Hill
3:39pm: person walking hit by driver in SLU
[continued]
I'm incredibly excited to announce that I've joined the team at to cover land use and transportation issues at the state legislature this session!
Seattle, we need to talk about how much gaslighting the mayor and police chief did today.
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After three people were shot this weekend near the boundaries of the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP), Mayor Jenny Durkan announced that changes were coming. Without exactly saying it, Durkan called for the end of #CHOP. | via @gramsofgnats
thestranger.com/slog/2020/06/2
Is the fact that the Seattle mayor created an extralegal zone in a dense neighborhood that's at best constitutionality uncertain making national headlines yet?
Never forget what they took from us—a floating public waterfront swimming pool.
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Sometimes I wish Google maps would just tell you, fuck no don't ride your bike there.
If your speed study shows that 40% of drivers on a street are exceeding the speed limit, I don't understand how a transportation department that is truly embracing Vision Zero can sign off on a repaving that changes nothing about the street's configuration.
Someone has tagged a concrete wall, near what was originally planned as a neighborhood playground as part of the Seattle waterfront project: "Just another highway."
This crush-loaded 8 bus is *twenty eight* minutes late already and isn't even across I-5. These riders, doing the right thing and taking transit, need HELP.
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A Friday in a city undergoing a 90 day Vision Zero review.
5:29am: person walking hit by driver on the waterfront
6:01am: person biking hit by driver in West Seattle
8:40am: person biking hit by driver in Queen Anne
1:04pm: person walking hit by driver in Northgate
[continued...]
Just watched the city council vote 6-3 against providing $500,000 to the Northwest African American Museum for renovations that would allow the museum to reopen, from the fund for SPD advertising, which would still have $1 million per year in it.
"Quieter areas" is literally saying the quiet part out loud. The status quo has been an assumption that multifamily housing belongs on noisy and dangerous streets for decades.
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Good afternoon from the brand new 1st Avenue protected bike lane.
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The number of people from way outside the city who are excited that Seattle just closed a half block of street outside Pike Place Market to through traffic really illustrates the way we could be a national leader on transportation and push the conversation much more frequently.
Downtown Seattle is so dead that the new PCC is completely wiped out of pre-made sandwhiches by 1pm. Ghost. Town.
How it started How it's going
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Wow, the 2.25 mile outer loop in Tacoma's Point Defiance Park will become permanently car-free as of this Friday due to slope instability.
metroparkstacoma.org/point-defiance
Checking in on the signal timing on our new waterfront. Sunday morning with extremely light vehicle traffic at Union Street: we're making pedestrians wait 90 seconds to get a WALK and then giving them 16 seconds to start crossing. Not hard to see who still has real priority.
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2nd Ave is just a constant stream of Seahawks fans heading north on scooters and bikes right now.
Pioneer Square has a new alley bike shop, coffee shop and bodega all in the same space.
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My politics is the opposite of whatever this is.
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At least four people biking for transportation in Seattle hit by drivers, with three of them ending up in the hospital. Just today.
Despite covering the bill all year, I did not realize until a briefing from Metro today that Seattle's trolleybus stops are defined as "major transit stops" under HB 1110, because they're defined as fixed guideway.
That means sixplexes allowed within a 1/4 mile of stops.
State highways in urban areas without sidewalks are an emergency situation.
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Who’s gonna tell him that’s not a lane? #Seattle @SafetyVid
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Newly arrived Seattle resident in 2040: "Why is the train to Ballard a full ten minute walk from the train from Portland again?"
Me, whizzed, older than Galdalf: "Dow Constantine, now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time..."
Does this *brand new* seven lane road look like it's designed for a twenty five mile per hour speed limit?
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THIS IS NOT A DRILL: we have a right turn on red bill.
app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?Bi
Realizing how often I dehydrate myself on purpose if I want to go exploring the city because we don't have any public restrooms.
It's 11pm on a Sunday, the platform at SeaTac's link station is packed because flights just came in, and there are literally only two more trains that are going all the way to Northgate tonight. Embarrassing.
Seattle needs a second regional airport like it needs a nine lane waterfront highway.
Portland: I've paid $5 for two bus/rail trips today and can now ride for free until the end of service.
Seattle: It's 6:30pm, I've paid $8 so far and my transfer is now expired again.
I'm gonna tell my kids this is where they made the spaghetti.
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Wild how the NTSB will literally go to the bottom of the ocean to retrieve a downed plane for a safety investigation but it won't lift a finger to analyze why the design Lake City Way or SR 99 keeps killing people.
Seattle, how are we going to reduce passenger vehicle emissions by 82% compared to 2008 levels if we can't connect one fucking bike lane with another one four blocks away?
Very happy to announce that I've been selected as part of the cohort of writers in the Seattle Public Library 2023 writer's residency program, hosted in the Eulalie and Carlo Scandiuzzi Writers' Room at the central library.
