PSA for Seattle procrastinators: If you're voting today or tomorrow, USE A DROP BOX, NOT THE MAIL! The USPS won't guarantee your timely ballot is postmarked on time.
Locations of ballot boxes: cd.kingcounty.gov/en/dept/elec...
More details: publicola.com/2025/10/03/p...
This applies to Seattle as well as Vancouver BC. Vote for @wilsonforseattle.bsky.social!
I don’t care how much experience Bruce Harrell has—bad policy is still bad policy. #votekatiewilson
Awesome! I proposed this idea for increasing tree canopy and improving pedestrian safety by replacing parking with trees in 2018. harrisonarchitects.com/intersection...
Fun was had by all!
@govjayinslee.bsky.social is on it. The linked article from the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions includes changing zoning and building codes, in addition to climate mitigation, as necessary steps. Zoning and building codes are easier to implement and faster to change.
Flood-prone areas (even if they flood once in a generation) are, as @alexsteffen.bsky.social says, brittle. What if we rigorously provided warning systems for already-developed brittle areas, and then discouraged new development, letting them depopulate through attrition and lack of insurability?
The flash flood news out of Kerr County, TX is tragic. We all want to prevent it from happening again and elsewhere. Lots of talk about better warning systems, better communication between local and NWS, etc. No one however has mentioned the idea of just not building in areas vulnerable to flooding.
And Seattle just spent, what, ten years? discussing whether to close Pike Place to cars. #seattleprocess
Vienna density
Vienna density
Vienna density
Vienna density
“This spring, Vienna passed a historic climate law, outlining a plan to get its climate pollution down to zero by 2040. Leaders see the city's vast social housing program as a critical tool.
Vienna has two types of social housing: city-owned & city-subsidized.” @npr.org
www.npr.org/2025/06/15/n...
All the pro-housing legislation and zoning in the world mean nothing without the financial means to build housing. We need neighborhood-based crowd-funding for four-plexes, so people can develop their own lots.
Glad to have played a role in one of Washington’s bills (HB 1183) that—along with major breakthrough legislation on TOD, parking reform, lot-splitting, middle housing and more—will make housing in our state more affordable and abundant. Thanks @sightline.org!
Perfect! Pierre Poilievre, for my American followers not tuned in to Canadian politics amidst all of our chaos, was the Trump-lite Conservative running against Mark Carney. Poilievre not only lost his bid for the PM role, but lost his seat in Parliament as well.
I’m so proud of my Canadian friends for electing this remarkable man. Watch this speech. It brought tears to my eyes. 🇨🇦❤️🇨🇦
(Reposting to have on my feed for the next time saving a tree in an urban area is used as a justification for opposing new housing.)
Protecting one’s house from wildfires is just wise and prudent financial planning, considering insurance payouts after a fire, if they are available at all, will never cover the cost of rebuilding. Build firewise, build Passivhaus.
“The United States, with its enormous highways, sprawling suburbs and neglected public transport systems, is one of the most car-dependent countries in the world. But this arrangement of obligatory driving is making many Americans actively unhappy, new research has found.” Via @theguardian.com
Doing housing policy on the State or Province (or Territory!) level allows consistency across jurisdictions and wider, faster adoption, and bypasses potential local NIMBY delay and obstruction. We have a core of amazing legislators in WA who are really making things happen.
My hope is that this bill gets used as a template across North America! I’ve been working on this since 2019, back when I was with Built Green and proposed a less ambitious version to City of Seattle. More and link to the legislation here: www.linkedin.com/posts/robhar...
Representative Davina Duerr deserves massive, national props for writing this groundbreaking first-in-the-US bill and sticking with the ideas through two sessions. (Last year her HB 2071 got the ball rolling.) Thank you!
I saw that. I wonder what drove their vote.
This is fantastic news for affordable housing, Passive House and mass timber. I’ve been working on this idea since 2019!
Just because parts of the US are going backwards doesn’t mean WA State has to. More freeways are not the future. Vibrant cities are the future, where people move around by walking, riding bikes and taking buses.
An interim biophilic solution that reduces the toxins in runoff is fantastic and necessary. We barely understand the web of interdependencies of which salmon are a major and critical part. #salmon-safe is safe for all. 2/
NEW STORY // Op-Ed: Harrell’s Growth Plan Fails to Add Enough Housing or Tree Canopy www.theurbanist.org/2025/03/29/h...
This is a self-own by Democrats from whom I expect more. What did we get in return, for making transit service harder to provide and e-bikes (the best last-mile solution we have) more expensive?
A bipartisan transportation package makes sense in so far as it delivers transportation projects for every part of the state — even ruby red districts. What doesn’t make sense is including an “own the libs in cities” bus and bike tax to appease a handful of Republicans.
Cool, but two notes: 1) Electric cars also have tires. 2) Zoning and road design that promote walking and riding bikes also reduces VMT and therefore incidence of another “urban killer,” cars.
Planning for the future means planning to accommodate people who do not yet live in an area—the kids of current residents, people moving toward economic opportunity, people fleeing repressive regimes or changes in climate. Local control of zoning by established residents tends to ignore these needs.
Paris is going to pedestrianize *500 MORE* street. Meanwhile Vancouver is slowly and painfuly suffocating the one great pilot it had in Gastown... Not to mention the rest on the metro area.