The split was so pronounced that Wilson won only two of the seven Seattle City Council districts — Districts 2 and 3 — but she won them dramatically enough to make up for weaker performance elsewhere. Wilson lost three districts by a fairly significant spread — 1, 4, 7 — but essentially ran to a draw in North Seattle’s District 5 and 6.

• District 1 (Southwest Seattle) – Harrell won by 6.5 points.
• District 2 (Southeast Seattle) – Wilson won by 12 points.
• District 3 (Capitol Hill, Central District, etc.) – Wilson won by 16 points.
• District 4 (UW / Greater Laurelhurst) – Harrell won by 6.5 points.
• District 5 (Far North Seattle) – Harrell won by a narrow margin of 0.7 points.
• District 6 (Greater Ballard) – Harrell won by a razor-thin margin of 0.3 points.
• District 7 (Greater Downtown and Queen Anne) – Harrell won by 3 points.

Data scientist and local urbanist Jason Weill created an interactive final precinct results map that tells the tale. In Weill’s color scheme, precincts that Wilson won are orange and Harrell’s precincts are blue. The darker the shade of color, the greater the margin of victory. Washington Community Alliance also has a precinct results mapping tool that covers races statewide.

Zoning map mirrors political results

As many an urbanist has pointed out, Seattle’s zoning map strongly echoes through in maps of political results. Areas zoned for high-density housing swing toward progressives, to a large degree. Political shifts from election to election are largely a matter of how steep the turnout advantage is for single family areas and which way medium-density neighborhoods swing. Apartment zones are shown in orange, brown, or purple in the zoning map below, while single family zones are a canary yellow.

Facing a state mandate deadline, Seattle recently rezoned single family areas citywide to allow fourplexes and sixplexes — and in some circumstances going beyond the state minimum baseline to permit larger multiplexes, like 12-plexes or even 16-plexes. Harrell dragged his feet on embracing apartment zoning more broadly, overruling his own planning department, which proposed broader upzones for apartments.

The election map also mirrors the city’s redlining map, which indicates parts of the city where banks denied homeowner loans and mortgage insurance, targeting areas where Black, Asian, and Latino communities were established. While the use of redlining maps legally ended in 1968 with the Fair Housing Act, the impacts persist in diminished generational wealth in communities of color — not to mention voting patterns.

Wilson vs. rest of the progressive slate

Overall, Wilson defeated Harrell by 0.73 points or 2,011 votes, which the closest Mayoral race in modern Seattle history. In contrast, Harrell, won by 17 points in 2021, when the areas of progressive support shrank considerably on the map.

Other progressive candidates had a much easier time of it this cycle. Progressive challenger Dionne Foster defeated Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson by nearly 26 points. Harrell won nearly 40,000 more votes than Nelson. This means a significant subset of voters voted Harrell for Mayor, but backed progressives Foster and Rinck for Council. Eddie Lin defeated Adonis Ducksworth, more than doubling up on his opponent by winning 68% of the vote. Former federal prosecutor Erika Evans also doubled up incumbent Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison, who is the city’s only Republican in office.

This was not purely anti-incumbent mood. Progressive incumbent citywide Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck grabbed a whopping 81% of the vote facing a conservative challenger — a 63-point win. Wilson precincts were Rinck’s strongest areas, but she also won just about everywhere.

It added up to a clean sweep for the progressive slate in the city, all of The Urbanist Elections Committee (of which I am a member) endorsed.

District 1 – Harrell coasts

District 1 was effectively split down the seam, with Harrell dominating the western coastlines and bluffs. Wilson did much better to the east in Delridge, White Center, Georgetown, South Park and in Junction, one of the few pockets of significant urban density in West Seattle.

Seattle mayoral election results, visualized by city council district. (Approximate; some precincts have been redrawn since the last district-specific council elections.) In district 1, incumbent Bruce Harrell led challenger Katie Wilson by about 6.5 points. Wilson won by less than 1 point citywide.

[image or embed]

— Jason Weill (@weill.org) November 27, 2025 at 5:32 AM

District 2 – Wilson wins Rainier Valley

At first glance, District 2 precincts look fairly evenly split, but looks can be deceiving. Wilson won the heavily-populated precincts in the MLK Way light rail corridor and the frequent bus corridor along Rainier Avenue S, and she won many of them by wide margins that ran up her total to a nearly 12-point win in D2. The brightest orange precinct, in the heart of Columbia City, she won with just over 80% of the vote.

In district 2, covering much of southeastern Seattle, Wilson defeated Harrell by nearly 12 percentage points.

[image or embed]

— Jason Weill (@weill.org) November 27, 2025 at 5:33 AM

Harrell has some areas within D2 where he surpassed 80% as well, but they are limited to a few waterfront precincts and were not enough to turn the tide, given Wilson’s dominance across much of the Rainier Valley and in Little Saigon. Wilson did well in more apartment-heavy North Beacon Hill, but South Beacon Hill was more of a mixed bag. Harrell managed to win the lion’s share of precincts in the far south near Rainier Beach, but by fairly small margins.

It’s a somewhat surprising result for Harrell, who once represented D2 on the city council, before stepping down in 2019. His old district was his second weakest in the city. Results indicate progressive Eddie Lin is much more of a fit for the district now, rather than centrist Adonis Ducksworth, who in fact may have been weighed down by his association to the mayor, who tapped him to be his transportation policy advisor.

District 3 – Wilson’s stronghold

District 3 is where the Wilson campaign sealed the deal. Their 16-point margin in D3 was enough to carry the day citywide. The margin of victory stemmed from massive vote shares throughout Capitol Hill and a virtual sweep of Central District precincts. Wilson often surpassed 80% of the vote in Capitol Hill precincts and exceeded 90% in a few.

Katie Wilson performed most strongly in her home district, district 3, winning by more than 16 percentage points.

[image or embed]

— Jason Weill (@weill.org) November 27, 2025 at 5:34 AM

Ironically, Harrell also had his best precinct performance in D3, winning 95% of the vote in Broadmoor, a gated community enveloped in a private golf course. Wilson won just 19 of the 420 votes cast in Broadmoor. Harrell won handily throughout Montlake, Madison Park, and Madrona — with proximity to Lake Washington seeming to juice his totals.

On the other hand, Wilson pushed the old “Republican” boundary a bit farther north. The adage used to be that E Republican Street formed the border where the progressive bastion of Capitol Hill ended and gave way to the more conservative-leaning centrist precincts to the north. The people along Republican Street mostly voted with Wilson this year, as the orange stretched all the way to Volunteer Park. If this pattern holds, that would roughly make Aloha Street (three blocks to the north) the new boundary between the People’s Republic of Capitol Hill and conservative-voting mansion land. Aloha, hello and goodbye.

The only Wilson precincts north of Aloha Street in D3 are in Eastlake, where Wilson did well. Harrell did win one Eastlake precinct along the Lake Union waterfront. Meanwhile the eastern border, where orange precincts of the Central District give way to waterfront bluff blue, is 31st Avenue, which shows up quite clearly in the precinct map.

District 4 – Harrell gains edge in Northeast Seattle

District 4 was tied for Harrell’s best district, powered by a strong performance in its eastern half, a wealthy area dominated by single family homes. Broadly speaking, Wilson won East Fremont, Wallingford, the University District, Roosevelt, and Sand Point. However, Harrell won virtually everything else and with higher turnout rates, swamping Wilson’s advantage to the east. D4 should be winnable for progressives, but it’s a tall task if the turnout is tilted so heavily toward wealthier single family areas.

Harrell's most fruitful city council district was district 4, in which the incumbent outdrew the challenger Wilson by just over 6.5 points. There was a pronounced split between the UW area and the Laurelhurst area.

[image or embed]

— Jason Weill (@weill.org) November 27, 2025 at 5:36 AM

District 5: Split down the middle

District 5 was fought nearly a draw, which is good news for progressives heading into a special election next year to pick a replacement following Councilmember Cathy Moore’s resignation this summer. (For now, Debora Juarez holds the seat in an interim capacity.) Wilson did well in Greenwood, Crown Hill, Licton Springs, Northgate, Pinehurst, and much of Lake City. Harrell did well in Blue Ridge, Broadview, Matthews Beach, and Haller Lake. That was enough for him to win by 0.7 points.

