The Urbanist

In this episode, reporter Ray Dubicki and I talk transit and mobility. Specifically we take on the thorny question of whether or not transit rider use has recovered from pandemic lows. While it's clear that transit ridership is higher than it was back when we many of us were flattening the curve of Covid infections by staying home and social distancing, societal changes resulting from the pandemic continue to significantly impact transit ridership.

The truth is transit never left -- some of us just had the choice of whether or not we wanted to use it to get around. Even at the height of the pandemic, transit offered a lifeline for many people.
But while King County Metro recently released some encouraging ridership numbers, the picture gets less rosy other agencies are taken into consideration, both regional and national. Plus, as transit advocates, both of us want to see transit use not only recover to pre-pandemic ridership levels, but actually increase beyond them. Thus the idea that some agencies might be still be suffering from blows dealt by the pandemic is distressing, to say the least.

In our discussion, Ray and I share our personal experiences about how we get around changed during the pandemic. We also zoom out to the future. What can agencies do to attract riders -- both returning and new? How can we build a system that's more resilient to the challenges that will inevitably arise moving forward? There's so much tackle in response to this topic.

During this episode, I reference some information from Stephen Fesler's latest edition of Transpo Notes published by The Urbanist. If you are not yet a reader of Transpo Notes, I highly recommend you become one. It's a great way to keep on top of our most important regional transportation news.
Of course, we want to know your thoughts, opinions, and experiences related to transit use. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org. As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms.
And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a "like" or "thumbs up" on your favorite platform. It's a great way to spread the word to new listeners.

Hello listeners! In this episode, reporter Ray Dubicki and I talk about golf: a sport that continues to leave a large foot print on American cities, despite declining in popularity. The topic has taken on added significance in Seattle in recent years for a few reasons, most notably because of the presence of Jackson Park, a 27 hole golf course and driving range, that will be walking distance to two Link light rail stations in the future. But there is a lot more to learn about the impact of golf on cities, so we hope you'll check the episode out.

Additionally, The Urbanist has published some great articles dedicated to the topic of golf courses in Seattle over the years, and we'd like to draw your attention to a few here:

It’s Time to End Public Subsidies for Private Golf Courses

Unlike Seattle, Golf Really Is Dying

Let's Tee Off for Housing

Seattle Parks Vaunts Golf Courses as Urban Wildlife Habitat, But Some Cry Foul

Growing a Neighborhood Around 130th Street Station

Draft Plan Inches Toward Modest Upzones around 130th and 148th Street Link Stations

Share The Cities Lays the Community Engagement Groundwork at Jackson Park

Want to share your thoughts with us about this podcast episode, or others, or suggest a theme for a future episode? Contact us at [email protected].

The Urbanist Podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, Buzzsprout and other streaming services if you’d like to add us to your queue.

Nathan Vass has been sharing his observations as a bus driver with The Urbanist for nine years. From the first conversation chronicles and desaturated photos, he has been building an honest and nuanced portrait of a living Seattle. There’s no Instagram filters here, and that’s fine. Not because the city’s bumps and bruises are beautiful, but because they’re evidence of human lives and interactions.

And that’s the quiet part of what makes Nathan’s columns and artwork so touching. We come to hear about the tons of steel that he navigates through the city streets. We stay for the empathic eye of the artist who is observing the city coming and going from this “mobile living room.”
For this podcast, I got to talk with Nathan about the hard work of transit, art, living in a city, and what it means to move people across a city. It was a conversation full of insights and surprises.
We want to know your thoughts, opinions, and sites you have seen from a transit window. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.
As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.

Cascadia is uniquely set up as a region that would support high-speed rail. Between the linear arrangement of Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC, and the just-over-100 mile distance between each one, the super region could be tied together by a fast. It's an idea being pushed by a number of actors, including the Cascadia Innovation Corridor, Microsoft, and anyone who REALLY needs to get back north for the Michelin starred roast duck at iDen & Quanjude Beijing Duck House.

In this episode, co-hosts Natalie and Ray discuss a recent report on planning for high speed rail from the Urban Infrastructure Lab at the University of Washington's College of Built Environments. The report looks at a half dozen other high-speed rail projects around the world and draws lessons from their construction and operation. The biggest take away of all: plan to provide great high speed rail service. It's a little different than the infrastructure plans Cascadia normally undertakes.
Here's a link to the report: https://mic.comotion.uw.edu/our-work/ultra-high-speed-rail-project/
We would love to hear your plans for what to do in a neighboring city if it was only an hour train ride away. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.

As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. And if you are enjoying the podcast, be sure to offer a “like” or “thumbs up” on your favorite platform. It’s a great way to spread the word to new listeners.

In this podcast, reporter Ray Dubicki and I dive into the Harrell administration's new homelessness data tracker. We assess how well it is fulfilling its purported role of increasing communication and transparency around this pressing and difficult issue with the public and discuss some of the context around it's creation and whether it is really is the beginning of Seattle's first real strategic plan for addressing homelessness.
Homelessness has proven to be a tragic, and seemingly intractable, problem in Seattle in recent years. The issue was front and center during the most recent mayoral and city council elections, in which candidates, including now Mayor Bruce Harrell, pledged to take action to address the problem and bring more people into shelter. This week Seattle is now seeing the first tangible new contribution from the Harrell administration aimed at confronting homelessness: a data dashboard that Harrell promises is the beginning of Seattle's "first strategy" to reduce the number of people living unsheltered, in tents, or in vehicles, on the city's streets.
At a press conference to unveil the homelessness data dashboard held on the steps of Dockside, a future site of housing for people exiting homelessness and lower-income workers in Greenlake, Harrell described the incredulity he felt after departing a 12 year tenure on the City Council to "watch from the sidelines for two years" as the City failed to take action to address homelessness. "I asked, what is the plan? What is the strategic approach? It was clear a database approach was needed," Harrell said.
"When I came into office in 2022, there was no strategic plan," Harrell reaffirmed in his remarks, which also referenced how his prior career in the private sector had influenced his determination that increased data-tracking, measurement, and also transparency, would be needed to make gains in the homelessness crisis.
Harrell is not the first to call for increased measurement and accountability around how well efforts in addressing homelessness are performing. In tech-savvy Seattle, data is often presented as the key for unlocking the doors to progress. But we also all know that data has its limitations; it can be misrepresented or even manipulated. And when it comes to assessing an issue as complex as homelessness, data may paint an incomplete picture, failing to capture certain realities that lay at the core of the problem.
There is also the question of money. How much change can the Seattle public expect from a system that tracks and measures certain data points related to homelessness, but at least at this point, is not connected to bringing new funding or resources to the table?
Want to share your experiences with understanding Seattle's new homelessness data dashboard? Or share your thoughts, ideas, and experiences related to addressing homelessness in Seattle or elsewhere? Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org. As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major platforms.