Ryan Packer @typewriteralley Twitter profile

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Ryan Packer

1 year

Just want to take a moment to note that I'm able to check in on city council meetings happening in every corner of the region every single week thanks to my Patreon supporters. They are the best, and you can become one.

Get more from Ryan Packer on Patreon

creating transportation and housing advocacy journalism

www.patreon.com

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Last Seen Profiles

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

11 months

It actually happened.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

3 years

E-bikes flatten the city, rapid transit shrinks the city, and pedestrian space shows you the city you had all along.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

Just sitting quietly for a minute after learning an Amtrak trip between Seattle and Denver takes...56 hours.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

This is what peak multifamily building performance looks like.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

A day in the life of an urban pedestrian.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

8 months

How it started How it's going

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

4 years

Wow, this is a powerful image.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

3 months

We need to turn the state highways that run through our cities and towns back into regular streets.

WestCoast SafetyVid

@WestCoastSafety

3 months

@SeattlePD Speed may have been a factor

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

EXCLUSIVE: Seattle has adopted a new policy that makes a prohibition on right turns on red the default whenever traffic signals are added or modified anywhere in the city.

No Right Turn on Red Is Now the Default in Seattle - The Urbanist

Not allowing drivers to make a free right turn at a red light, or a left turn from a one-way street, will be the default setting for any new or modified traffic signal, according to a memo signed by...

www.theurbanist.org

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

4 years

A hotel spelling out the name of our police chief using *empty rooms* while the police department ramps up its violence on people sleeping outside when they have no alternative is too much for me.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

It's not a mystery which vehicle in this photo has been prioritized over the other in the rebuilding of the Seattle waterfront.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

If Pike Street can be closed to everyone but pedestrians for a few months...it can be closed to everyone but pedestrians for a decade.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

3 years

Buses are 0.86% of the traffic on this highway but they move 20% of the people using this highway.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

5 months

They should build a major city here.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

Don't forget, every intersection is a legal crosswalk.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

11 months

Some news here: sources at the city confirm that the Mayor will be announcing a continued closure of Pike Street between First and Second Ave to pilot how the street functions without through traffic allowed on the block.

Qagggy!

@Qagggy

11 months

SDOT: "Closing this road to cars is simply not a viable option." SDOT: [closes road to cars]

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

What if we just tried banning cars, a little bit.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

People really act like aiming a 5,500 pound vehicle at a soft body in a crosswalk isn't aggressive but getting angry about it is.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

5 months

Some personal news: I'm so incredibly excited to announce that I have been hired as the first full-time reporter that @UrbanistOrg has ever had. Ready to hit 2024 at full speed.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

I love this little inexpensive treatment to improve turning angles on this street in downtown Portland.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

Stopped by this brand new "raised" crosswalk and recreated slip lane in the middle of Georgetown.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 month

I love watching buses on Montlake Blvd NE take a left turn from the curb lane using the special bus-only signal.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

10 months

Ok, who did this.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

Portland bioswale appreciation post.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

Definitely seems like a central piece of Seattle's snow response is the assumption that snow and ice will melt in a couple of days.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

A Friday in our Vision Zero city. 7:03am: person walking hit by driver on Capitol Hill 8:24am: person biking hit by driver near Expedia 3:25pm: person biking hit by driver on Capitol Hill 3:39pm: person walking hit by driver in SLU [continued]

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

I'm incredibly excited to announce that I've joined the team at @PubliColaNews to cover land use and transportation issues at the state legislature this session!

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

8 months

Not being able to keep a Target open in the U District may be a skill issue.

Joe Weisenthal

@TheStalwart

8 months

Target says it's closing these 9 stores due to theft/crime

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

Happy Saturday from the Burke Gilman.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

3 months

POV: you're biking down Seattle's Dearborn Street, now with new Toronto-style bike lane barriers.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

Never forget what they took from us—a floating public waterfront swimming pool.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

4 years

Seattle, we need to talk about how much gaslighting the mayor and police chief did today.

The Stranger 🗞

@TheStranger

4 years

After three people were shot this weekend near the boundaries of the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP), Mayor Jenny Durkan announced that changes were coming. Without exactly saying it, Durkan called for the end of #CHOP . | via @gramsofgnats

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

Someone has tagged a concrete wall, near what was originally planned as a neighborhood playground as part of the Seattle waterfront project: "Just another highway."

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

11 months

This crush-loaded 8 bus is *twenty eight* minutes late already and isn't even across I-5. These riders, doing the right thing and taking transit, need HELP.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

A Friday in a city undergoing a 90 day Vision Zero review. 5:29am: person walking hit by driver on the waterfront 6:01am: person biking hit by driver in West Seattle 8:40am: person biking hit by driver in Queen Anne 1:04pm: person walking hit by driver in Northgate [continued...]