District 5 was roughly evenly split between Harrell and Wilson. Harrell led overall by less than 1 point, winning all but one precinct on the shore of Lake Washington, Puget Sound, or Bitter Lake.

[image or embed]

— Jason Weill (@weill.org) November 27, 2025 at 5:38 AM

Since next year’s special election will happen in an even year, turnout should be significantly higher than in typical odd-year municipal elections. Generally speaking, precincts that Wilson won had lower turnout this year than precincts that Harrell won. Higher turnout across the board would appear to help progressives more than centrists, who already benefit from high turnout in odd-numbered years.

District 6: Draw

District 6 was the most evenly split district. Just 205 votes separated the candidates, with Harrell barely gaining the upper hand. Neighborhood by neighborhood, the divides were stark. Harrell swept Magnolia and won Sunset Hill, North Beach, and most of Phinney Ridge and Green Lake. Wilson handily won Ballard and Fremont.

In District 6, the closest result of any council district, Harrell defeated Wilson by 205 votes. Note the clean Harrell sweep in Magnolia.

[image or embed]

— Jason Weill (@weill.org) November 27, 2025 at 5:40 AM

The Wilson precincts are more densely populated and better served by transit. In fact, you can nearly see the gaps in transit service in where Harrell did well. Seattle’s crosstown bus service is infamously mediocre; where there is some crosstown service, like along Market Street and along 85th Street, Wilson generally won. Between NW 65th Street and NW 80th Street is a dead zone for crosstown service, and this is precisely where Harrell had his broadest band of support, stretching from Green Lake to the Shilshole Bay Marina nearly continuously.

District 7 – Queen Anne’s revenge

District 7 is perhaps the most mixed up district of all. Harrell did well in many corners of downtown, but Wilson mostly cleaned up in Lower Queen Anne, South Lake Union, Cascade, Belltown, First Hill, Interbay, and Nickerson. One citywide pattern that did hold is that Harrell did very well in the ritzy view corridor areas of Upper Queen Anne and the western Magnolia bluff. The end result is a three-point win for Harrell.

Harrell defeated Wilson in District 7 by about 3 points, including a sweep of upper Queen Anne precincts.

[image or embed]

— Jason Weill (@weill.org) November 27, 2025 at 5:41 AM

While Wilson came up a bit short in D7, the other progressives won there this year. Clearly, it’s a district that could break either way when centrist Councilmember Bob Kettle goes up for reelection in 2027.

How Harrell made it close

Why Harrell outperformed the other centrist candidates is a topic that many pundits have already taken a stab at explaining. The Urbanist Podcast discussed the topic recently on the first episode of our relaunch. One simple answer is that Harrell largely ran as a progressive, rather than emphasizing his centrism.

The greatest example of Harrell shifting in a progressive direction is his decision to back a tax hike on big business via the Seattle Shield Initiative, which restructured the business and occupation tax. Harrell opposed tax increases for nearly his whole mayoral term, but his conversion on his political death bed nearly saved his skin — recasting himself in a more progressive light to match the mood of the electorate.

In contrast, Nelson doubled down on her conservative messaging and record and paid the price. Without more of an effort at a rebrand, voters treated Nelson similarly to a Davison, who is an out-and-out Republican. And while Harrell has the local kid football star turned star lawyer backstory, Nelson’s personal narrative and charisma is less stellar.

The other key part of the Harrell overperformance was that he launched repeated waves of negative attacks on his opponent hard and appeared to land some hits. Rather than an earlier scattershot approach that tried to brand Wilson as an extremist by tying her to hardline socialist Kshama Sawant, the Harrell camp used a more insidious and surgical approach, criticizing Wilson for a lack of management experience and for not completing her college degree. That was enough to sap some momentum from Wilson, after she won the August primary by nearly 10 points.

The college dropout attack, and a last-minute push to ding Wilson for accepting financial help from her parents to pay for child care during her campaign, was part of Harrell’s effort to undermine her working class appeal. Harrell tried to make bolder promises himself to steal some of her thunder. After the primary, Harrell proposed an “anti-gentrification and reparations fund” that initially pledged $80 million in new spending. This turned out to be a rebranding of existing programs with no new money, when in reality his budget proposal actually tied his rhetoric down.

One area where the negative messaging clearly seemed to hit home was in depressing turnout in certain precincts. Some precincts that favored Wilson saw their turnout rate decrease from the primary to the general, even as turnout increased overall citywide in the general election. Notable exceptions included a handful of Lake City and Columbia City precincts, where Wilson won. The drop in turnout in those areas hurt her margin. Meanwhile, waterfront precincts were Harrell dominated saw some of the biggest spikes in turnout.

All in all, it was a remarkably close race, but a close win counts the same as a blowout. The progressive path to victory continue to run through urban centers, where voters are more likely to live in apartments and ride transit. As the co-founder of the Transit Riders Union and a long-time housing and tenant’s rights advocate, Wilson’s message resonated greatly with these voters and earned her big margins, and that was enough to carry her to victory.

Since Seattle’s trajectory is toward urbanization and building more multifamily housing and transit, it’s a formula that should get stronger with time.

The post Katie Wilson’s Path to Election Victory, Precinct by Precinct first appeared on The Urbanist.

The Urbanist Elections Committee (on which I serve) endorsed Wilson, who is long-time leader of the Transit Riders Union. The Urbanist slate of Seattle City Council candidates also did very well in the primary. Alexis Mercedes Rinck (Position 9), Dionne Foster (P9), and Eddie Lin (D2) all have commanding leads over more conservative opponents. Likewise, Seattle City Attorney challenger Erika Evans (who The Urbanist endorsed) is up big over incumbent Ann Davison, who is the only Republican in elected office in Seattle.

On election night, Wilson led by 1.4 points, but later drops have favored Wilson more heavily. It was a result that rocked the Democratic party establishment, much of which has been backing Harrell. However, two recent polls from the Northwest Progressive Institute did predict Harrell was in trouble, running neck and neck with Wilson and well below water when it comes to voter favorability.

Approximately 16,000 votes remain to be counted in Seattle after Friday, but most of those votes were counted Monday. Wilson won among the ballots added Friday by a nearly two-to-one margin over Harrell: 60% to 32%.

Ballot count update: Katie Wilson is now up 9.5 points on incumbent Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, as late returns continue to break her way. She has 50.7% of the primary vote, giving her a decided edge in a general election face-off with Harrell.

[image or embed]

— The Urbanist (@theurbanist.org) August 11, 2025 at 3:47 PM

King County Elections has released precinct level results covering only Primary night data. Wilson’s late charge will make the final map look different, with more precincts likely flipping toward her.

However, the early snapshot does paint a familiar picture; Wilson dominated Seattle’s apartment-heavy urban neighborhoods. Harrell, meanwhile, prevailed in the more suburban waterfront view corridors where moderates and conservatives generally tend to do well. Northeast Seattle, Montlake, and mansion-dotted coastal slopes in places like Magnolia and West Seattle went to Harrell. Wilson took most other areas, particularly if they were dense and middle class.

This primary results map looks very similar to past maps, but Wilson’s domination of Seattle urban centers was more extensive than progressives that came up short. This partially could be a reflection of how Seattle is changing and growing. The vast majority of Seattle’s population growth has been in the city’s urban core and centers that are rapidly adding apartments — by and large voters and precincts that progressives win.

But the key to Bruce Harrell’s 2021 election rout was his domination of the “gentle density” zones between the densest urban centers. These townhome-heavy precincts normally are fertile ground for successful progressives like Teresa Mosqueda and more recently Alexis Mercedes Rinck. Harrell made big inroads in 2021, but they’ve swung back to progressives this time around in boomerang fashion.

If Harrell can’t improve with this class of voter in November, he appears cooked. The question of what inspired voters in these precincts to flip sides is the point of much debate.

