Cascadia Report

Category: Business

  • B.C. support for cross-border rail service

    Finally, a sign of growing support in British Columbia for better regional transportation.

    Apparently the recent speed record by France’s TGV convinced the Vancouver Province to editorialize today in favor of better passenger rail service between Vancouver and Seattle.

    Though Amtrak has already announced extra service, it will take political will for B.C. to provide the funds for track improvements north of the international border that are required for a significantly faster trains. Today’s editorial isn’t quite a full-throated endorsement (it ends with a tentative “All aboard?”) but it’s a start.

  • Why some people miss the old Alaska Airlines

    Alaska Airlines is rapidly changing from a whimsical local airline into a big business that has to compete on dreary criteria like on-time arrival. The transition parallels Cascadia’s changes amid globalization.

    eskimo on Alaska Airlines; by dearmitt.comOne sign of the shift for the Seattle-based airline is the replacement of older planes.

    Friday’s Wall Street Journal ($) has a wistful story of the “Arctic Eagles” who piloted old 737-200 jets into Alaska’s small towns, supplying a lifeline of everything from groceries and medical supplies to tourists. Now they have to get used to new, more automated planes and deal with routine demands of flying in the Lower 48.

    Although new route assignments will take the Anchorage-based pilots to sunny destinations like Cancún, Mexico, and Palm Springs, Calif., the pilots say they’ll miss the old challenges and the camaraderie with crew members and local passengers.

    I remember riding one of the old planes into Kodiak and noticing then that the feel of the cabin and the on-board atmosphere was different from the Seattle-to-Anchorage flight. One captain, who co-piloted a landing in Juneau that took 10 approaches, told the WSJ that flying planes that get “food on the table in Nome” will always be more rewarding than “getting a bunch of irate people to Newark.”

  • Seattle port losing share to rivals

    The Port of Seattle continues to lose market share to other West Coast ports, thanks to inefficiency on the docks and transportation hurdles.

    Seattle faces increased competition from ports in California and especially expansion projects in British Columbia. Marshalling an effective response is squarely on the plate of the port’s new CEO.

  • Better terminal luring flights to Vancouver

    Vancouver is adding a nonstop flight to New Zealand partly because the expanded international terminal at YVR makes the city more attractive to carriers, according to today’s Wall Street Journal ($).

    air new zealand landing in vancouver; virtualtourist.comThe flight used to stop in Los Angeles but that airport is losing international flights because of its old, crowded international terminal. A similar story could be told about the rivalry between SEA and YVR.

    The issue is about more than a handful of flights, as the WSJ puts it:

    The stakes are high for cities. International passengers spend about twice as much as domestic travelers, and international airline service is one important competitive benchmark for cities competing for corporate relocations

    Vancouver, which recently expanded its international terminal, is already wooing travelers from the Seattle area. Since significant improvements at Sea-Tac are years away, it has to rely on cutting fees to lure airlines, which is how it won a nonstop flight to Paris.

  • New B.C. outposts to court more Asia trade

    British Columbia is about to reopen trade offices in Japan and China, a move that could heighten competition for trade with Asia, according to the Vancouver Sun.

    While B.C. currently has zero trade and investment offices in Asia, Alberta has five, Washington State has five, and Queensland, Australia has nine.

    These bare numbers are one thing. Beyond them, the competition to stand out in Asia from this part of the world looks even stiffer next to Alberta’s sexy oil and gas industry and Washington State’s heavyweight Boeing, Weyerhaeuser and Microsoft companies, which have engaged China since the 1970s and 1980s.

    By all accounts, it is high time for B.C. to get beyond the wood demonstration project it cost-shares with the forest industry in Shanghai and its Tourism B.C. office in Tokyo, which has been there since 1992.

    The new offices represent the latest in a string of moves intended to make B.C. the trade gateway to North America, reaching as far as India.

  • Seattle, Vancouver could co-host World Cup

    Seattle and Vancouver may jointly host a major sports event like a World Cup, at least if the cities’ tourism boards can help it.

    The idea of capitalizing on the 2010 Olympics with a major regional event has been around a while. Now the tourism groups are looking at creating an entirely new marqee soccer, cycling or soccer event.

    Of course the groups need to build local support in order to shoulder the financial and political cost of an event. Improving transportation links are essential. One interesting idea: adding seaplane service between downtown Seattle and downtown Vancouver.

  • Last U.S. newspaper reporter leaving Canada

    It may get harder to find media coverage of Canada beginning this summer, when the last U.S. newspaper correspondent leaves the country.

    Of course wire services, freelancers and contract staff will still cover Canada after the Washington Post closes its Toronto bureau. But it’s debatable how much attention stories will command when not being covered by senior journalists. The effect will be magnified since regional news outfits take cues from East Coast papers.

    Coverage of trade and transportation issues involving Canada is especially critical to Cascadia but usually falls short. For example, the dispute over softwood lumber imports was daily news in Vancouver but usually drew a shrug from editors in Seattle. It often takes a Canadian serial killer to get headlines in the U.S.

    The effort to cut costs led The Wall Street Journal to announce the closure of its Canada bureau in December. That makes Canada the only major economy without coverage by the top financial newspaper.

  • More alternatives to owning a car

    Here’s another option for living in Cascadia without owning a car: more car-sharing companies are opening in the region.

    Zipcar launched its service in Vancouver this week, hoping to ape success it has had in New York and other major cities where car ownership is less than convenient. It’s part of a planned expansion along the West Coast, including Seattle and Portland.

    In Seattle, Flexcar remains the main alternative to — gasp — owning your own car.

  • Plans afoot for major new container port

    Ports in Seattle, Tacoma and Vancouver face increasing competion for the booming business of handling containers from Asia. Now maybe add Coos Bay, Ore. to the list of rivals.

    A proposal would turn the isolated Pacific coast town into a major container port. A Danish shipping company would invest hundreds of millions of dollars to develop the port, which would then need improved rail connections inland.

    There are big port-construction plans all along the West Coast, from a huge project in Prince Rupert to the coast of Mexico. Here’s how a Coos Bay spokesman put it:

    “This is a frog, and we continue to keep kissing this frog in hopes that it’ll be something better than a frog,” says Martin Callery, the Coos Bay port’s director of communications and freight mobility.

  • Missing the cause of high gas prices

    Legislation introduced in Olympia takes aim at Cascadia’s high gas prices but misses a root cause: lack of competition.

    Sen. Joe Zarelli, a Republican from southwest Washington, proposed a study to determine if the single pipeline that serves the area stretching from Vancouver to Eugene is adequate. One potential fixes, of course, is to relax permitting rules or reduce taxes to encourage construction of an additional pipeline.

    It’s no secret that gas costs more in this region than elsewhere in the U.S. and Canada. While supply and demand is part of the equation, close coordination of refining and distribution by oil companies is apparently a bigger factor. There don’t appear to be any attempts to crack that.

    UPDATE:

    The original post above suggested that Sen. Zarelli advocates relaxed rules or reduced taxes to encourage construction of a new pipeline. Catherine Trinh of the Senate Republican Caucus emailed to say that the bill doesn’t specifically mention either.

    The exact language of the bill can be found here.