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

3 years

Sometimes I wish Google maps would just tell you, fuck no don't ride your bike there.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

If your speed study shows that 40% of drivers on a street are exceeding the speed limit, I don't understand how a transportation department that is truly embracing Vision Zero can sign off on a repaving that changes nothing about the street's configuration.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 months

Spokane is a wonderful town and there should absolutely be a train that gets you here from Seattle more quickly than a full workday and not in the middle of the night.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

8 months

In July 2015, the city told the Seattle bicycle advisory board that the width would be twelve feet, and the board questioned whether that would even be wide enough for a facility that is intended to see as much use as it is.

Qagggy!

@Qagggy

8 months

Ok I measured and Seattle’s brand new two-way waterfront bike lane is 108 inches wide. That’s 9 feet—well below the 12-foot NACTO standard.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

4 years

Is the fact that the Seattle mayor created an extralegal zone in a dense neighborhood that's at best constitutionality uncertain making national headlines yet?

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

Just watched the city council vote 6-3 against providing $500,000 to the Northwest African American Museum for renovations that would allow the museum to reopen, from the fund for SPD advertising, which would still have $1 million per year in it.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

6 months

Pike Street is now one-way all the way from downtown up to Bellevue Avenue in Capitol Hill, permanently.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

11 months

The number of people from way outside the city who are excited that Seattle just closed a half block of street outside Pike Place Market to through traffic really illustrates the way we could be a national leader on transportation and push the conversation much more frequently.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

"Quieter areas" is literally saying the quiet part out loud. The status quo has been an assumption that multifamily housing belongs on noisy and dangerous streets for decades.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

8 months

Until now I'd never seen a photo of the full block of Occidental Avenue between Main and Jackson predating the creation of the pedestrian mall. Just, wow.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

How it started How it's going

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

Checking in on the signal timing on our new waterfront. Sunday morning with extremely light vehicle traffic at Union Street: we're making pedestrians wait 90 seconds to get a WALK and then giving them 16 seconds to start crossing. Not hard to see who still has real priority.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

3 months

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

Good afternoon from the brand new 1st Avenue protected bike lane.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

6 months

1975 was when we decided to not widen this bridge to be able to accommodate more car traffic but instead make it bike and pedestrian only. Would we make the same decision today?

Gordon Padelford

@GordonOfSeattle

6 months

We visited arguably Seattle’s most beautiful pedestrian bridge today

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

Wow, the 2.25 mile outer loop in Tacoma's Point Defiance Park will become permanently car-free as of this Friday due to slope instability.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

Despite covering the bill all year, I did not realize until a briefing from Metro today that Seattle's trolleybus stops are defined as "major transit stops" under HB 1110, because they're defined as fixed guideway. That means sixplexes allowed within a 1/4 mile of stops.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

Pioneer Square has a new alley bike shop, coffee shop and bodega all in the same space.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

Downtown Seattle is so dead that the new PCC is completely wiped out of pre-made sandwhiches by 1pm. Ghost. Town.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

18 days

You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

State highways in urban areas without sidewalks are an emergency situation.

Seattle Traffic Camera Responses

@SeaTrafficCams2

1 year

Who’s gonna tell him that’s not a lane? #Seattle @SafetyVid

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

At least four people biking for transportation in Seattle hit by drivers, with three of them ending up in the hospital. Just today.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

2nd Ave is just a constant stream of Seahawks fans heading north on scooters and bikes right now.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

7 months

West Seattle is not a real place

West Seattle Blog

@westseattleblog

7 months

'No pickleball in @seattleparks Lincoln Park protest. 30+ people here so far

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

Newly arrived Seattle resident in 2040: "Why is the train to Ballard a full ten minute walk from the train from Portland again?" Me, whizzed, older than Galdalf: "Dow Constantine, now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time..."

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

My politics is the opposite of whatever this is.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

8 months

@Belbrion Are we looking at the same images

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

THIS IS NOT A DRILL: we have a right turn on red bill.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 months

Trying to visualize the ideal user experience here on this new narrow waterfront boardwalk.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 months

It seems like we should be able to come together around the idea that cars that get used on public roads shouldn't be able to go 112 mph.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

11 months

It's 11pm on a Sunday, the platform at SeaTac's link station is packed because flights just came in, and there are literally only two more trains that are going all the way to Northgate tonight. Embarrassing.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 month

Seven years ago today Seattle shut down its bikeshare system rather than try to expand and improve it.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

6 months

People biking between downtown and Capitol Hill will be routed around this pole for the next few decades.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

Very happy to announce that I've been selected as part of the cohort of writers in the Seattle Public Library 2023 writer's residency program, hosted in the Eulalie and Carlo Scandiuzzi Writers' Room at the central library.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

Portland: I've paid $5 for two bus/rail trips today and can now ride for free until the end of service. Seattle: It's 6:30pm, I've paid $8 so far and my transfer is now expired again.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

7 months

Just watched this harbor seal make it through the entire fish ladder at Whatcom Creek in Bellingham. Two other seals were waiting at the mouth of the creek.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

3 years

Does this *brand new* seven lane road look like it's designed for a twenty five mile per hour speed limit?