What went wrong for centrists

The affordability wedge issue hypothesis has come to the forefront this election, much to the detriment of centrists, who seem to have lost trust with voters after focusing on rolling back worker protections and avoiding tax hikes on corporations and the mega-wealthy. Spending the last three and a half years as such, Harrell and Nelson ended up cementing a brand of fighting for the rich, rather than for the average working Seattleite struggling to make ends meet. Harrell has not acted with a sense of urgency around housing. His big zoning update with his “One Seattle” growth plan is more than a year behind and has been repeatedly watered down to offer fewer housing opportunities outside of existing centers.

Meanwhile, the Trump hypothesis holds that Seattle voters want candidates that will stand up to Trump and fight federal overreach. Seattle overwhelmingly voted against Trump, but Mayor Harrell took a more conciliatory tone early in Trump’s administration, saying he’d work with them. As a Republican active in the “Walk Away” movement (which sought to convert Democrats to voting for Trump), Davison’s credibility on fighting Trump was low.

The vibes-cession theory – Harrell’s big win in 2021 was attributed to his mastery of riding the zeitgeist, laying on thick the vibe that he could return a sense of normalcy in a pandemic-shaken electorate. But the vibes of being a no-nonsense outsider evaporated over the course of his term, partially because it was an illusion for a long-time politician that had served three terms on City Council.

The freshness of the vibes were weighed down by the turmoil in his administration, which included a falling out with his own niece, who had served as his senior deputy mayor. In a 2025 interview, Monisha Harrell revealed that women were not taken seriously in his cabinet — and were sometimes undermined and subjected to harassment. That revelation contributed to a sense that he was failing to reform the Seattle Police Department, which has a goal of reaching a 30% female workforce by 2030, but is making scant progress toward that goal.

Broken pledges theory – Seattle’s anti-incumbent mood could also be traced to a feeling that the current crop of leaders broke their campaign pledges. With his aggressive 2021 campaign rhetoric, voters may have had the impression that Harrell and his allies were going to make homeless encampments and crime disappear. That didn’t happen. Harrell tried to take credit for decreasing murder rate (which mirrored national trend), but voters did not seem impressed. And on homelessness, he clearly fell short. Encampment sweeps are way up, but rather than adding his promised 2,000 units beds, shelter space has actually shrunk under Harrell’s watch. In practice, this has meant encampments have shuffled locations rather than disappeared altogether, despite the huge investment in conducting sweeps.

For her part, Nelson didn’t exactly run on reducing wages for gig workers and blocking progressive revenue sources. Plus, the centrists essentially all ran as collaborators who would restore a sense of professionalism to city hall. Instead, Nelson oversaw a workplace that appears so toxic that two councilmembers have resigned in the last year, one an ally of hers.

Wilson is a strong candidate who is resonating

The flip side of Harrell’s weaknesses being revealed is Wilson’s strength and resonance with voters. Harrell is facing a dynamic candidate who doesn’t have a record in elected office that he and his allies can easily twist into liabilities, as he did with Lorena González in his previous mayoral run. Streetsblog’s Kea Wilson (no relation to Katie) pointed out that Wilson is part of a growing trend of transit-friendly candidates pulling out political upsets. These rising stars include Boston’s Michelle Wu, New York’s Zohran Mamdani, and Detroit’s Mary Sheffield.

“While some local opinion writers have dubbed Katie Wilson ‘the Zohran Mamdani of Seattle,’ others argue she represents her own archetype of the urbanist-as-political candidate: the ‘bus-riding mama who gets shit done,'” as Tom Fucoloro of Seattle Bike Blog memorably wrote,” Kea Wilson wrote. “On the ‘gets shit done’ side of the coin, advocates have praised Wilson as an unsung hero of many key transit initiatives, co-founding coalitions that helped add bus and bike lanes to major projects and winning low-income fare programs that have been a lifeline to working families. That impressive track record, her supporters say, is a sign that Wilson has not just the aspirations of a great transit mayor, but skills to actually make it real.”

A transit-riding, renter mother who has fought for 15 years to make the city more affordable is more relatable than a former football star turned star lawyer who owns a multi-million-dollar just steps away from Seward Park and Lake Washington. Beyond not giving off millionaire vibes, Wilson’s campaign credited her clear transit stances with firing up voters.

“We absolutely think that our emphasis on transit-related issues was a big part of the success in the primary,” Alex Gallo-Brown, campaign manager for Wilson for Seattle, told Streetsblog in a statement. “Many people in Seattle are hungry for a city that doesn’t require car dependency in order to live a good life.”

Just before the primary election started, Wilson participated in an event where hundreds of transit advocates raced the infamously slow Route 8 bus on traffic-snarled Denny Way. The event made a splash, earning several stories in local media, including a KUOW public radio segment. The upshot was clear: Wilson cares about transit riders and fixing their commutes. Harrell was missing in action.

While Wilson endorsed Seattle’s social housing funding measure, which prevailed in a 26-point victory in a February special election, Harrell was the literal face of the opposition, appearing prominently in mailers. Wilson credited that special election with inspiring her to jump into the race, despite many political operatives painting Harrell as inevitable and nearly invincible at that point. The Prop 1A misstep revealed Harrell to be out of step with voters on housing issues, while giving Wilson credibility as an early supporter of the city’s fledgling social housing effort.

Wilson’s campaign volunteers reported that cost of living issues are top of mind for voters they talked to at farmers markets and other canvassing events. On primary election night, volunteer Harrison Jerome told The Urbanist that voters also didn’t trust Harrell on those issues.

“[Inflation] and rent being high, that’s something that young people talk a lot,” Jerome said. “When we talk about things like affordability and housing, they don’t think that Bruce Harrell has done that much for the city. Most people get the sense that he has sort of a do-nothing mayor. He just hasn’t done much, and he will probably continue to do nothing if he’s reelected, and he hasn’t earned their vote.”

Foster opens up 22-point lead over Nelson

Other progressives had similar maps. Foster dominated centrist incumbent Nelson to an even greater degree, opening up a 23-point lead by Monday. The pockets of support for Nelson are even more limited to the coastal precincts and mansion slopes.

Councilmember Rinck’s map was striking. She won nearly everywhere. The exceptions were two of Seattle’s most exclusive neighborhoods: Broadmoor (a gated community enveloped in a private golf club) and Windermere. These apparently are the districts where a Republican (Rachael Savage) can best a popular progressive. Rinck’s margin spiked even more in later returns. By Monday, she had claimed 78% of the primary vote.

Meanwhile, Lin has 47% of the vote, and Evans nearly 56%. Lin heads into the general election with a 18-point lead over second place finisher Adonis Ducksworth. Evans has a 22-point lead over Davison.

Progressives still have to repeat their dominant performances in November or the primary wins won’t mean much. Big business may be motivated to spend big to try to swing the election their way and keep more tax-averse leaders in office. But clearly progressives start in an enviable position. The electorate seems primed to put them office. Now, they just have to close the deal.

The post Urbanist-Backed Katie Wilson Opens Up Nearly 10 Point Lead over Harrell first appeared on The Urbanist.

This downtown is the product of decades-long planning to craft a dense and mixed-use core for the suburb-turning-city. Redmond’s 1993 Downtown Plan helped kick off a streak of dense urban development in a historic downtown that had become a mix of low-rise multifamily and commercial development.

That first plan legalized the density of residential development that now characterizes the neighborhood. Subsequent comprehensive plan updates further liberalized land use regulations that have incrementally increased the scale of newer development downtown. The 1993 plan’s legacy can also be seen in the near ubiquitous presence of small and medium-sized ground-floor retail spaces. This was done by prohibiting residential use on the first floor. 

The Urbanist has located every mixed-use and commercial project completed in Downtown Redmond since the turn of the century. 

The first cluster of Downtown Redmond’s modern form was completed between 1999 and 2001, with the completion of the Avalon ParcSquare Apartments, Redmond Town Square, and Frazer Court. At 16075/16080 NE 85th Street, the Avalon ParcSquare Apartments is a collection of four four-story multifamily buildings with 124 homes, 6,372 square feet of retail space, and 149 parking stalls. At 8201 164th Ave NE, Redmond Town Square is a three-story, 65,584 square feet office building. At 16275 NE 85th Street, Frazer Court is a 59-unit, four-story two building condominium complex with 60 parking stalls. 

