By Frank on January 26, 2012
I was having a drink with a friend and co-worker who’s a heavy business traveller, and I mentioned that I often take Link when I’m going to SeaTac. He expressed disbelief, and then asked me, “where is the airport station? It’s a ridiculous distance from the terminal, isn’t it?” I told him no, it’s on [...]
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By Frank on December 22, 2011
The map above is striking. There’s clearly a core of Seattle — including Fremont, the University District, and Capitol Hill — that supported Prop 1, and for good reason. I wonder: what would a Transportation Benefit District look like for one or more of the neighborhoods above. Prop. 1 would have raised on the order [...]
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By Frank on November 21, 2011
Philly’s Best by &y The intersection at 23rd & Union has a storied past, but also a troubled one. In 2008, after Degene Barecha was killed while working at the Philly Cheese Steak restaurant on the corner, Robert Jamieson wrote a piece in the Seattle P-I recounting the corner’s history in which he referred to it [...]
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By Frank on November 16, 2011
Back in September I wrote about the demise of First Hill’s M Street Grocery, speculating that it had been done in (indirectly) by parking requirements. I can’t help but wonder if Belltown’s Local 360 Mercantile suffered the same fate. The Mercantile, attached to the restaurant by the same name, was a neat little shop and [...]
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By Frank on November 11, 2011
This is a great point from Ben: A more diffuse package raises negatives – which are much more powerful than positives. If a measure has roads and transit, people who hate roads will vote against it as well as people who hate transit. People who hate bike lanes [...]
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By Frank on October 22, 2011
Seattle by Beaster725 This Thursday, JCFO is giving a design update on the Waterfront. With the Viaduct closing for a week, it seems like an appropriate time to think about a post-viaduct waterfront. DESIGN UPDATE AND IDEA SHARING October 27, 2011 5:00pm – 9:00pm Bell Harbor Conference Center, Pier 66 – Elliott Hall 2211 [...]
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By Frank on October 2, 2011
Boston_to_Chicago_5436 by sbamueller Eric McCaughrin from the East Bay Bicycle Coalition puts together a list of ways that antiquated Federal Railroad Administration rules stack the deck against passenger rail in the US. US trains need to be almost absurdly heavy to withstand potential freight crashes. This results in slower, more expensive, harder-to-maintain rolling stock. Trains [...]
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By Frank on September 29, 2011
Within the first few minutes of Urbanized, the new movie from Helvetica director Gary Hustwit, a voiceover lists the various forces that shape urban design, including architects, planners, zoning laws, and citizens. That last one is accompanied by a visual of an elderly woman ostensibly making a public comment at some sort of community input [...]
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By Frank on September 21, 2011
Pioneer Square by pasa47 Mark Hinshaw has an interesting piece in Crosscut with the counterintuitive title, “Seattle is killing retail by requiring too much of it.” I encourage you to read the whole thing. I find myself nodding in agreement with his diagnosis of the problem: Seattle over-incentivizes street-level retail, and the result is [...]
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By Frank on September 13, 2011
I appreciate Roger Valdez’s straight-up acknowledgement that yes, there is “social engineering” going on in American cities: Yes, we are social engineers, but no more so thanRobert Moses and his followers, who built “free” highways and subsidized, auto-dependent single-family communities that ate up land, fuel, and energy for more than half a century. That kind of [...]
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