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

4 years

I think I'm still a little in disbelief.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

11 months

Summer of 2020 versus summer of 2023. Quite the downgrade, if you ask me.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

3 months

Still thinking about how the *environmental review process* for a new light rail line will lead to a new slip lane being added on one of the state's most dangerous roads (already 8 lanes)...a full half-mile away from the light rail station.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

4 years

I'm gonna tell my kids this is where they made the spaghetti.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

Wild how the NTSB will literally go to the bottom of the ocean to retrieve a downed plane for a safety investigation but it won't lift a finger to analyze why the design Lake City Way or SR 99 keeps killing people.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

Seattle needs a second regional airport like it needs a nine lane waterfront highway.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

9 months

This climate governor is about to build a seven story high, ten lane I-5 right on the Vancouver, Washington waterfront.

Jim Brunner

@Jim_Brunner

9 months

Gov. Inslee speaking now on urgency of climate agenda. Cites flooding and Maui fires. “This is not your grandmother’s climate change. This is a new beast.”

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

3 years

Realizing how often I dehydrate myself on purpose if I want to go exploring the city because we don't have any public restrooms.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

Post your favorite 100% city approved crosswalks, this one is at Cherry and 16th in front of a hospital.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

All of the ways that you can't exit Capitol Hill Station today.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

5 months

A 0.25 mile protected bike lane on W Marginal Way was subject to years of pushback over its potential impacts to freight traffic on a "major truck street". The impact? Less than one whole second of travel time delay, and bike traffic more than doubled.

Completed Duwamish Trail Connection Led to Doubling of Walking and Biking - The Urbanist

The installation of a protected bike lane on West Marginal Way SW, finally connecting the last gap between the Duwamish Trail and the West Seattle Bridge Trail, helped boost usage along the corridor...

www.theurbanist.org

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

What a failure this "raised crosswalk" at Pike and Melrose is. There's not really another word for it.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

4 years

Seattle, how are we going to reduce passenger vehicle emissions by 82% compared to 2008 levels if we can't connect one fucking bike lane with another one four blocks away?

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

3 years

Helped someone find Pike Place Market when they were already in Pike Place Market, nature is healing.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

Seattle, I don't know how to tell you this, but we have too many cars in this city.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

9 months

We built another Mercer Street, intentionally.

Northwest Urbanist

@NWUrbanist

9 months

Ladies and gentlemen, our world class waterfront.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

With the decline in local journalism, it's not surprising that electeds on small city councils aren't expecting a reporter to show up to cover their comp plan process. Which is exactly why I've started doing it.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

7 months

Celebrating 17 years in this big beautiful infuriating city today.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

4 years

Wait until you hear about fare enforcement

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

A transit center with a restroom. That's how I know I'm not in Seattle anymore.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

3 years

Mailbox protected bike lanes are basically my exact jam.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

Just when I thought Seattle couldn't come up with any new designs for hostile public seating, I'm proved wrong yet again. Who says we're not a city of innovation.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

2 years

We are being told that in 2045 this trip will take 63 minutes during peak morning hours unless we spend several billion dollars, in which case it will take 57 minutes.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

11 months

I wasn't going to post this, because I really want the "Brodway" sign to stick around.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

I actually agree with the mayor that Seattle needs "Space Needle thinking", greater ambition to do big things. But I also think that a city that's cancelling a new community center because it'll cost $120 million dollars is a long way from Space Needle thinking.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

7 months

A train from Seattle to Spokane that doesn't get in after midnight and doesn't come back at 3:30 in the morning seems like a good idea.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

4 years

Lakeview Cemetery's United Confederate Veterans memorial received a visit recently despite the cemetery being closed for several weeks.

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Ryan Packer

@typewriteralley

1 year

Seattle is days away from opening a brand new four-lane road between the waterfront and Belltown, a mini version of the Alaskan Way viaduct that will direct truck traffic through the city's densest residential neighborhood. How did we get here?

Seattle Prepares to Open Brand New Elliott Way Highway Connector - The Urbanist

This coming Monday morning at 6 a.m., the City of Seattle will open a brand new four-lane roadway, connecting the city's central waterfront with high-traffic streets north of Pike Place Market in...

www.theurbanist.org

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