A long streak broken by a pandemic

From 2004 to 2021, Downtown Redmond saw a continuous streak of mixed-use completions. In that timespan, over 40 new mid-rise buildings were erected. Major projects that completed in this period include the Redmond Park and Ride transit-oriented development (TOD) project and River Park Development, both completed in 2009. 

The TOD complex replaced Redmond’s old surface park and ride with a 385 parking stall, elevated parking garage and the Veloce Apartments. The three-building, six-story, apartment complex has 322 units, 11,751 square feet of commercial space, and 130 parking stalls. 

The River Park Development built out five buildings with a total of 750 parking stalls. It’s made up of a 106,910 square foot office/medical building, three apartment buildings, and a 149-room Hyatt House hotel with 4,100 sq feet of restaurant/retail space. The River Park Apartments have 319 homes and 3,580 square feet of retail space. 

A crescendo of more than 30 other projects have been completed around these two pioneering projects. In total, these 38 commercial, mixed-use, or residential projects have added over 5,300 new residences, over 343,000 square feet of commercial space, over 6,400 parking stalls, and 486 hotel rooms to Downtown Redmond between 1999 and 2021.  

A Great Urban Foundation

Mapping all this development really shows how tightly packed this development has been in Downtown Redmond. A keen observer might notice that the light rail station isn’t exactly in the center of all this older development, the station is southeast of most of this new urban fabric. This is a side effect of older plans preferring office development in the center of downtown and the lack of office development thereof. Visitors will need to make a little jaunt northwest to find the more established mixed-use core of Downtown Redmond.

However, many new projects have brought fresh development to the immediate station area of Downtown Redmond Station. Many projects are also under construction or in planning, they’ll also flesh out the immediate station area. We’ll cover that next.

In case you’re interested…

For those curious about those 30 plus projects, they’re below…

• Delano Apartments / 7805 170th Place NE
  • 126-unit, four-story, three building apartment complex with 191 parking stalls.
  • Completed in two phases, 2004 and 2009
• The Cleveland / 16141 Cleveland Street
  • 84-unit, six-story mixed-use building with 2,512 square feet of commercial space and 111 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2006
• Urbane Redmond / 8296 160th Ave NE
  • 22-unit, five-story, three building mixed-use complex with 1,953 square feet of commercial space and 31 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2007
• Redmond 160 East / 16095 Cleveland Street
  • 115-unit, six-story mixed-use building with 7,408 square feet of commercial space and 121 parking stalls.
  • Completed 2009
• Redmond 160 West / 16015 Cleveland Street
  • 135-unit, six-story mixed-use building with 5,553 square feet of commercial space and 174 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2010
• Evergreen Medical Center / 8980 161st Ave NE
  • Four-story, 48,822 square feet medical building.
  • Completed in 2011
• Redmond Square Apartments / 7977 170th Ave NE
  • 154-unit, six-story, two building apartment complex with 193 parking stalls. 
  • Completed in 2012
• Vision 5 Apartments / 8525 163rd Court NE
  • 96-unit, five-story mixed-use building with 860 square feet of commercial space with 40 parking stalls. 
• Allez Apartments / 8397 158th Ave NE
  • 148-unit, seven-story mixed-use building with 3,000 square feet of commercial space with 201 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2014
• The Luke Apartments / 8280 164th Ave NE
  • 208-unit, six-story mixed-use building with 2,335 square feet of commercial space with 228 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2014
• Old Town Loft Apartments / 16175 Cleveland Street
  • 149-unit, six-story mixed-use building with 7,625 square feet of commercial space with 189 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2014
• Elan Redmond / 16325 Cleveland Street
  • 134-unit, six-story mixed-use building with 7,796 square feet of commercial space with 183 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2014
• Milehouse / 8300 160th Ave NE
  • 177-unit, seven-story mixed-use building with 2,200 square feet of commercial space with 181 parking stalls. 
  • Completed in 2015
• Core 83 Apartments / 16590 NE 83rd Street
  • 120-unit, five-story apartment building with 151 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2015
• The Carter on the Park / 7508 159th Place NE
  • 180-unit, six-story apartment building with 185 parking stalls. 
  • Completed in 2016
• Providence John Gabriel House / 8632 160th Ave NE
  • 75-unit, five-story mixed-use building with 17,122 square feet of commercial space and 85 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2017
• Station House / 16550 NE 83rd Street
  • 196-unit, six-story apartment building with 181 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2017
• The Triangle / 16450 Redmond Way
  • 195-unit, six-story mixed-use building with 4,775 square feet of commercial space with 195 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2017
• Archer Hotel / 7200 164th Ave NE
  • 160 room, seven-story hotel with 170 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2017
• Heron Flats & Lofts / 7662 159th Place NE
  • 95-unit, six-story apartment building with 104 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2017
• Ravello Apartments / 16180 NE 80th Street
  • 106-unit, six-story mixed-use building with 827 square feet of commercial space and 85 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2017
• 162Ten Ecoflats / 16210 NE 80th Street
  • 96-unit, six-story apartment building with 30 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2017
• Everlight Apartments / 8709 161st Ave NE
  • 300-unit, five-story apartment building with 303 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2018
• Edge Apartments / 8356 165th Ave NE
  • 104-unit, five-story apartment building with 118 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2018
• Talisman Apartments / 7405 168th Ave NE
  • 286-unit, six-story apartment building with 10,896 square feet of commercial space and 526 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2018
• Radiate Apartments / 15808 Bear Creek Parkway
  • 360-unit, six-story, two building mixed complex with 1,622 square feet of commercial space and 355 parking stalls. 
  • Complete in 2018
• Blackbird Apartments / 7601 159th Place NE
  • 154-unit, six-story apartment building with 150 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2018
• Hilton Garden Inn / 16630 Redmond Way
  • 177 room six-story hotel with 124 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2019
• Modera River Trail / 15881 NE 85th Street
  • 233-unit, six-story mixed-use building with 5,020 square feet of commercial space and 218 parking stalls.
  • Completed in 2020
• Zephyr on the Park Apartments / 8020 161st Ave NE
  • 193-unit, eight-story mixed-use building with 3,878 square feet of commercial space and 191 parking stalls.
  • Completed 2020
• Aria Redmond / 7705 168th Ave NE
  • 102-unit, seven-story mixed-use building with 2,161 square feet of commercial space and 101 parking stalls.
  • Completed 2020
• Porch+Park / 16050 Cleveland Street
  • 106-unit, six-story mixed-use building with 9,178 square feet of commercial space and 93 sparking stalls.
  • Completed in 2021

Not included are numerous townhouse projects completed around Downtown Redmond.

The post How Downtown Redmond Grew from Sleepy Suburb to Small City first appeared on The Urbanist.

1. The comprehensive plan would upzone fewer than 1 in 10 parcels within a five-minute walk of transit stops.
2. Almost all of the added capacity would be concentrated along hazardous arterial streets, without specific commitments to safety improvements along those streets.

Seattle deserves smarter and safer growth along our transit corridors.

The One Seattle Plan’s arterial rezones

Seattle’s comprehensive plan is finally headed to City Council this May in the form of draft zoning legislation. As both an important policy document and a proxy for fundamental debates about Seattle’s future, the One Seattle Plan has sparked passionate discussions over the past two and a half years of community engagement.

Since 2022, The Urbanist has shared viewpoints about the plan’s many downstream effects, ranging from Seattle’s supply of accessible and affordable housing to the health of our orcas and tree canopy. These conversations are most productive when the city has laid out a well-defined proposal that the public can react to: for example, after the draft comprehensive plan laid out specific boundaries for 30 proposed Neighborhood Centers, that list became one of the most-discussed items at the plan’s first public hearing in February.

Compared with new Neighborhood Centers, the implications of “select arterial rezones along frequent transit routes” have received far less media attention. How should we interpret the scope of the planned rezones along these routes?