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Helped someone find Pike Place Market when they were already in Pike Place Market, nature is healing.
Seattle, I don't know how to tell you this, but we have too many cars in this city.
Summer of 2020 versus summer of 2023. Quite the downgrade, if you ask me.
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Lakeview Cemetery's United Confederate Veterans memorial received a visit recently despite the cemetery being closed for several weeks.
Post your favorite 100% city approved crosswalks, this one is at Cherry and 16th in front of a hospital.
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I guarantee this cost more money than the entire Stay Healthy street program.
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Seattle Police have erected a giant concrete wall around the entire West Precinct, with plans to install an additional 6 feet of fencing on top. They have done something similar at the East Precinct.
All of the ways that you can't exit Capitol Hill Station today.
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A transit center with a restroom. That's how I know I'm not in Seattle anymore.
We are being told that in 2045 this trip will take 63 minutes during peak morning hours unless we spend several billion dollars, in which case it will take 57 minutes.
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What a failure this "raised crosswalk" at Pike and Melrose is. There's not really another word for it.
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With the decline in local journalism, it's not surprising that electeds on small city councils aren't expecting a reporter to show up to cover their comp plan process. Which is exactly why I've started doing it.
WSDOT announces that the new lanes it added to I-5 in Tacoma, open since June, are causing more people to use the highway.
"The data shows that congestion has dramatically decreased in July, while a 12 percent increase in traffic volume occurred."
wsdotblog.blogspot.com/2022/08/i-5-ho
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If you need to faint today, I found just the place.
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I actually agree with the mayor that Seattle needs "Space Needle thinking", greater ambition to do big things. But I also think that a city that's cancelling a new community center because it'll cost $120 million dollars is a long way from Space Needle thinking.
Just when I thought Seattle couldn't come up with any new designs for hostile public seating, I'm proved wrong yet again. Who says we're not a city of innovation.
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The last time I was in Port Townsend (which was too long ago), this was parking for seven cars.
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I wasn't going to post this, because I really want the "Brodway" sign to stick around.
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Seattle is days away from opening a brand new four-lane road between the waterfront and Belltown, a mini version of the Alaskan Way viaduct that will direct truck traffic through the city's densest residential neighborhood. How did we get here?
State legislature refuses to fund transit service, then turns around and allows a lack of transit service as a justification for cities to continue blocking slightly denser housing. Great system.
Someone at a coffee shop in Renton: "Is your name Ryan? Your Twitter account is giving me so much anxiety."
The wonders in the Cal Anderson fountain ecosystem never cease.
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I would like to ask why downtown Seattle has an entire storefront devoted to the television show Friends and not... FRASIER.
You will never see an ice cream truck or a mobile coffee cart anywhere near downtown or on the Ave because it's official city policy that they're prohibited there.
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14 people walking or biking have been hit by drivers so far this week in Seattle.
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Mid-block pedestrian passageways that aren't hostile and actually create useful connections are one of my favorite things.
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The patchwork of cleared sidewalks in our city reminds me why we focus on systems rather than individual action.
You've heard of Denny Triangle, but have you heard of the Very Unhealthy Triangle?
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We're very close to a station that opened in 2016 closing because no one can access the platform.
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Replying to @typewriteralley
Update from a friend:
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Hanging a "don't tread on me" flag on the outside of the $47,500 public asset you're driving around is a bold choice.
Seattle Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke is presenting to a city council committee right now on progress on Climate Pleadge arena. He just noted that Kraken tickets will have ORCA cards embedded in them to provide attendees with free transit.
Just a reminder that your ability to "jaywalk" at Pike Place is enshrined in city code.
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Replying to
Thank you, the worst part about spending time under I-5 was definitely having to look at graffiti (which will absolutely not come back after this)
I'm taking a few days off and going camping via transit for the first time ever.
Final destination: Cama Beach Historical State Park on Camano Island!
First step(s), get to Everett.
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In Seattle today, just through 9pm, there was some type of recorded vehicle crash—hit-and-run with property damage, or a crash involving injuries, or a driver hitting a pedestrian—every 36 minutes, on average. Every 36 minutes.
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5:06pm: 12 y.o. biking hit by driver in Columbia City
6:54pm: person walking hit by driver on Aurora Ave N
6:55pm: person biking hit by a driver and killed on the West Seattle bridge trail
7:15pm: pregnant person walking hit by driver in High Point
Still several hours left to go.
Bruce Lee and Jimi Hendrix share the same birthday and it's not a Seattle holiday?
We live in an amazing place, even if some of our decisions are not really capitalizing on that fact.
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Words in Seattle's daily newspaper today about "no rest for weary motorists" because of highway closures for construction this weekend: 513
Words in Seattle's daily newspaper about a person walking killed in SoDo yesterday: 44
What if every "Stay Healthy Street" was made permanent, with actual traffic diverters that make them safe and inviting places to bike?
And instead of removing them we kept building more of them?
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