Chris Karnes

Chris Karnes is a Senior Software Engineer at Sound Transit. He serves on the Tacoma Planning Commission. Driven by a desire to know how the world works. Physics, mathematics, and R-Stats.

📍 Tacoma, WA

programming

Mapping Transit (In)Equity in the Puget Sound

...the quality of transit service is dependent upon on sales tax revenue, which is reflective of an area's economy, tax rates, and past decisions of lawmakers who have chosen one form of urban development over another, [making] transit service prone to geographic disparity.

transit

Addressing transit inequity in Tacoma

The most frequent bus route in Tacoma on weekdays, Route 1 - 6th Ave - Pacific Ave, will operate once every half hour on weekdays, due to a lack of bus operators. Here I present a concept plan to address the issue.

climate

Climate and Planning

The debate on the existence of human-driven climate change is over. For the last two centuries humans have been burning solid, liquid, and gaseous fossil fuels in increasing amounts, which has been gradually changing the composition of the atmosphere and our oceans.

housing

The Generational Disconnect in Housing

Based on written and oral testimony about the Home in Tacoma project, I conclude that there is an overall generational disconnect between people who bought a home in the housing market 25 or 30 years ago and those who are trying to find a place to live today in the

housing

on transit and housing

For Tacoma to continue to be a welcoming city to people who make less than the regional median income, we must plan to build more housing in such a way that people will be able to afford it, regardless of their income level or family size.

trees

trees versus views

Does a tree growing nearby "damage" a home's value by obstructing a view? Would regulating that "damage" constitute a well-defined public purpose?

programming

one man data band

In my nearly 15 years of working with data I have had one tool that has been there to support me like no other - the R programming language along with the RStudio IDE.