To answer that question, I created side-by-side maps that compare access to transit with the One Seattle Plan draft zoning map, released in October 2024. At the top, you can toggle between different types of transit routes:

• Service Frequency: Filter to routes with 15-minute frequencies or better during peak commuting hours (7-9 am and 5-7 pm)
• Route Connections: Filter to routes that connect to downtown Seattle, any Regional Center (including downtown), or the light rail

Your selections control two maps below:

1. Proximity to transit: This map shows parcels within a five-minute walkshed of transit stops on the selected routes. Selected transit stops are shown as yellow dots; parcels within a two-minute walkshed are highlighted in dark green; and parcels within a three to five-minute walkshed are highlighted in light green. 
2. One Seattle Plan proposed zoning: This map shows the proposed future zoning for each parcel as of October 2024. You can mouse over or tap on the map to see the current zoning and proposed future zoning for that parcel.

These interactive tools show proposed zoning changes in “Urban Neighborhoods,” the City’s designation for formerly single-family neighborhoods, which will soon allow a wider range of housing options thanks to statewide zoning reform. The tools exclude blocks already contained within Regional Centers, Urban Centers, or Neighborhood Centers. Industrial zones and publicly-owned parcels are also excluded.

To summarize these maps, I’ve also created an interactive table showing the current and future zoning for residential parcels in Urban Neighborhoods within a five minute-walk of transit stops. These include:

• Neighborhood Residential (NR), the least dense zone. Residential Small Lot (RSL) zoning is also grouped into this category.
• Lowrise or Mid-rise (LR/MR) zones
• Neighborhood Commercial or Commercial (NC/C) zones. 

Pay close attention to the top row of data: this summarizes how parcels near transit that are currently in the lowest density group will be handled under the proposed rezone.

I hope these maps help clarify the city’s proposed rezoning plan for frequent transit corridors. To lay out the policy clearly:

1. Within Urban Neighborhoods, the city’s proposal upzones less than 10% of Neighborhood Residential parcels within a five-minute walk of transit stops. This is equally true whether we consider all transit routes or frequent transit routes connecting to downtown.
2. Almost all parcels being upzoned are located on arterial streets.

What are the problems with this plan, and what might an alternative look like? To clarify, let’s examine a model Urban Neighborhood along a transit corridor.

One neighborhood, four possible futures

Consider the example neighborhood in the image below.

The neighborhood is like many low-density residential zones of Seattle: each residential parcel has an area of 5,000 square feet, and 24 parcels make up one block. There are 40 blocks in this model neighborhood, so the neighborhood has a total of 960 (24 * 40) parcels.

An arterial runs north-south through the neighborhood. A transit route runs along the arterial and stops at the central intersection in the neighborhood. Out of all the residential parcels, 132 (14%) are within a two-minute walk of a transit stop, 484 (50%) are within a five-minute walk of a transit stop, and 40 (4%) are along the arterial.

Without targeted safety improvements, living directly alongside an arterial street can be hazardous to your health. The 2023 Vision Zero Review conducted by the Seattle Department of Transportation found that 93% of pedestrian deaths occur on Seattle’s arterial streets. People living along arterials may be at risk for unhealthy levels of air pollution, particularly during commuting hours when traffic volume is highest; they are also more exposed to harmful levels of noise pollution from speeding traffic. Given those hazards, we might conclude that a sensible approach to transit-oriented development policy adds housing near transit while reducing risks from the arterial.

Present day: mostly single family housing

Most residential land in Seattle is zoned Neighborhood Residential (NR), the least dense zoning designation with single family residences on most lots.

Under this uniform zoning, the distribution of housing capacity matches the distribution of parcels: about 320 people (14%) live within a two-minute walk of a transit stop, 1,160 people (50%) live within a five-minute walk of a stop, and 100 people (4%) live along the arterial. 

The One Seattle Plan: upzoning only on the arterial

Under the city’s current proposal, the 40 parcels directly along the arterial would be upzoned to Lowrise 3, creating a thin strip of land with up to six-story apartment buildings, while all parcels off the arterial would remain Neighborhood Residential.

If fully built out, this plan would increase the number of people living within a two-minute walk to a bus stop (about 510 people, or 19% of total) and a five-minute walk to a bus stop (1,480 people or 56%). On the other hand, this plan maximizes the proportion of people living along arterials: about 420 people (16%) would be exposed to the hazards of living along the busier street.

Note that a full build-out scenario takes a long time to occur, and almost certainly falls outside the 20-year timeframe of the One Seattle Plan. Redevelopment depends on the property owner selling, a homebuilder buying, and that homebuilder successfully navigating the permitting, financing, and construction process. For the 20-year window of the plan, only a fraction of parcels are likely to redevelop to their new zoned capacity.

Spreading housing capacity thinly along the arterial creates other downstream problems for planning: there is no obvious focal point for a local corner store to open, or for SDOT to prioritize new street safety infrastructure.

New housing close to transit

During public engagement for the comprehensive plan, community feedback noted the downsides of the arterial-only proposal and suggested a different approach:

Many comments called for a more geographically extensive approach toward adding density along bus transit corridors that does not restrict upzones to locations that are directly on the arterial and would include wider corridors that extend a block or further from the transit route. Many called for allowing midrise development within a quarter mile of frequent transit, as noted on page four of the City’s Draft Plan Engagement Summary.

The map below gives an example of what access-based rezoning could look like in our model neighborhood. Parcels within a two-minute walk of a transit stop have been zoned Lowrise 3, and the remaining parcels within a five-minute walk of a transit stop have been zoned Lowrise 2. All parcels outside of the five-minute walkshed retain Neighborhood Residential zoning.

Compared to the city’s rezoning plan, this scenario nearly triples the number of people who can live within a short walk of a transit stop. If fully built out, about 1,380 people (25% of total) would live within a two-minute walk of a transit stop, and 4,290 people (79% of total) would live within a five-minute walk. Within a five-minute walk of the transit stops, nine out of ten homes would be located on quieter neighborhood streets.

The graduated zoning in this scenario centers the neighborhood around the transit stops. This creates a focal point for other investments in the neighborhood, some of which are explored in the scenario below.

A thriving five-minute neighborhood

Finally, let’s consider how centered residential density could be paired with targeted safety improvements and new amenities along the arterial street. This plan makes three changes to the previous scenario:

1. Centered neighborhood commercial: The two blocks closest to the transit stops along the arterial are rezoned to Neighborhood Commercial, creating space for new pedestrian-oriented local businesses
2. Parks: The city invests in two half-acre parks to serve the neighborhood
3. Arterial safety features: Improved pedestrian crossings, bus lanes, and other traffic calming features prepare the arterial for greater pedestrian use

This scenario houses many more people near transit than the status quo or the One Seattle Plan: if fully built out, about 1,410 people (26% of total) would live within a two-minute walk of a transit stop, and 4,330 people (79%) would live within a five-minute walk. Because Neighborhood Commercial zoning allows for housing above street-level retail, this scenario actually includes slightly more housing along the arterial than previous options (about 470 people or 8%), despite some arterial parcels being reserved for parks.

Compared to previous examples, this scenario also improves the quality of life along the arterial. New road safety features enable safer pathways for pedestrians; they also hamper speeding, reducing noise pollution along the arterial. New public green spaces improve air quality, cool the neighborhood on hot summer days, and offer city officials another tool to increase local tree canopy. Locals benefit from new neighborhood businesses and public spaces, and their trips to those amenities encourage lively, pedestrian-oriented streets.

Seattle deserves safe streets and convenient commutes

Let’s compare the headline numbers from these four scenarios in our 40-block test case:

A quick note on zoning math: my assumptions about units per parcel roughly match Seattle’s Zone Development Capacity Model, and my average household sizes correspond to ACS five-year (2019-23) estimates for Seattle, assuming that most NR households own, most LR3 and NC households rent, and a 50-50 split in LR2 households.

You could tweak those capacity assumptions or propose different zoning near transit, but this article’s key points hold true regardless:

1. The One Seattle Plan’s current plan for rezoning transit corridors maximizes the number of people exposed to arterial hazards.
2. A centered approach based on travel times to transit stops would house more people on safe neighborhood streets.
3. Upzones near frequent transit corridors should be paired with a plan to invest in pedestrian safety infrastructure along those corridors.

You might also object that the transit routes I highlighted are unworthy of new housing—maybe they’re not frequent enough for your liking, or the connections are insufficiently direct. Whenever I hear that flavor of objection, I’m reminded of all the congested, multi-hour driving commutes into Seattle. How many people would jump at the chance to live in new housing a single bus ride away from their job, if we would only legalize that housing? How many tons of future carbon emissions do we lock in by pricing people out of the city where they work?

The final comprehensive plan should clearly articulate the strategy for rezoning along transit corridors and explain how that strategy is consistent with the city’s health equity and Vision Zero goals. Seattle’s Office of Planning and Community Development has not yet released new zoning maps to accompany Phase 2 zoning legislation (which has been promised in May), so there is still an opportunity for the city to improve its plan for transit corridors.

If you feel strongly about how Seattle’s transit corridors evolve over the next 20 years, email your City Council representatives at council@seattle.gov to request that the One Seattle Plan adds more housing capacity on safe neighborhood streets near transit stops, not just along arterials.

The post Op-Ed: Mapping the Missing Housing Opportunities in Seattle Growth Plan first appeared on The Urbanist.

With Sound Transit planning on continuing the extension westward toward Tacoma Community College on 19th Avenue, it might be a good idea to consider what was and what could be in a renewed vision of public transit in Tacoma. While perhaps there is little to be done yearning for the past, there is certainly something to consider: Greater Tacoma used to have an enormously expansive streetcar network.

As Rubén Casas explored for The Urbanist, the Tacoma Railway went under due to the expansion and use of cars in the 1930s. With the rise of the automobile, the use of the streetcar as a mode of transportation dwindled in popularity. The first streetcar lines were constructed in 1888, and by 1890 expanded from downtown Tacoma to Steilacoom. The last streetcar ran until April of 1938, and in 1939 Tacoma Railway & Power Company fully transitioned from streetcars to buses as the mode of mass transit. 

The expansive nature of the Tacoma Railway’s system was the reach that was afforded to all. Someone from Spanaway could hop onto a streetcar and take it up to the Pagoda in Point Defiance for a day outing at Owen Beach. The convenience of streetcars to Point Defiance Park allowed people without automobiles the same luxury of enjoying a scenic route to the park, without the trouble of traffic. But as the use of cars increased, so too did congestion.

However, this map of the past serves as not only a reminder of what was, but to learn and refine the system. With the planned expansion to Tacoma Community College, there is a chance that it could extend beyond that, the roads meant for both cars and rails. What in the pre-car-dominated era used to be a densely interlocked network is now just a single line, albeit not the straightest one as it switchbacks up the hill and doglegs over to Stadium District. We could rebuild the dense frequent transit network that Tacoma was built on.

The students of University of Washington, Tacoma, are constantly reminded of this past. Rails cut through the campus, grass springing up around their steel lines. What was the specter of the Pacific Avenue streetcars has now been replaced by the T Lines, taking them to the Tacoma Dome Station or up to Hilltop. 

The expanse of the old Tacoma Railway is something to aspire to. Bringing that affordable connectivity and mass transit to the subregion would foster new economic growth through commuters and negate some of the traffic stalls on I-5 or avenues. Creating not only ease against the backdrop of an overreliance on cars to get around Tacoma, but it also creates new means of jobs, community investment, and security. Sound Transit expansion of the T Line ought to be applauded and encouraged! But let’s not take another 20 years for the next extension.

The post Op-Ed: Reclaiming Tacoma’s Extensive Historic Streetcar Network first appeared on The Urbanist.

The post Sunday Video: Why Don’t Cities Use Hexagon Blocks? first appeared on 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 capacity transit plan since 2014, leaving uncertainty about which light rail expansions might come next after the Sound Transit 3 (ST3) package (which was approved by voters in 2016) is completed. That uncertainty has clouded decisions about how to build the ST3 network to be compatible with future expansions, which is one of the arguments advocacy group Seattle Subway used to lobby Seattle to update its long-range transit plan.

Seattle Subway also pushed the conversation forward with its own vision maps that suggest different light rail lines that could be added to create a comprehensive network serving nearly every “urban village” neighborhood in Seattle — plus most of the growth centers throughout the tri-county region. Many of those Seattle dream rail lines are on full display in what could become the City’s official long-term vision if the Seattle Transportation Plan is approved.

With the update to the City’s long-range transit plan, the Seattle Department of Transportation has taken a leap forward, envisioning more light rail extensions and new lines on top of the Ballard Link and West Seattle Link lines and the in-fill stations already coming with ST3.

Check out Ryan Packer’s primer for a broader look at what’s in the Seattle Transportation Plan, from pedestrianization to bike upgrades and beyond.

The long-range rapid transit vision would establish new crosstown service and fill extend the new lines in the ST3 network farther out from the core of Seattle. Many of these ideas come from Seattle Subway maps and from rail proposals of long ago, with some similarities to the Bogue Plan from the early 1900s and considerable overlap with the Forward Thrust proposals from the 1960s. Neither of those plans came to fruition at the time, but Sound Transit 3 is finally realizing the dream of a network of high capacity rail lines.

The long-range plan would take that a step further. Here are the lines envisioned in SDOT’s new map.

• West Seattle to Burien would extend West Seattle Link south through Burien and onto Tukwila International Boulevard Station, just one stop before SeaTac Airport on today’s 1 Line. Seattle Subway’s Red Line does the same and continues to Renton.
• Ballard to Lake City would extend Ballard Link north to Greenwood and hook east to junction with Aurora and then Northgate Station before continuing to Lake City. This is Seattle Subway’s Green Line.
• The Aurora Line extends north from South Lake Union Station (coming with the Ballard Link extension) and picks up neighborhoods like Fremont, Wallingford, Licton Springs, and Bitter Lake along the way. This is Seattle Subway’s Pink Line, a focal point of the group’s 2019 map.
• Ballard to U District Line would stretch from the Ballard Locks to the vicinity of Children’s Hospital in Laurelhurst, providing high quality crosstown service, a rarity in Seattle. This was a proposal for ST3 that was left on the cutting room floor in favor of the line from Ballard to Downtown. It is Seattle Subway’s Purple Line.
• West Seattle to Columbia City is included in the vision map and labeled as a possible future connection between West Seattle and Southeast Seattle. This crosstown line goes beyond anything proposed in the latest Seattle Subway maps. The challenge with the route is the dearth of residential density between West Seattle and Columbia City, but, with the potential to connect Georgetown and Beacon Hill along the way and provide an emission-free transportation option in a polluted area, it’s an intriguing idea.
• Denny and Central Area Line would stretch from the Seattle Waterfront through Belltown before connecting with Ballard Link’s Denny Station and continuing east to Capitol Hill and the Central District in the Denny Way corridor. It intersects with another rail corridor envisioned (roughly speaking) along Route 48 on 23rd Avenue E. This is Seattle Subway’s Gold Line. It’s not clear if the SDOT’s vision is for the line to turn south toward Mount Baker or for the Mount Baker to Montlake corridor to be a separate line, potentially using existing tracks in the Rainier Valley to connect the Central District with the whole Rainier Valley. Plenty of time to figure that out!
• Airport Bypass Line would extend from SoDo to Tukwila International Boulevard Station via the direct route in the SR 99 corridor. This is a largely industrial area without much residential density but it would decrease times to the airport and beyond significantly.
• Infill Sounder rail stations are indicated as options near Expedia’s campus on the waterfront, in Interbay, and near the Ballard Locks. Stephen Fesler proposed just such an idea in a 2018 Urbanist op-ed. This would upgrade Sounder North commuter rail service between Seattle and Everett. Infill stations are also envisioned in Georgetown and Boeing Access Road.

If completed, this ambitious rapid transit network that would be arguably the finest in the country, perhaps outside of New York City. It would ensure nearly every major population center in the city had access to the rapid transit network.

Seattle Subway today sent a letter to SDOT, co-signed by The Urbanist and Robert Cruickshank (the chair of Sierra Club Seattle), commending them for their work on the long-range rail map and requesting these three changes:

1. Identify West Seattle to Burien as a ST4 project as far as Seattle city limits as noted in the 2014 plan.
2. Add Madison Street as a future light rail corridor. This would tie First Hill into the light rail network and provide for the eventual upgrade of Madison RapidRide G Line to light rail.
3. Extend the Ballard to Children’s line to Sand Point. This would also prepare the line to potentially extend to Kirkland under Lake Washington.

Seattle Subway has created a letter-writing tool through Action Network to aid in sending comment letters to SDOT and City of Seattle leaders.

The Seattle Transportation Plan is SDOT’s section of the Comprehensive Plan update due to be finalized next year. The Comp Plan update will have a huge impact on zoning and the city’s housing growth strategy, as well. These are big decisions that could reverberate for centuries. It’s great to see Seattle grappling with how it can meet the needs of generations well into the future.

The post Map of the Week: Seattle’s New Long-Range Rail Plan Goes Big first appeared on The Urbanist.

I have thought about this topic significantly while visiting my parents in Bellingham, and living with them for a time during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Walking through downtown I could see the marks on the sides of buildings where structures were demolished to make way for parking lots, in contrast to continuing sprawl on the outskirts of town. Paired with concurrent crises of affordability and climate change in the region, I sought to make sense of what was lost when so much space is instead dedicated to parking, and perhaps where the region’s nominally progressive political rhetoric has not fully matched with action on the ground. 

The nomination form for the Downtown Bellingham Historic District notes how extensively the city was modified to accommodate cars. Interstate 5 was built in Bellingham with “numerous interchanges, more per capita than any other Washington city … State Street was particularly affected: as older buildings were torn down or destroyed by fire, they were replaced by parking lots … Downtown’s original walkable shopping district, centered on a three-block stretch of Magnolia, was gradually replaced by supermarkets on the periphery of downtown, or in the growing suburban areas.”

Parking is a fraught issue and frequently devolves into a chicken-egg discussion over whether incentives to reduce driving — faster and more frequent public transportation or the construction of affordable, walkable neighborhoods — should come before or after penalties such as increasing parking fees or reducing the amount of parking available overall.

There are several resources online which describe the issue better than I can, but the crux of the argument follows the same general outline. Parking facilities take up valuable land which otherwise could be used for more productive purposes such as businesses or housing, given that the average car is parked and dormant about 95% of the time. There are often far more parking spaces than cars (or homes for that matter) in any given area, which seems like a curious use of scarce land given the scale of the affordable housing crisis in the region. Dedicating that much space to cars over any other purpose prioritizes making driving convenient over any other mode of transportation, demolishes historic buildings to make way for parking, and results in sprawling, spread out development which destroys farmland and natural spaces. And finally, car dependency and urban sprawl is associated with all sorts of terrible things, like carbon emissions, climate change, traffic deaths and injuries, the replacement of farmland with tract homes, and all sorts of hidden costs, some of which will be discussed later in this article. 

One could see much of this push-pull informally play out in online discussions over the introduction of paid parking to Fairhaven, the neighborhood surrounding Bellingham’s ferry terminal. But what does the specifics of the parking debate look like in Bellingham? Some map analysis can help us find out.

For simplicity’s sake, I limited my focus on the downtown area, more specifically the Downtown Urban Village District as defined by the municipal government in its adopted plan from 2014. Using Google Earth’s 3D Polygon tool, I traced out the area of downtown, as well as the area of parking lots within downtown. I excluded parking stalls used for holding uses essential for business operations like an auto repair yards and the downtown farmer’s market lot. (Note: While Bellingham does have a downtown parking inventory, it has not been updated since 2010.)

In all, the area of the downtown ‘urban village’ was calculated at 11,795,653 square feet (1,095,852 square meters), with an estimated 2,194,858 square feet (203,909 square meters) of buildable space dedicated to parking alone – equivalent to 18.61% of the entire downtown area, and almost certainly an undercount, as this figure excludes all on-street parking as well. Almost one-fifth of Bellingham’s downtown is dedicated to off-street parking.

With figures such as these, one begins to wonder what this space could be used for instead – what is missing from Bellingham due to this cornucopia of parking. 

South of downtown, there is a project underway called Samish Commons, which once fully complete, seeks to redevelop a former motel site into 172 units of affordable, senior, accessible, and transitional housing, office space, as well as resident amenities such as green space. By superimposing copies of Samish Commons as infill onto downtown parking lots, the scale of alternative uses for parking downtown – mostly for housing and commerce – can be roughly estimated. 

Occupying a footprint of about 43,755 square feet, the 2,194,858 square feet of surface parking in downtown Bellingham – still completely excluding on-street parking – is equivalent to 25.56 Samish Commons, or:

• 127,800 square feet (11,873 square meters) of resident amenities, such as courtyards, meeting rooms, etc.
• 4,396 units of housing, more than double the current number of units downtown (~2,000)

These figures underscore the true cost of parking, beyond fares, permits and fines. First, there the money put towards the construction and maintenance of parking facilities, which can range from “$20,000 for those on surface lots and can cost upward of $60,000 for underground garages” – costs which are often passed on in forms like higher rents. There is then the costs to society imposed by cars, including their immense expense to American families, greenhouse gas emissions (more from transportation than any other source in Washington state), and growing traumatic deaths and injury from traffic. And finally, demonstrated here, is the opportunity cost of parking: what could have been done with that land or those funds instead of storing cars. 

The funds used to build and maintain parking instead could have been allocated to support public transit or community services. Instead of parking lots, the land could have been home to shops and apartments, which would provide places for people to live and generate property tax revenues far in excess of what parking fees could bring in. 

To its credit, the City has recognized the importance of compact infill development rather than sprawl in natural areas or farmland, and has created a toolkit for developing upon vacant and underused land, such as surface parking. Indeed, a large part of the reason I created my own parking estimate, rather than using the 2010 parking inventory, was to account for the many developments which have been constructed atop of former parking lots. 

Bellingham’s Infill Housing Toolkit is a section of municipal code which intends to apply a series of standards in the design and construction of infill housing, both to facilitate approval of designs and to promote compact, walkable development within already built-up areas. Containing preferred specifications for housing forms such as triplexes, townhomes, and courtyard houses, these forms are often referred to as the “missing middle” — more compact than detached houses, more spread out than a high-rise, preferred by many, yet often in short supply in many American cities. 

Other places around the country have created similar guides, such as the Pre-Approved Plan Catalog in South Bend, Indiana, which contains sample floor plans, pre-approved by the city and ready to build, ranging from an accessory development unit to a six-unit apartment building. These kinds of tools can be helpful in speeding up the pace of development, especially in an environment where attempts to legalize the construction of something even as simple as a duplex can take years. Unfortunately, both the Toolkit in Bellingham and the Catalog in South Bend lack infill assistance for commercial or light industrial space, which would be pertinent for a heavily commercial area such as a downtown. For example, they both miss the most classic form of missing middle development — a building with working space on the first floor and apartments on top, like the Belcher family’s residence in Bob’s Burgers. 

Nevertheless, the many asphalt pockmarks which still mark much of downtown, where buildings once stood, suggests that measures such as the Infill Toolkit have had a limited impact so far, and that more should be done, with an immediacy that recognizes the scale of the climate and affordability crises in the region. It is curious that the core of Bellingham, where most civic services are located and walking and public transit is most convenient, remains more sparse today than in the 1920s or 30s, when Bellingham’s population was about a third of its current population of just over 90,000. 

Reducing the number of trips taken by car and increasing the amount of housing available in Bellingham are both imperative if the City is to be serious about achieving both its climate action and affordable housing goals. Replacing parking spaces with housing would work towards fulfilling both goals simultaneously.

It is written on the walls that many of these buildings used to have neighbors. Outlines here and paint there, once shielded from the elements, but now exposed after a demolition to make way for parking lots. This was a significant change to Bellingham, as was the case for most American cities. Another significant change must take place again, in one sense a return to the past, but also as an important step towards addressing the issues of the future, so that people will have more space to once again live in downtown Bellingham, and that the ghosts of buildings past be resurrected.

The post The High Cost of Parking in Downtown Bellingham  first appeared on The Urbanist.

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 SeaTac to U District, I repeated the names of the light rail stops in my head. The light rail created my first impression of Seattle as a new resident, and over the next few weeks, it continued to be my primary connection to the rest of the city.

As the weeks passed, the green map also became a mental map of the inequality and diversity within Seattle — the neighborhoods with the fanciest restaurants, with the highest concentration of tech workers, with primarily working class families, with the most immigrants.

My work focuses on the intersection of data and storytelling. So I began to mull over a question: What if we reimagined the light rail map to capture those changes in inequality and diversity along the route? 

The richest and poorest neighborhoods

The map below shows the median household income of every neighborhood around the light rail station, using zipcode data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Each zipcode represents an area with a radius between one to five miles.

There is a wide spread of income across the 1 Line’s adjacent neighborhoods. Roosevelt’s surrounding areas have the highest median household income at $128,000, followed by Capitol Hill. 

The area around Pioneer Square and International District/Chinatown have the lowest at just over $60,000. While poverty might be most visible in these areas, with encampments concentrated around downtown neighborhoods and SODO, households in neighborhoods on the southern outskirts of Seattle (Tukwila, Angle Lake) also face lower wages. 

Where do people own homes?

Adding another dimension — home ownership — tells a more complete story of the living situations throughout Seattle.

In Roosevelt, the richest neighborhood around a light rail station, homeownership is also highest (61% of households). The homeownership rate drops over the next seven light rail stops to the south, bottoming out at 10% in Pioneer Square and the International District/Chinatown. Capitol Hill and Westlake have more than three times the number of renters than owners despite higher incomes — reflective of a younger population and higher ownership costs.

Further south, more households own their homes despite lower overall incomes, reflecting a relatively more accessible housing market. Fewer apartments have been added in the walksheds of Rainier Valley light rail stations compared to stations in the downtown core and Capitol Hill.

What about race?

62% of Seattle residents identify as White and non-Hispanic. Neighborhoods across Seattle attract different demographics of residents, and race is no exception. A southbound ride on the 1 Line is also usually a ride from a Whiter neighborhood to a more racially diverse neighborhood.

While home ownership and income fluctuate up and down along the route, race shows a relatively consistent pattern: the percentage of White non-Hispanic households decreases from around 60-70% at the northern end of the light rail to 30-40% at the south end. Today’s racial sorting is largely a holdover from redlining and racist lending practices that kept households of color out of North Seattle neighborhoods, as well as a mix of individual preferences and housing discrimination.

It doesn’t take a local to realize that tons of Seattleites live too far west or east of the 1 Line to easily access it (a separate issue), so the light rail corridor renders an imperfect representation of Seattle. But it was my first representation of the diversity across the city as a car-less new resident, and these maps capture some of the diversity — and also inequality — undergirding the city.

The post Mapping Seattle’s Inequality and Diversity with Light Rail first appeared on The Urbanist.

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 Sound Partnership. The increase raises the total funding to $54 million, an amount that nearly doubles the funding allocation from only three years earlier.

“This is a welcome and long-overdue down payment on Puget Sound and Salish Sea recovery,” Russ Hepfer, Vice Chairman of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and member of the Puget Sound Partnership Leadership Council said in a press release. “Our salmon are in crisis and tribal treaty rights are at risk. We’ve been losing habitat faster than we can restore it and our waters are being contaminated by chemicals and stormwater pollution. We are restoring the Elwha River, but what good is it if our salmon have to swim through contaminated waters to get home? Fixing these issues requires more funding, so it’s gratifying to see an increased level of investment that will help accelerate the recovery actions we know we need.”

Governor Jay Inslee describe the increase as “historic” and said it came a “crucial time for Puget Sound recovery.”

“We need to redouble our efforts to protect and restore habitat for our salmon, orcas, and other wildlife, clean up the water, and cool our rivers and streams. We thank our delegation for their leadership in securing this funding and their support of the region’s work to restore Puget Sound,” Inslee said.

Created in 2007, Puget Sound Partnership is the state agency tasked with “leading the the region’s collective effort” to restore and protect Puget Sound. The majority of the its funding comes from federal Puget Sound National Estuary Program, which designated Puget Sound as an estuary of national significance in 1988.

Advocacy from Washington State lawmakers

The Puget Sound Recovery Caucus, led by Representative Derek Kilmer (D – 6th District) and Representative Marilyn Strickland (D – 10th District), championed legislation to increase federal funding for conservations efforts in Puget Sound. These lawmakers also were critical in the passage of key provisions the Puget Sound SOS Act, which Rep. Kilmer first introduced with then Representative Denny Heck in 2015.

The Puget Sound SOS Act, which affirms Puget Sound’s recovery as a national priority, was integrated into the National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden on December 23rd.

All of this is good news for ecologically rich Puget Sound, yet given the complex and varied threats it faces, 2023’s record funding amount still falls short of what experts have determined would be needed to finance all needed recovery efforts. To illustrate, in 2014-2016 the agency estimated that the full cost of implementing its Action Agenda would have been $875 million.

It is also clear that years of neglect have taken a toll. In 2021, the Puget Sound Partnership published State of the Sound, a report summarizing how well recovery efforts are advancing. The report concluded that “ecosystem conditions are not good enough to say the system is either resilient or recovered.” Additionally, it determined that the ecosystem indicators with the least progress, such as population growth among salmon and orca, have shown an “alarming lack of improvement.”

Unplanned population growth poses a major threat to Puget Sound

Smart growth is the first strategy for ecosystem protection and recovery outlined in the Puget Sound Action Agenda. It aims to:

Ensure smart development and protect intact habitats and processes by channeling population growth into attractive, transit-oriented urban growth areas (UGAs) with easy access to natural spaces. 

Puget Sound Action Agenda 2022-2026

The map below taken from the Action Agenda illustrates where urban growth areas (UGAs) exist in the Puget Sound Region. According to report, engaging in smart growth will require the Puget Sound recovery community to work alongside a wide range of stakeholders, including state and local decision-makers, affordable housing agencies, transportation authorities, investors and developers, and vulnerable communities, to name a few.

The state’s Growth Management Act (GMA) is a vital tool for advancing smart growth in the Puget Sound region, but in its current form the GMA is unable to achieve its stated goals, the Action Agenda argues.

To prevent conversion of ecologically important lands, we must improve implementation of, and make modifications to, the Growth Management Act (GMA) to foster the protection of these natural areas and working lands.

These protections should be incorporated into regional infrastructure planning and supported by creating incentives for new market demands for growth in city centers. 

Puget Sound Action Agenda 2022-2026

As reported by The Urbanist, Gov. Inslee has made increasing housing a key priority in his 2023 legislative agenda and sees insufficient zoning capacity in urban areas as a major hurdle to overcome.

“Unfortunately we have some restrictions on land use in our state that makes it impossible to actually build housing in many of our urban areas. So we will be asking the legislature to free up some additional land to allow multifamily housing particularly close to transit corridors,” Inslee said.

While housing growth efforts, such as a statewide push to legalize missing middle housing like townhouses and backyard cottages, fell flat last legislative season, many state Democratic officials are expected to continue to advocate for similar policies to increase housing in urban areas in 2023, as shown by the State Legislative Preview shared with The Urbanist by partner organization Futurewise.

Although recent conversations around housing have centered on Washington State’s housing affordability crisis, environmental concerns are also part of the equation. Lack of housing is known to create longer commutes, as people struggle to find affordable homes near their workplaces. Sprawling developments get built farther and farther outside of urban centers where land prices are cheaper, forcing an expansion of road and parking surfaces to serve those car-dependent communities. All of this creates more tire particle runoff, which is toxic to salmon, in Puget Sound streams.

While legislation aimed at closing the illegal sprawl loophole in the GMA was passed last legislative session, without the ability to build more housing in urban growth areas, development pressure on agricultural and wild lands will continue to be immense. The Puget Sound Action Plan estimates that if growth levels continue at similar rates, 1.7 million additional residents will live in the Puget Sound region by 2050, the equivalent of an additional two and a half Seattles.

But it’s also important to remember that even without population growth, current pollution trends already negatively impact the health of Puget Sound. Sprawl-based population growth only magnifies the detrimental impacts of human activity.

It took Washington lawmakers years to make the health of Puget Sound a national priority and bring in the most robust funding yet for its recovery. Now The Urbanist and housing advocates will be watching to see if lawmakers can make progress on solving the state’s housing crisis in a much shorter timeline.

The post Congress Approves Record $54 Million for Puget Sound Recovery first appeared on The Urbanist.